Neville's Red and tales of The Didi Man among pick of the year's football autobiographies

It is easy to deride football biographies and many reviewers do so with justification, although they sometimes forget that the target audience may be have chosen mindful of fans more concerned with reading a paean to their favourite superstar than any masterpiece of insightful sports literature.

Neither the picture-driven Steven Gerrard: My Liverpool Story nor the easy-reading Wayne Rooney: My Decade in the Premier League is likely to find itself in contention for any awards, yet between them they sold almost 59,000 copies in 2012, according to Nielsen BookScan, which made them the two most successful books in the football biography sector.

At least the 19,000 who parted with money for the paperback edition of Gary Neville's autobiography Red (23,000 if you include sales of the hardback version) had something to read.  Not only that, they had something to talk about too as the former Manchester United and England full back revealed exactly why the punditry career on which he was about to embark was right up his street.

Neville is a revelation: an English footballer with opinions that have not been sanitised by some faceless PR machine intent on rinsing out every ounce of colour. Were he German, Italian or Dutch, Neville's forthright views would be unremarkable. Think Jurgen Klinsmann, Gianluca Vialli, Ruud Gullit (indeed any number of Dutchmen) -- players who think for themselves and have no qualms about setting themselves apart as individuals.  To do so here, to step outside the intellectual base level of dressing room banter and bland post-match answers to correspondingly bland questions, is to risk ridicule.

It is why so many English footballers can appear to be shallow, one-dimensional -- even thick -- when in most cases they certainly are not.  Neville is the antidote.  He addresses issues in the game and assesses players and managers as he sees them, particularly the five England managers in whose teams he played.  And he makes no concessions to reputation or sensitivities.

The only disappointment is that he does not reveal much about David Beckham, the player to whom he was always supposed to be as close as any at Manchester United. Clearly Neville is also a man of honour and discretion, at least when it comes to his mates.

Of the books published for the first time in 2012, it is good to see the Fabrice Muamba autobiography, I'm Still Standing, occupying a high position in the charts after selling 18,000 copies in less than two months.

Neville Southall's engaging Binman Chronicles was another big seller, along with the paperback reissue of A Life Too Short, the heart-rending story of the German national team goalkeeper, Robert Enke, who stepped in front of a train while in the grip of depression.

Perhaps the surprise among the top 10 football biographies of 2012 is The Didi Man, penned by the former Bayern Munich, Newcastle, Liverpool and Manchester City midfielder, Dietmar Hamann.  Then again maybe not to anyone who has read his warm, witty, perceptive and human story.

Hamann's analyses of the managers for whom he worked are genuinely  illuminating, offering verdicts that often challenge perceived wisdom, while his recollections of the bizarre turn his life took after the breakdown of his marriage, when he took to drink and gambling and lost £288,000 in one night -- not in some swish casino but alone in his house, watching a faraway Test match because he could not sleep -- are gripping.

Interestingly he tells that story with no trace of bitterness, emphasising instead his belief that footballers should grow up and cope with their problems, just the same as anyone else.  He points to the death of Gary Speed and the outpouring of emotions that followed not in some sentimental way but to express a fear that some footballers, blinded to reality by the unreal world they inhabit, might be tempted to indulge in self-pity, forgetting the pressures and uncertainties that shadow the lives of people beyond their cosseted circumstances with no hope ever of aspiring to the wealth and privilege they enjoy.  It is a singular view from an intelligent man with opinions he is willing to express.  But then again, he is German.

The top 12 best selling football biographies and autobiographies of 2012:

1, Steven Gerrard: My Liverpool Story (Headline)
2, Wayne Rooney: My Decade in the Premier League (Harper Sport)
3, Red: My Autobiography, by Gary Neville (PB) (Corgi)
4, Fabrice Muamba: I'm Still Standing (TrinityMirror)
5, A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke, by Ronald Reng (PB) (Yellow Jersey)
6, Neville Southall: The Binman Chronicles (De Coubertin)
7, Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography. by Guillem Balague (Orion)
8, Scholes: My Story, by Paul Scholes (PB) (Simon & Schuster)
9, The Didi Man, by Dietmar Hamann (Headline) (to be released in paperback next month)
10, Scholes: My Story, by Paul Scholes (HB) (Simon & Schuster)
11, Thierry Henry: Lonely at the Top: A Biography, by Philippe Auclair (Macmillan)
12, Brian Clough: Nobody Ever Says Thank You: The Biography,  by Jonathan Wilson (PB) (Phoenix)

Thanks to Nielsen BookScan.

Click on the links for more information or to buy.

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Pep Guardiola -- Christmas reading for Roman Abramovich and Sheikh Mansour?

SPORTS BOOKS FOR CHRISTMAS: FOOTBALL BIOGRAPHIES

No one would dispute Barcelona's status as the greatest club team of the century so far and two books in 2012 have gone a long way to explaining why the pride of Catalonia came to symbolise both power and artistry in football.

Graham Hunter's Barca: The Making of the Greatest Team in the World (Back Page Press) draws on the considerable knowledge of the club Scottish journalist Hunter has accumulated since deciding to base himself in Spain. Hunter was the only English-speaking  journalist to interview Pep Guardiola during his time as coach at the Nou Camp.

Yet, perhaps inevitably, Hunter's admirable book is eclipsed by Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning (Orion), written by the Spanish journalist Guillem Balague -- who is based in England, as it happens.

Balague, well known to English television viewers as one of the presenters of Spanish football on Sky Sports, won the trust of Guardiola in a way that no other journalist has managed to achieve.  Balague's analysis of the character and methodology of the most coveted coach in world football ought to be required reading for any of Guardiola's prospective employers, revealing an obsessive, somewhat tortured individual who will emerge somewhere in 2013 to find a football world eager to learn whether he can replicate his Barcelona success at another club.

If Balague's portrait of Guardiola raises much food for thought, then Philippe Auclair's portrait of Thierry Henry, Lonely at the Top (Macmillan), may similarly challenge a few preconceptions.

Auclair, the France Football correspondent who wrote a notable biography of Eric Cantona, began his Henry project feeling only warmth towards the former Arsenal striker but finished with a certain ambivalence towards him, based on what he learned about his character, yet with his admiration for Henry as a footballer undiminished.

There has been no more exhaustively researched and detailed biography in 2012 than Jonathan Wilson's 576-page portrait of Brian Clough, Nobody Ever Says Thank You (Orion), in which Wilson, already respected for his expert knowledge of Eastern European football and for his studied, historical analysis of football tactics, attempts to construct a level-headed portrait of a character surrounded by myth more, perhaps, than anyone in football history.  He succeeds.
Wilson is the first writer to have told the Clough story in full, from his debut as a player for Middlesbrough all the way through to his retirement, as a sorry, sozzled shadow of his former self, as manager of Nottingham Forest.  Along the way he challenges many of the preconceptions about Clough as man and manager, looking beyond the anecdotes to reveal that the legend often obscures the truth.

Among the year's crop of autobiographies, Fabrice Muamba's I'm Still Standing (Trinity Mirror Sport Media) is by some way the most inspiring story of 2012.  Skilfully ghost-written by sports journalist Chris Brereton, this book has at its heart the moment that allowed football to put rancour and rivalry to one side and show its best colours.

As a refugee from the war-torn African Republic of Congo, the former Bolton Wanderers footballer already had a story worth telling. But then came his collapse on the field during an FA Cup match at Tottenham, when he effectively 'died'. His heart stopped for 78 minutes, yet Muamba survived due to the extraordinary work of doctors and paramedics who kept his brain and body functioning while they fought to restart his heart.

The story united the game in the same way that the tragic death of Gary Speed in 2011 touched football fans regardless of their allegiances, with the notable difference of a happy ending.

The biography that should be remembered as one of the year's unexpected pleasures is The Binman Chronicles (de Coubertin), by Neville Southall, the former Wales and Everton goalkeeper, who set out with the help of journalist James Corbett to "show who I really am" after a career in which he was labelled as so many different things that he felt he had become almost a living caricature, painted usually as an eccentric of one kind or another, mostly by people who did not know him at all.

He did so, you sense, not out of bitterness at any misconceptions -- "I suppose at various times I fitted all the descriptions" -- nor out of any desire to reinvent himself, but simply because he is a thoughtful, reflective person with more sides even to the complicated character his friends and teammates knew.

The book begins on a non-league football ground in Kent where Southall is engaged in his new vocation, as a teacher working with disengaged teenagers, not just giving them something to take them off the streets for an hour or two but as part of a programme lasting six months that aims to equip young people cast out by society in one way or another with the skills needed to release the potential Southall believes they all have, to some degree, to make something of their lives.

He goes on to tell the story of his life and career as you would expect but somehow, as you begin to understand him a little more with each chapter, it all leads back naturally to that football ground in Kent and his concluding assertion that "this old goalkeeper has still got plenty of living to do."

Special mention should also be made of former Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan's Be Careful What You Wish For (Yellow Jersey), his autobiographical tale of how football stole his fortune, which was shortlisted unexpectedly but deservedly for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2012.


For more details and to buy any of the titles above, follow the links below or go to the Football Page at the Sports Bookshelf Shop.

Barca: The Making of the Greatest Team in the World, by Graham Hunter
Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography by Guillem Balague
Thierry Henry: Lonely at the Top: A Biography, by Philippe Auclair
Brian Clough: Nobody Ever Says Thank You: The Biography, by Jonathan Wilson
Fabrice Muamba: I'm Still Standing, by Fabrice Muamba
Neville Southall: The Binman Chronicles, by Neville Southall
Be Careful What You Wish For, by Simon Jordan

More reading:

William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2012

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No making tea for this new boy! Chris's first task is to ghostwrite the Fabrice Muamba story

As first assignments go, it wasn't a bad one.  Sports journalist Chris Brereton, newly recruited by publishers Trinity Mirror Sports Media and still readjusting to life back in the UK after a year in Thailand, was asked if he fancied ghosting an autobiography. 


He had never written a book before but when he learned that the subject was footballer Fabrice Muamba, there was only going to be one answer.   The schedule set out was almost impossible -- it was already August and the book was due in the shops in early November -- yet the Muamba story, of the young Bolton Wanderers player who collapsed on the field during a match at Tottenham Hotspur and was effectively brought back from the dead, was too good to turn down.

"From a journalist's point of view it has been the story of 2012," Brereton said. "I had been working on the Bangkok Post but the impact of Fabrice's story was just as big over there.

"The English Premier League is massive in Thailand and even though I was 6,000 miles away from where it was happening, for that moment, as people became aware of the drama taking place, I got the impression that the entire footballing world was as one.

"It was a story that showed how strong football can be when it decides to unite in a positive direction and it was one that transcended the game.  My mother, for example, has never watched a football match in her life but when I told her I was doing the Fabrice Muamba book she knew instantly who he was."

Having agreed to take on the project, 30-year-old Brereton quickly became glad of the tough grounding he had been given working for sports news agencies Hayters and Wardles, where reporters seldom have the benefit of time on their side.

"There have been a lot of 17-18 hour days, a lot of working weekends, but in one sense my naivety has been a good thing because I was not daunted by the task.  Having worked at Wardles, where the onus was on you to get to the nub of an issue and turn around copy very quickly, and having worked to very tight deadlines in Bangkok, I am used to working under pressure and that held me in good stead.

"From the day I met Fabrice for the first time at Mottram Hall Hotel near Wilmslow in Cheshire, to signing the book off to the printers, was 38 days.

"If had written half a dozen books that had all taken six months or more such a tight turnaround might have been a bit daunting.  But I just rolled up my sleeves and jumped in and it has been a wonderful experience."

Muamba had a compelling story to tell even without what happened last March, when he suffered his cardiac arrest during an FA Cup quarter-final at White Hart Lane.  Born in the Democratic Republic of Congo during the height of civil war, he was left behind in Kinshasa when his father, a government advisor, had to flee to London to escape rebel fighters who had set out to kill him.

'A tale of hard work, luck, perseverance...even fear'

He and his mother Gertrude were reunited with father Marcel only when Marcel was finally given leave to stay in London after several years living in asylum centres and the family were allowed to join him.  In the meantime, Fabrice had been more or less in hiding, moved from one home to another by his uncle, Ilunga, who eventually was killed.

"It is the kind of story that, if you walked into the office of a Hollywood studio executive and said I want to pitch you an idea and told him the story of Fabrice's life, you'd be laughed out of there because it really is a story that's stranger than fiction," Brereton said.

"His father had to leave Congo because he was under threat, because he worked for the president, and Fabrice did not see his father for five years.  He came to England when he was 11, not speaking a word of English, a young African coming to live in Walthamstow in London with all the challenges that brings.

"He gets the chance to go along to Arsenal because one of his friends is training there.  He tags along and gets spotted and before you know it he is playing in the Premier League, the best league in the world.

"It is a ludicrously implausible tale of hard work, luck, perseverance and even fear because he was terrified for a long time in Congo because of the civil war there.

"If you stop it there it is still a remarkable story, but when you add March 17 on top of that it makes a story that transcends everything.  It is not a football book but a book about a footballer with an amazing story to tell."

Central to the story is Muamba's recollection of events and his efforts to make sense of what happened, to assess the impact on his life and to convey the thoughts and feelings and emotions he has experienced, although he has no memory at all of the 78 minutes in which he was technically dead.

"When he was 'dead' he feels he wasn't there to worry about himself.  When he came round in hospital he had no idea that the world had been hanging on every medical bulletin, he had no recollection of what had happened, no memory of it, no comprehension of it

"So for the details of what happened, there are interviews with Dr Andrew Deaner, the cardiologist who came down from the stands at White Hart Lane, and with Dr Jonathan Tobin, the Bolton Wanderers club doctor, who played such a big part too.

"We have spoken also to the first paramedic on the scene, to the Bolton club chaplain, to Owen Coyle, the manager.  It is a very comprehensive account of what happened that perhaps  give people a different perspective on their own lives, knowing that if a 24-year-old can collapse face first at White Hart Lane then who knows what fate has in store for any of us."

'Fabrice feels he is in the driving seat, but God is doing the steering.'

The relationship between a subject and his ghost need not be a friendship.  In some cases, too much familiarity can be a hindrance, since there are often issues that require the kind of probing questions that a close acquaintance may feel uncomfortable about asking, and lack a little objectivity.  But it is essential that the collaborators get along.

Happily, Brereton and Muamba were soon comfortable in each other's company.

"I'd spoken to people who knew him and the general view among football folk was that, to use their expression, a 'top lad'," Brereton said. "In other words, a nice guy, and I found him to be a well-mannered, clearly well brought-up young man.

"We clicked straight away. He would come to Mottram Hall always on time, always very polite, and he'd ask for nothing more than a hot chocolate.  People would come up to him from time to time.  One day there was a wedding and the groom was having a pre-ceremony pint to calm his nerves and he spotted Fabrice and nervously came over but Fabrice was happy to have his picture taken with him and talk to the other guests.  He is a very pleasant, very intelligent guy, the polar opposite to the stereotypical image of the modern footballer.

"He was honest, straightforward, a good talker -- from my point of view a dream.  His now-wife Shauna came along sometimes and she was just as impressive, straight down the line, very unaffected by fame.

"What I learned about his character is that he is very religious and he believes that what happened in March was part of God's bigger plan.  He feels that in life he might be in the driving seat but God is doing the steering.

"There have been points, and they are chronicled in the book, when he hoped his career was not over, which is natural.  But when he was told that effectively he was finished as a footballer, he straightened his tie and got on with his life.   If you have a career-ending knee injury at 23 you might have a degree of bitterness but with Fab because of the severity of what happened, because he was to all intents dead, any thoughts about 'what if' relating to his career take second place to the feeling that every day is a bonus.

"He does not yet know what he is going to do with his life.  His health is monitored, as you would expect, and he has been fitted with an implanted defibrillator, so that if his heart rhythm is thrown out again the device would administer a shock to set it right again.   He can do some light exercise and there is no cause for concern now.

"He enjoys doing media work, which he is getting very polished at, and he wants to use his story to inspire people, perhaps disaffected youths, maybe even go into prisons, to tell people that if he could come back from the dead then anything is possible.  He believes very strongly in that.

"But in other ways he has his life ahead of him and while he assesses what to do with it he is just enjoying being alive, appreciating things that other people might regard as mundane.

"I thoroughly enjoyed working with him and I'm honoured to have played a small part in his story."

Fabrice Muamba: I'm Still Standing is published by Trinity Mirror Sport Media.

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