Book reviews

The Biography
by Joel Miller
John Blake, £17.99
Reviewed by Paul Doyle
From WSC 247 September 2007 

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Good things about this book include: the high standard of spelling; functionally correct grammar; and the fact that if you dropped it from a great height on to the head of the person who recommended it to you, it would do serious damage. Beyond that, the highest praise you could give it is that it reads like an extended Wikipedia entry, a broadly efficient collation of information already in the public domain. If you think that makes it worth almost 18 of your English pounds, then you presumably pay for WSC with wheelbarrows of gold. Well done.

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The Eleven Elements of Footballing Greatness
by Musa Okwonga
Duckworth, £15.99
Reviewed by Jonathan O’Brien
From WSC 249 November 2007 

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Musa Okwonga’s impressive CV includes the fact that he once won a poetry competition, a detail that may well send shudders down the spines of potential purchasers of his new book. In the event, A Cultured Left Foot rarely threatens to end up in Pseud’s Corner, but it still fails to really come together as an analysis of modern ­footballing excellence.

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A history of black players in English football
by Rodney Hinds
Sports Books, £16.99
Reviewed by Matthew Brown
From WSC 245 July 2007 

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Rodney Hinds begins Black Lions, his account of the emergence of black footballers in England, by claiming that “in less than 25 years the black footballer has turned from freak show into a respected member of the football fraternity”.

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by Shaun Goater with David Clayton
Sutton, £17.99
Reviewed by Ian Farrell
From WSC 240 February 2007 

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Even by the pitifully low standards of footballers’ autobiographies, the idiocy, rampant arrogance, incredible greed and delusions of persecution on show in certain recent examples have been truly demoralising. With this in mind, the timing couldn’t be better for a salt-of-the-earth journeyman to restore our faith and show the way forward with humility and good humour. Feed the Goat is halfway there.

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by Ivan Ponting

Know the Score, £16.99

Reviewed by Roger Tiford
From WSC 257 July 2008 

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There are two types of obituary, the personal – written by someone who knew the deceased – and the professional. Ex-footballers tend not to have close friends or family who can offer a thousand finely wrought words at the drop of a chap so, for the benefit of readers of the Independent, Ivan Ponting has being doing this duty for the past 15 years. Given that newspaper’s circulation, this collection of obituaries will be fresh, yet timeless, material for the vast majority of fans.

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