Episode 19: Robbie Fowler - My Autobiography

In Episode 27, we take a stroll down memory lane with Ireland’s arch controversialist Eamon Dunphy. Before he became a fixture on Irish television attacking the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Rod Liddle, Dunphy was once a footballer.   He is remembered more for his work as a journalist and television malcontent than for his performances for Ireland, Millwall, Reading and Charlton. But it was his 1976 diary Only a Game? that launched Dunphy’s media career, starting him out on a road that led him to becoming a fixture on Irish television channels for around 30 years.   The book itself is very much a classic of the footballer autobiography genre, described by Nick Hornby no less as the “best book about football I have ever read by someone who has actually played the game professionally”.   Join Al and Johnny for Episode 27 and find out if it really was just only a game for Dunphy and his fellow Millwall players in 1973.

Hungary’s ‘Galloping Major’, Ferenc Puskás was a three time European Cup winner and the winner of ten domestic titles, split evenly with five in his home country and five in Spain.   His 1956 autobiography, Captain of Hungary, was written after he led Hungary to the 1954 World Cup final but before his exploits in Spain playing with Real Madrid and a management career that saw him lead teams in ten different countries. The book was also written before the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 with much of the focus on Puskás’ travels on either side of the Iron Curtain with the Hungary national team.   To those who do remember him, Puskás was a goal machine, the 7th highest scorer of all time. He was also, on the basis of this book, a damn fine fellow. We really enjoyed this one.   Please do have a listen and be sure to like and subscribe.   Köszönöm!

Grab your rollies, your loganberry IPA, and your panini sticker book folks, it's Episode 25 of the Ademola Bookmen Podcast, the hipster's choice, Andrea Pirlo.   Tune in to hear Al compare the Italian great's lips to those of James Milner and to find out whether Al and Johnny were cool enough to understand the Italian's cerebral game. Pirlo's 2015 book, I Think Therefore I Play, is another that is not really an autobiography as such but more a series of musings on various topics.   Would you like to know how it feels to walk to the penalty spot to take the first kick in a World Cup final shootout or find out which Italian striker stunk up the dressing room before each match with his weird scatological superstition? Well look no further.    Please do like and subscribe. 

In Episode 24, we discuss A Beautiful Game by Sven-Göran Eriksson. The book was published on 17 October, less than two months after Sven died from pancreatic cancer at the age of 75.     Born in Sweden in 1948, Eriksson lived a remarkable life that saw him working in ten countries in jobs that included national team manager roles on four different continents. Most famous for his five year stint as manager of England, Sven was as much a regular in the country’s tabloid gossip columns as he was on their back pages.   Throughout his career, Sven won a shedload of trophies and managed some of the best players of his time. Join Al and Johnny to hear the tale of one of football's great tourists. 

In Episode 23, we discuss Full Time – the secret life of Tony Cascarino as told to Paul Kimmage. Despite having earned 88 caps for them, scoring 19 goals, the book is famed for the revelation that Cascarino did not in fact qualify to play for Ireland. Although was that really the case or were they just try to grab headlines and move copies of the book?   Twenty-four years after its publication, with Cascarino’s career highlights long forgotten, the book remains a stalwart of lists of sports books recommendations. Shorn of the empty platitudes of so-many football autobiographies that came before it, the book influenced many that came since. It is a landmark football autobiography of searing honesty.   Strap up your earholes friends and join us for a ride down memory lane. Its Tony Cascarino, its Jack Charlton, its Italia 90.

In Episode 22, we review the biography of Manuel Francisco dos Santos - Garrincha to you and I. In a Dylan goes electric moment for the Bookmen, this is our first biography, as opposed to autobiography. And it's a good one.    Garrincha - which means Little Bird - is remembered by Brazil of being even better than Pele. The grandchild of slaves, born with a curved spine, he led Brazil to their first world cups - in 1958 and 1962. '62 was also the year he met samba star, Elza Soares and left his wife and eight daughters, that’s right, eight daughters. And it was the year that his tale turned from triumph to tragedy.    Shunned by Brazilian society for his illicit love of Elza, crippled by injury and alcoholism, his career and life fell apart. He died in 1983, a broken man, but not before being stripped naked by the Brazilian military, getting run out of his home country, and even killing his own mother-in-law.    It’s a sad story certainly, but it's one worth hearing. Check out Episode 22 of the Ademola Bookmen Podcast – Garrincha! 

In Episode 21, Al and Johnny review With Clough by Peter Taylor, the book that is believed to have created the rift between the two men that ultimately led to them parting ways and not talking for seven years before Taylor's death in 1990.   The pair had played together at Middlesborough. When they met, Taylor was a jobbing sub keeper and Clough was being overlooked by a team that found his ego largely outweighed his ability on the field. In Taylor, Clough found a champion, who canvassed for him to play and helped nurture a talent that was eventually realized on the field.   But much more famously, Clough and Taylor became the most successful management duo in the history of English football, winning the Football League with lowly Derby and then with Nottingham Forest, where they also managed to win the European Cup twice.   But the magic of their footballing romance was equaled in intensity by the acrimony of their falling out. It is such a remarkable story that we take it up here for the second time, having just done Clough’s autobiography in our previous episode.

After a couple of technical glitches, it's Episode 20 of the Ademola Bookmen Podcast. And to mark this (kind of) milestone in our podcasting journey, we have indulged Al by delving into the mind of Brian Clough, Nottingham’s most famous man not in tights.   After being forced to retire following a stellar career as a second division striker, Clough became the youngest manager in the football league, when he took over Fourth Division Hartlepools in 1965. It was a less than glamourous beginning to one of the most storied managing careers in English football.   Together with his righthand man, Clough brought lowly Derby County to the English Championship before going one better with their local rivals Nottingham Forest by not only winning the league but also the European Cup. And then retaining it.   It is a remarkable story about a remarkable man. With Al as Peter Taylor to Johnny's Brian Clough, tune in to find out what the Ademola Bookmen thought of it all. 

In Episode 19, the Ademola Bookmen Podcast takes an ecclesiastical turn with our review of God’s book – Robbie Fowler’s, My Autobiography.   Kop legend and the eighth highest scorer in the Premier League, Fowler notched a total of 183 goals for his boyhood club Liverpool who he left in reasonably acrimonious circumstances in 2001 only to return again in 2006. While he wasn’t scoring goals, Fowler was often getting himself in trouble albeit for more cheeky antics than anything else. Despite attaining a level of immortality in his native Liverpool, he only played 26 times for England. The second half of his career was sadly blighted by injury.   This book was written during a dark spell for Fowler, while he was playing for Man City, but it was released shortly after he rejoined Liverpool. Tune in to find out how Al and Johnny found this one. And please do press that like button.

It’s Episode 18 and its Johan Cruyff’s My Turn for the Ademola Bookmen Podcast. Join us as we take a trip through the life of arguably the best influential person in the history of football. Cruyff won the European Cup three times with Ajax, the team whose stadium he grew up across the road from. He also invented the modern game of football with the Total Football of the Netherlands in 1974 and went on to build the footballing cathedral of Barcelona, to borrow a line from his protégé and heir, Pep Guardiola. A true great both on the pitch – the greatest European of the 20th century to some – as well as off the pitch, with a coaching philosophy that has gone on to conquer world football. But is the book any good? Tune in to find out.