Who Cares What Footballers Say
In light of Sir Alex Ferguson, releasing another autobiography, this writer ponders the question again, why should we care what footballers and managers say? Couldn’t they leave that to the real journo’s. Oh wait, all of them are ghost written by great journo’s. We won’t step that far on this topic, but it raises the key point, are we such hero worshipers that we need to know how these people think?
Oh and on the October 22, 2013 Vuvuzela World Soccer Show episode, I debated this.
Also let me let the curtain back a bit, I do own both of Kenny Dalglish’s books, have read Roy Keane’s book, and had Cara’s book. So I’m not immune to this, but the point is, why is there a mass market for what athletes say? A good majority of these players are poorly educated, or want to get their handbags out to expose their dirty laundry about each other. Is this what we really want? Oh, actually it is, with the paparazzi, and dirt magazines. Maybe society is so shallow that we have to know everything about everyone because our lives are so boring.
So Fergie has released a book that he rips Major League Soccer, David Beckham, Steven Gerrard, and most of Liverpool, are we shocked? I wouldn’t be, considering before the book we could figure out he didn’t like most of them. Most people don’t like the MLS, even in the United States (still gets great numbers but not big). Are we totally shocked that Fergie didn’t rate Gerrard? Oh and don’t get me started on his thoughts on Beckham, we’ve been able figure out how poorly he thought of Becks for a long time.
But other than that, do we ever really learn anything from these books? No, and that’s the sad thing, there’s so many topics and things in the sport that can be made into books. Heck how many books are out there about the Burden Park disaster, or the Bradford City fire? Probably one or two if that, but every footballer has one or two out, and that’s not counting the managers who have many out.
As I have said above I have Kenny Dalglish’s two books, and Kenny is the reason I’m a Liverpool fan. Now I’m not old enough to have seen him play, or from the UK. (Football was hard to watch in the States until the late 90’s). For the most part if you have read Kenny’s first book, the second one is a moot point, save for the part about him returning to Anfield, and working in the Academy.
Then there’s the footballers who have many books out, and that’s even more annoying. Pele for one, has more than two, think about this. We know everything about him at least once, so he made more. I know the reason for this is that people get asked to update, or add more, and we have the rehashing of the past. The quicker people realize that these books are junk the better.
Are we such hero worshipers that we need to read books by footballers, and celebrities about how they made it big? The answer is yes, sadly, there’s many good books out there in the ‘SELF HELP’ section, to help you.
Article written by Stephen Brandt
