Waterstones I Am The Secret Footballer
2223 ratings
TO EXPLORE MORE
Price: £9.99
Brand: Waterstones
Description: This updated edition of the bestselling and wildly popular I Am the Secret Footballer features a new introduction and an additional chapter. The anonymous writer of the Guardian's 'Secret Footballer' column gives Premier League fans an insider's look into the unseen world of professional football.' It is often said that 95% of what happens in football takes place behind closed doors. Many of these stories I shouldn't be telling you. But I will.' Who is The Secret Footballer? Only a few people know the true identity of the man inside the game. Whoever he is-and whatever team he plays for - TSF is always honest, fearless and opinionated. Here he takes readers past the locker-room door and reveals the inner workings of a professional club, the exhilarating highs and crushing lows, and what it's really like to do the job most of us can only dream of doing. TFS chronicles the exploits of his Premiership colleagues with a gimlet eye and frank humour. Managers, agents and players are not spared from his observations - their mindsets, their relationships with those outside the sport, their behaviour good and bad. In his inimitable style, TSF recounts entertaining and eyebrow-raising vignettes, naming names and dropping colourful details along the way. Waterstones I Am The Secret Footballer - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk
Category: Books
Merchant: Waterstones
Product ID: 9781783350049
Delivery cost: 2.99
ISBN: 9781783350049
My website utilises affiliate links when you click my 'Get the best deal now' buttons. If you buy something through one of these links, I may earn a little commission, at no extra cost to you.
I have relationships with many of the top online retailers (purchasing, shipping and returns will be handled directly by them) which enables me to offer the best deal online for the Waterstones I Am The Secret Footballer and many other similar products - which will appear below, to enhance your online shopping experience.
For even more great deals on Waterstones Books, click the link.
Author: Jordan Gerrard
Rating: 5
Review: I read the Guardian every Saturday, but I didn't read this column each week it was published with urgency. It competed with news and (hopefully) informed gossip - which is what football enthusiasts really want. Sometimes I didn't read it at all. I'm a season ticket holder at a Premier League club, and I've been watching top level football for a very long time. Over the last 20 years I've seen the celebritisation (is that a word? it is now) of the players without surprise. These are rich, successful, fit, often poorly educated young men who come from a background that does not prepare them for intense and sophisticated media inquiry. People who have the advantages footballers lack would struggle with this. But they can't play football so don't have to face that. I bought this book because it was inexpensive on Kindle, was a subject that interested me, and I was travelling. It was little more than the price of a Sunday newspaper, so economics did it in the end. I think The Secret Footballer works better as a book. The author (whoever he is) tries to write honestly, and there are stories in the book that he is clearly uncomfortable describing. Taking his old friends out for a meal at an expensive restaurant is a haiku on the British class system. Other reviewers have picked up on the story, but the narrative is jarring if you originate in this country and have some pan-class experience. The good thing about the writing is that it doesn't try to make a pat political points - which is what normally happens when people write about football. The same goes for the scene at the races, which is also ambiguous. The book is very good on managers (or maybe one manager?) losing the dressing room. It has an insight on tactics, but it can't be much more than this; tactics are simple, it's the repetition and practice that makes it work, oh, and confidence. That doesn't make a compelling story. The chapter on agents I didn't think was over-long, which makes me unique among reviewers. Agents are demonised when they are mentioned in the media; but they are the articulate and empowered voice of the player, working for the player. The chapter on agents is a good read, and its strength is that it doesn't have an agenda in the way that the clubs and the British press do. The book made me smile in its acute observation of John Terry and how he referees a match. Seen that, close up. The book is critical of Robbie Savage who I have a lot of fondness for, and who I don't think it a pantomime villain. Again close up observation. But these are just opinion and judgment; what is important is that they are the writer's insight. I read it in just over day. It compares with the Only A Game? by Eamonn DunphyOnly a Game?: The Diary of a Professional Footballer for its ground level view. It's not as good as All Played OutAll Played Out: The Full Story of Italia '90 by Pete Davies, but little is. So, if you are interested in football, and think that England is an odd country worthy of anthropological consideration, I'm sure you'll enjoy this. If you like football, you'll probably enjoy agreeing and disagreeing with what the Secret Footballer has to say. If you're someone who enjoys reading but who hates football you may enjoy this much more than you might think.
Author: Dean
Rating: 2
Review: I Am The Secret Footballer was different to the book I was expecting. If I could some up the book in one word, that word would be 'Frustrating'. If you're looking for a book that gives you plenty of entertaining and scandalous anecdotes about footballers at the highest level then you won't find that here. If you're looking for an in-depth insight into the world of a Premier League footballer then you won't find that here either. What you do get with this book is the views of one very opinionated footballer who certainly believes his moral compass is higher than most other footballers. That would be fine except that in reading both 'I Am The Secret Footballer', and 'More Tales..', the Secret Footballer is quick to bring down fellow professionals (without naming names) but will skip over anything shady that he may have been a part of (he's often involved in compromising situations but never responsible or an active participant). There are some very interesting features about the book. The Secret Footballer's views on fans, agents and managers are very interesting. There is also the fun to be had in trying to figure out who the Secret Footballer is and the identities of his fellow professionals that he speaks about (I'd love to know who some of the managers are in this book - especially the one who threw toast in the canteen). However, after a while it does become very frustrating as the anonymity of so many people leaves you wondering just how accurate some of these stories are. The Secret Footballer also opens up about his depression and how that has affected him over his career. It does get a bit deep at times but then depression is a very dark and difficult subject to be open about. The one thing I did get from this book is that at the end of the day, footballers are just the same as everybody else. They may have a dream job and they may earn an extortionate amount of money but in reality they are just the same as us. They face exactly the same issues as we do and in some cases, face issues that we would never ever think about. Yes, there I said it. Footballers are human too.
