Kind of a clumsy start to this one. I wasn't sure where it was going or whether i was really getting into it, until about the 60th page when i found that a few intriguing threads of plot were being developed that got me firmly hooked. In the end I really savoured the reading of it.
It's ostensibly about the taming of football and I'm not a football fan, but the time spent around the characters old and new gave them a depth that felt quite fresh to my current state of mind. Drunk Vetinari being a highlight. It also made me think that maybe theres something I could enjoy in the game, but alas I'm not aware of any football being played nowadays.
As well as the football, it's about a new resident of the city, Mr Nutt. He's a rather strange person who seems to have read every book, is too good at everything, including the strategy of football incidentally, and as it transpires (a word favoured by Mr De Worde iirc), also happens to be an Orc. Orc's in the Discworld are monstrous creations of war, and so the civilising of Mr Nutt becomes an appropriate personification of the taming of football.
There's also the invention of fashion, a little Vetinari intrigue, an appropriately unpompous resolution for the long-forgotten Rincewind, and a healthy dose of awkward romance. It may have started a bit clumsily but again I'm left thankful that I lived at a time that I could enjoy these books.
Finished reading - 24/06/26