The Secret Footballer started life as a column in the Guardian newspaper’s sports section and is a true look behind the curtain of a Premiership footballer’s life as told by the player himself. There has been much speculation as to the identity of The Secret Footballer and some fans of the column have even started a website to try and work out who the player is. There is more than enough information contained in the column and this book to narrow the search down, but not enough to limit it to one player, Many fans believe that the Secret Footballer is a mixture of various tales from various footballers all woven into a single narrative by The Guardian, but until someone owns up to it, I guess we will never know.
At its core the book is essentially a retelling of the original Guardian column with some additional material added in as a bonus, this can at times make the book feel a little odd to read as you jump from one tangent to another, but it doesn’t overly spoil the book, and fans of football will be truly engrossed by some of the tails in the story.
The book is broken up into various chapters such as Agents, Bad Behaviour and Money and gives a great insight into the lives of our favourite stars. My personal favourite was a question and answer section that had occurred over twitter with users sending in their questions for a real football agent to respond to, this was truly eye opening and really helped change my opinion of a group of people who are usually blamed with spoiling the modern game.
Overall
If you or someone you love is a football fan, then you must buy this book, it is well written and gives an unparalleled level of access to the greatest game on earth, often dispelling misconceptions and really making you think about what the players do, and what they think about you – the fan.
Highly Recommended.
