Factual Books

I Am The Secret Footballer supposedly lift the lid on the life of a premiership footballer. It is anonymous and so is supposed to offer better insight into the world than ghost written autobiographies.

The main character is not someone it is easy to sympathise with as he is a wealthy and rather arrogant figure. He seems to regard himself as on a different intellectual level from other footballers, managers, referees and everyone else connected with football. He is a bit depressive and seems rather ungrateful for the fact his talent has permitted him to earn fantastic wealth, to travel the world and live a life as an idol for many.

The book seems filled with references to birds, booze and money. It all seems a little bit shallow really. I found the book to be a fairly dull read to be honest. You could summarise it by saying footballers are largely drinkers and womanisers who are quite thick, but not as thick as some managers and journalists.

I am not sure there is much in the way of scandal to really make this all that salacious. I don't know it it really needs to be all that secretive. It is not up there with Roy Keane's explosive book from yesteryear. Perhaps part of the fun is trying to figure out who the author is.  Unfortunately a bit of googling reveals he is no-one really famous outside of football.