I Am The Secret Footballer

I worried that 'The Secret Footballer' would amount to a disappointing gossip book as he revealed all in giving the inside scoop of the world of professional footie. I also worried I would be disappointed because it wouldn't be gossipy enough. What? No names at all (because the author is still playing and wouldn't like his head kicked in). However, the further I got into the book, and the more the various aspects of the sport (fans, managers, agents, etc) were covered in their individual chapters, the more satisfying and well-rounded the read became. Although, to use a term once coined by Noel Gallagher, I have always considered myself a bit of a 'ceefax' about footie, I am just one person in one of the 'aspects': fans. So, what do I really know? Thanks to 'anonymous,' I feel as though I have been given a 360-degree tour, and for that I am appreciative. As for who 'anonymous' is, well... what can I say? My current best guess is Danny Murphy, ex-premiership with Liverpool and Fulham, now in the Championship with Blackburn.

This book is due out next month in the UK and I was hoping it would be available on kindle in the UK so I could get it quickly. I was surprised and pleased to find this available already in the U.S. I have read the column for the past year on the Guardian website and enjoyed it very much. Only into the first couple of chapters so far, but a great and absorbing read. I'll post again when I have finished the book. A must-read for any fan of the English Premier League.See more details on whoisthesecretfootballer.co.uk and the guardian newspaper, guardian.co.uk/footballFinished the book and it was consistently good throughout. I'd advise not skipping the chapter on agents as a another reviewer did. It gave another perspective, and given some of the stories and questions about the recent transfer window (ending August 31 2012), it gives some possible insights as to why certain players did or didn't get bought or sold or went to clubs we didn't expect.

An anonymous author writing about anonymous footballers, managers, agents and anonymous pretty- well everyone else in the world of top level football. As I read through, I just got the feeling of meaningless, that essentially anyone could have written most of it. Neither does the Secret Footballer tell us very much that we don't already know. Some of what he does tell us - boozing, men behaving badly, (all anonymous of course) could have come from almost any tabloid newspaper. And so many pages devoted to his depression, as if anyone needed to be told that this illness hits the high and the low, rich and not-so-rich, equally. For the money, it could have been and should have been more visceral about football in the fast lane, and should have had names, chapter and verse to add interest and credibility. Anonymous is as anonymous does, but it soon becomes ho hum.

In well written and easy-to-read manner, the secret footballer gives us a glimpse into the craziness of being a Premier League player - a world that is probably further away from everyday life than many of us imagine. From crazy parties and trips to Dubai, to tactics regarding money and contracts, and as an underlying theme all the way: how a young man struggles to cope with all the craziness and remane sane. However, theres not much football talk here, so don't expect to learn much about the game on the pitch - its primarily about life outside.

The Secret Footballer is a candid description of football at the highest level behind the closed doors of English Premier League clubs.A writer strikes a good balance between describing the excesses at the top level and the inherent pressures of modern day footballers. What influence does a manager have on the result? What happens on the training pitch and in the dressing room? How does an agent broker a multi-million pound deal between a player and club? The secret footballer answers all these questions and more.A good read for football fans and cynics alike.

This is an interesting book for anyone who is into football or follows the premiership. There is lot of speculation on who the secret footballer is, but when I was trying to calculate the footnotes and hints to see who he was, I enjoyed reading some of the 'behind the scenes' for footballers.It's not like the book is breaking ground on information that we have never heard before but the delivery of a first person explaining the highs and lows is very entertaining.I would (and have) recommended this to football fans.

I must have read this book 10 times. Written by a fascinating footballer, writer, and person. I hope TSF writes 20 more of these, but if not, I’ll just read this one another 20 times. Even the index is worth reading!

It gives you an insight how football 'really' works and how footballers think about the game, themselves, trainers, managers and more importantly fans... Very interesting to say the least. But as with other modern Football biographies I always loathe the point that they seem to think that they are more important than the fans or the clubs...A must read for every football interested person though...

i bought this after hearing TSF interviewed. I thought he came across as an intelligent guy. However he spoke about how he arrived on the idea of TSF as a marketting gimmick to separate himself from the glut of other PL footballers seeking careers in the media. I should have taken that as a warning. Strangely hes taken advantage of his anonymity to tell a very partial story here and one with such little detail that parts are barely credible to the reader. The most eyebrow raising is the chapter where he supposedly loses all his money to a tax bill and he is searching through his house for things to sell. This is in the context of someone who is constantly speaking about saving his vast earnings and comes across as rather tight with the purse strings. In anycase, erm if things are so bad, why not sell the house? In other stories its usually a third hand tale. The few he does share about himself always make clear he is not only much more gifted than his teammates (although somehow unable to reach greatness due to bullying managers) but also ethnically on a different plane, as he recounts some tame high jinks with a metaphorical eye roll. So overall a clever idea, but thats all.

The book is an absorbing read for anyone who follows football. It didn't take me very long to read it as some of the stories of TSF's career are incredibly interesting and do leave you wanting more.Most interesting was his perception of the supporters in the stadium on match day and how there are certain elements of the tactical side of the game that only those who have played at a professional level. Also illuminating was TSF's battle with depression.The book isn't perfect. Some of the tales of high-rolling footballers behaving poorly get a little tiresome and less shocking as the book goes on; possibly due to repetitive nature of some of them.I found myself disagreeing with some of the opinions the author has at times but at least they open a debate so I can't complain too much about that.There is even something of a twist at the end which adds an element of drama.Overall this is an intelligently considered account of a world which is often beyond even the most ardent football fan's imagination

Football has come a long way since the maximum wage was abolished some fifty years ago and indeed since the "sink era" of the eighties. And by and large that's a good thing. You no longer have managers telling players not to choose scampi in fish and chip shops ("not for the likes of us"). And the aggressive backdrop of "working class culture" (never entirely accurate) has been dented by mammon and multiculturalism. It is hard to be a working class hero when you're living it up in Las Vegas or sitting by the swimming pool in Dubai drinking vintage champagne.Reading this book though, you wonder if the pendulum might have swung a little too far. For example, training only in the morning only cannot be a good thing. The devil makes work for idle hands and if there's a lot of money to spend, it's even worse. Golf is harmless enough (though it's never mentioned in the book), but practising penalty shoot outs might be better, given England's appalling record in that respect. Indeed, as the book states, "money has .......probably contributed to England's repeated failures in major tournaments". The pampered prima donnas seem to struggle against more down to earth opponents.This book is broad ranging and the chapter on tactics shows that whilst at base football is a simple game, at the top level it is certainly far more complex. The off the pitch life of a Premier League footballer is also covered: with an intrusive press and pestering by the public it is obviously not entirely happy, in spite of the rewards.An important point to remember is that in spite of a leaven of humour, this is a serious book and by no means entirely a light read, not least on tactics, the work of agents, gambling and depression. It also makes some valid points. As a (former) HR manager, I can identify with his opinion that, "there is no such thing as being paid too much. There are only jobs that pay a salary". In other words, if you can earn more by being a banker, or by playing for Chelsea, well, why don't you? Indeed, there is a lot of truth in the American he quotes when he says, in Britain, if someone succeeds, "ya'll jealous of them. In the States, folks are inspired by success".In addition the book is balanced: none of the traditional hate campaigns against agents, owners, directors, etc. The moneyed lifestyle he portrays is not particularly attractive, but that's academic for nearly all of us. And having read Venetia Thompson's "Gross Misconduct", it seems that young bankers behave every bit as badly as top footballers.But it has its flaws. It gets unduly introverted, even stodgy. The blanket of anonymity rather detracts from reality. He can't be too specific. And when towards the end of the book, the author says, "I don't want sympathy", well, I don't think he deserves much, having frittered away millions of pounds on the good life. And I was highly surprised at the end when he says that, "everything football has brought me has been sold off" (largely thanks, it seems, to a huge tax bill). You really wonder why he didn't have a better accountant. Or perhaps he ignored him/her.The book is interesting enough, but I found Simon Jordan's "Be careful what you Wish for" to be far more enlightening and better written.

This is an interesting angle on modern Premiership football by a thoughtful writer/player who is not afraid to stand apart from the herd. I must admit I couldn't resist the temptation to check on the internet as to who "The Secret Footballer" is (most likely to be), and this actual (?) identity really helps to ground the whole story. I liked the points made about tactics, managerial short-comings and received-footballing-wisdom. The chapter on agents has definitely changed my view on this essential link in the footballing chain that it is obviously all-to-easy to be lazy/cynical about, and the glimpses into the VIP areas at night-clubs (particularly in Las Vegas) confirm all previously held suspicions. But in the end, it is the final chapter dealing with the approaching career-end and the magnifications of long-term mental-health issues that has the most impact, and this must act as an alarm-call to anyone in the game, who doesn't realise that a career in football is a roller-coaster ride that almost inevitably ends up back at the bottom.

This is a decent book, based around a series of newspaper articles, written by an anonymous footballer who has played in the Premier League, by the end i'd pieced together in my head, who I thought the footballer was and spent a fair bit of time checking some of the incidents against real matches to narrow down the subjects, unfortunately that is something this book does, it makes the reader want to know who wrote it.Overall the book is a very good read, being anonymous, the writer puts much more vitriol and honesty into his writing about the game, fellow players, managers and the fans, at times he comes across as cocky and arrogant, at others lost in a media hungry world dominated by image and money.The book is made up of all of the newspaper articles, so at times subjects cross, but many are different and illuminating, comments on fellow players cut deep, details on financial deals are disturbing at times, it makes you less sympathetic to footballers who fall on hard times when their careers end when you read of the money wasted on expensive drink and needless profligacy during their playing days.Overall this is better than the subsequent books and hasn't been surpassed by others who've tried to jump onto this new genre. A funny, well thought out book which doesn't sit on the fence, like so many books in this genre.