OK it's a bit premature ... I'm only half-way through Lynne Truss's delightful tale of 'How Sport Took Over My Life'. But ... this is a wonderful book, beautifully crafted to gladden the hardest - or, in the case of Evander Holyfield, the largest* - heart. I'm a Truss fan, having enjoyed (if not fully understood) her pedantic tour de force 'Eats, Shoots and Leaves'.
This for me touches an altogether more famliar nerve.
Having surfed the networks as a TV reviewer for the Times for a number of years Ms Truss was called in to a meeting with her bosses. On the eve of Euro '96 it was felt (correctly as it turned out) that football was about to consign the apathetic eighties well and truly to history and there was therefore an altogether new and exciting wave to ride. Truss, unfamiliar with even the most rudimentary elements of sport, was to provide a woman's eye view (crumbs, all these apostrophe's - bound to get half of them wrong!) on all things sporting.
Get Her Off The Pitch describes in brutally honest, erudite and hilarious fashion her sojourn into the macho world of sports reporting, her initial ignorance, rough treatment at the hands of weather-beaten hacks, subsequent fevered swatting and eventual conversion to a full-on raging fanatic. It's a treasure, a warm companion on a cold morning in Montreal, and I doubt I'll sleep tonight until I've turned the very last page.
A must for sports fans but also for those who just don't get what all the fuss is about.
Highly commended stocking-filler.
![[Image: Get-Her-Off-the-Pitch.jpg]](http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Music/Pix/covers/2009/9/18/1253276308840/Get-Her-Off-the-Pitch.jpg)
* you'll have to read the opening chapter to find out
