Book Review
That First Season
Author: John Eisenberg
Review by Michael E Lawrence
21/10/2009
John Eisenberg’s excellent - and we mean excellent - That First Season, examines the first year of Vince Lombardi’s tenure at the Green Bay Packers. There are countless studies of Vince’s glory-filled championship seasons, but this is the first - that we know of - exclusively devoted to year one of the Lombardi reclamation project.
Eisenberg’s prose is tight and punchy, and the story he tells is one of a big-city coach finally winning over a downtrodden, small market team populated with future Hall of Famers as yet frittering away their potential. Lombardi is a fallible figure - committed to his masterplan but also quietly nervous about addressing his team for the first time or facing off against the likes of Halas and Unitas. But ultimately, he is a hero - cheered on by thousands, in the wake of the Packers’ first winning season in over a decade, in the freezing fog of a Green Bay airfield in December. There’s also Bart Starr: hyper-polite nice guy who nearly slides his way off the team, so bland is his play, and Paul Hornung: underachieving poster child for the excesses of stardom. In the end, Lombardi is the making of them both, and the entire franchise around them.
It’s a cracking read and if you ask me, you should go and buy it for Christmas (or Honika, or Eid, or Diwali depending on your persuasion). You’ll love it.
Diner Rating 8/10
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