Book - Playing The Moldovans at Tennis, Tony Hawks

(Originally featured on the 'BBC Collective' website - 24 January 2007)

Until a week or so ago, I had avoided Tony Hawks' books. The reason for this was because I liked his humour when I saw him on television (a sort of hybrid of schoolboy toilet humour and educated wit) and I was sure that reading any of his books would just disappoint me. There are no books that have made me laugh out loud (well, maybe Frank Skinner...once) and I just couldn't face being let down on the same front by a man whom I found genuinely funny. So it was with not a little trepidation that I finally cracked open 'Playing the Moldovans at Tennis', which had been bought for me over 18 months ago. As with most things in my life, it seemed I had worried about nothing and hence deprived myself of a very good book.

The result of a bet taken up with fellow comic Arthur Smith, Hawks' trip to the depths of Eastern Europe in pursuit of 11 illusive Moldovan footballers is described with all the wit for which Hawks has become known on the small screen. From the scene of the original wager to the stomach-churning consequences on Balham High Road 18 months later, the 'adventure' is recounted in a 'no holds barred' way. Nothing is beyond description, be it the initial all round misery Hawks encounters in Moldova, a bout of 'tummy troubles', rubbing up wealthy local businessman the wrong way or just the frustratingly slow process of actually locating and securing his prospective opponents.

Hawks, while explaining the myriad difficulties in holding up his end of the wager doesn't become so blinkered in his pursuit that he is blind to his surroundings. Like all good travel writers, his observations and interaction with the local people come shining through all the amusing narration. There is a sense as the book progresses that Hawks warms to the coldest of countries (meterologically and socially) and as the stories of his quest spread, the people he encounters in Moldova finally begin to warm to him. This is a story not only of one man's determination to succeed in a 'frivolous' bet and to see the positives in almost everything but also to break down barriers of language and culture. Staying with a Moldovan family whose primary english speaker is an 11 year old girl was always going to be hard work but Hawks is soon taken in by them through, if nothing else, his personality and what must have been his infectious positive attitude which was in stark contrast to those of seemingly the entire population of the country he was visiting.

The book is written with a traveller's hand in that everywhere he goes there is an obvious appreciation for what he is seeing, if indeed there IS anything worth seeing! He manages to relate it back to his own situation and is humble enough to reflect that in the midst of all this abject poverty, misery and institutionalised corruption there is an englishman running around trying to fulfil the terms of a pub-generated bet. He never loses sight of the fact that he is lucky to be able to just hop on a plane to do such a thing, to go to a country where the average monthly wage would struggle to pay for a weeks groceries in England.

I found the book entertaining and, if not 'unputdownable' then addictive to say the least. It's very rare that I can sit and read a book for more than an hour without wanting to get up and do something else. I spent most of yesterday glued to this book and before I knew it, the last page surprised me and disappointed me at the same time. It's one of those rare things...a book that you just don't want to end.

Hawks comes out of the whole thing having met 11 footballers who between them speak about a dozen words of English but who would doubtless recognise 'Tony the Tennis' as soon as look at him. In a country where the struggle of getting through one day is rewarded only by the promise of the same the following day, making such an impression on the people is surely a feat in itself.I resolve never to deprive myself of Hawks' work from now on.