The Way It Is
by Wayne Rooney
Harper Collins, £8.99
Reviewed by Mark O’Brien
From WSC 246 August 2007 

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“Coleen bought me an Aston Martin from her own money. It was a birthday present that she gave me before the big day. On my actually birthday she gave me a Jacob watch, inscribed with my name and date of birth. I love watches.” And so on, and so forth. Who on earth is this actually aimed at? It’s not an autobiography; it is a prospectus for Paul Stretford’s Proactive Sports Management Ltd. It’s also an insult to the intelligence of the reader, although quite frankly anyone who buys it after seeing Rooney posing on the cover wearing a Coca-Cola T-shirt – he has a contract with them – probably hasn’t got that much grey matter to offend.

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The Story of a Goalkeeping Legend
by Mike Blake
NPI Media, £14.99
Reviewed by Tom Green
From WSC 246 August 2007 

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Every club has its legends. In modern times the player most loved by Charlton fans has been Derek “Killer” Hales, a man whose fighting spirit came to epitomise the Addicks’ struggle to survive. For the previous generation, however, the undisputed hero was goalkeeper Sam Bartram.

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The Toughest Job in Football
by Brian Glanville
Headline, £18.99
Reviewed by Harry Pearson
From WSC 246 August 2007 

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“I didn’t see any reaction in the team. That was the thing that left me amazed; there wasn’t the rage you expect from an England team that’s losing.” So said Fabio Capello after watching Bobby Robson’s team thrashed humiliatingly by Holland at Euro 88.

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The Making of The League 1886-1889
by Thomas Law
Desert Island Books, £16.99
Reviewed by Harry Pearson
From WSC 244 June 2007 

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For this reviewer the only disappointing thing about Football’s Twelve Apostles was that it slid through the letterbox during the hottest April for centuries. If ever there was a book that ought to be savoured in an armchair by a roaring fire (possibly with the accompaniment of port and pickled walnuts) it is this one.

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The Biography of Jimmy Johnstone
by Jim Black
Sphere, £18.99
Reviewed by Graham McColl
From WSC 247 September 2007 

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The post-football fate of Jimmy Johnstone is one of the best arguments that can be mustered in favour of the super-inflated salaries of today’s footballers. He was voted the greatest ever Celtic player in 2002, yet for the previous two decades, after finishing with football as a player, he had found himself skint and, as outlined here, spent that period meandering unsatisfyingly through various menial jobs. These included three years as a manual labourer and, irony of ironies, a spell as a satellite-dish salesman, purveying the very piece of equipment that has made today’s players rich beyond Jimmy’s wildest dreams.

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