Footballers as authors

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Footballers as authors

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What books by ex-footballers would you consider to be a good read?

Drusetta
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Re: Footballers as authors

Post by Drusetta »

Probably a biased football fan's opinion but I enjoyed
Stanley Matthews' autobiography;
Diego Maradona's autobiography (I am Diego); and
'Pele's autobiography
For the Game. For the World.

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pino
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Re: Footballers as authors

Post by pino »

Ive read:

Maradonna's...interesting...he really is deluded.
Vinnie Jones...funny how none of it was ever his fault.

and Jaap Stams, Roy Keane's, Michael Owen, Neil Ruddocks, Robbie Slaters, Pier Luigi Colina's and Beckhams. There are others that I cant be bothered thinking about at the moment. But the best one I have read is by Gary Nelson...called Best foot Forward...the stiry of a football journeyman. He played for Charlton in the lower leagues and is a real eye opener on what it was like before huge money came into the games.
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Re: Footballers as authors

Post by Juventino »

Haven't yet read the book, but apparently the Italian Job, co-written by Gianluca Vialli and football writer Gabriele Marcotti is great. Highlights the differences in mentality, tactics etc, between Italian and English football.

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Re: Footballers as authors

Post by Randoman »

italian job aint that good. reads like it was written by a 5 year old. best foot foward was pretty good.

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Re: Footballers as authors

Post by James »

MACDONALD , MALCOLM (WITH MARTIN SAMUEL ): How to Score Goals
Kingswood Press: UK: 1985 First SIGNED BY AUTHOR .
Goalscoring is a specialist art and this book by one of the outstanding 'finishers' since the war, will help players master it. The author played for Luton, Newcastle, Arsenal and England and scored almost 200 goals in 369 League appearances.


This book is excellent. The guy wasnt a pretty attacker but he applied some basic rules to his game which resulted in him being a goal scoring machine.

- He talks about how to position the body to take the kick from his defender while still turning and getting the shot off.

- He also breaks the box up into origin points. He used the line of the 6 yd box or edge of the 18 yd box to work out where the goal is. This resulted in him not looking at where he was shooting, but hitting the target anyhow.

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Re: Footballers as authors

Post by Hawkesy »

Of all of the footballing books I have ever read, Tony Cascarino's is by far the best. So far removed from the stereotypical footballers autobiography it's unbelievable.

Gazza's is pretty good, 2/3rds of Tony Adams's is superb (goes downhill once he get all holier than thou about the booze). Gary Nelson's and Eamon Dumphy's are also good in terms of the comparison between a millionaire footballer and the journeymen who actually have to earn their salary.
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that's the one!

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Re: Footballers as authors

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Re: Footballers as authors

Post by dorian »

Hawkesy wrote:Of all of the footballing books I have ever read, Tony Cascarino's is by far the best. So far removed from the stereotypical footballers autobiography it's unbelievable.

Gazza's is pretty good, 2/3rds of Tony Adams's is superb (goes downhill once he get all holier than thou about the booze). Gary Nelson's and Eamon Dumphy's are also good in terms of the comparison between a millionaire footballer and the journeymen who actually have to earn their salary.
wouldnt mind to read that seen as he was ex chelsea

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