Limelight Magazine
Fred Pawle, May 2005, p51

This book’s greatest asset – other than its laugh out loud jokes – is that it is almost plausible. It is about a bloke called Ian ‘Tickets’ Thompson, a former footballer whose political incorrectness has made him the star of a late night sports show in Melbourne, the type of show that has quickly transformed our idea of sporting charisma.

Author Tony Wilson has seen enough of these shows to despair at the apparent good fortune that ensues when dumb sport stars become celebrities. So he created Thompson, a flamboyant celebrity who is less in control of his own fate than he would like to think.

Judging by the way the story ends, this was a cathartic exercise for Wilson, as reading it will be for anyone who thinks the golden age of sport ended with Bradman and Whitten.

Thompson, who has become famous for abusing women and anyone with ideas other than his own, starts the book by headbutting a homeless man who gives him a bit of ‘negative feedback’ during a vox pop in a shopping centre.

Wilson makes the incident seem comical but feasible. After all, football stars get away with far more these days. Then the fun begins. The network, run by Sir Barry Haynes, one of the most fearful characters I’ve ever encountered in a satire, starts to cover up the incident. But the old adage – when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging – doesn't apply if the people working the shovels spent their formative years bashing other blokes’ heads in pursuit of an elliptical piece of inflated leather, and singing club songs that swear they will always be winners at the final siren.

But it is the likes of Haynes, whose ruthlessness becomes more and more apparent as the story evolves, who decide the score. Wilson abandons a lot of verisimilitude for the climax, but by then the reader is hooked, not only by the humorous consequences, but by suspense. Careers, fortunes and even lives hang by a very fine thread as the story approaches a conclusion.

Wilson’s style is light and engaging. He intersperses the progress of Tickets with that of his rival, Billy Nock, which maintains an even pace. A highly recommended antidote to the footballing banalities of the months ahead.