Guest Review: How to be a Footballer By Peter Crouch

In case you missed last weekend's guest post, I announced that I am changing my regular history/sport/travel guest review spot from a Sunday to a Saturday since I now review films on a Sunday. Sport for you this week!

You become a footballer because you love football. And then you are a footballer, and you’re suddenly in the strangest, most baffling world of all. A world where one team-mate comes to training in a bright red suit with matching top-hat, cane and glasses, without any actual glass in them, and another has so many sports cars they forget they have left a Porsche at the train station. Even when their surname is incorporated in the registration plate.

So walk with me into the dressing-room, to find out which players refuse to touch a football before a game, to discover why a load of millionaires never have any shower-gel, and to hear what Cristiano Ronaldo says when he looks at himself in the mirror.

We will go into post-match interviews, make fools of ourselves on social media and try to ensure that we never again pay £250 for a haircut that should have cost a tenner. We’ll be coached and cajoled by Harry Redknapp, upset Rafa Benitez and be soothed by the sound of an accordion played by Sven-Goran Eriksson’s assistant Tord Grip. There will be some very bad music and some very bad decisions.

I am Peter Crouch. This is How To Be A Footballer. Shall we?

Review: Peter Crouch is a professional footballer who has played for a number of clubs and has represented England on 42 occasions, during which he scored 22 goals for his country. Now approaching the end of his playing career, this book is his collective advice to aspiring footballers based on his personal experience. As such, this book does not follow the usual chronological route of an autobiography but, instead, comprises chapters covering such topics as dressing-room etiquette, players' cars, interviews (apparently "over the moon" has reached its "end of the day") and goal celebrations (including the famous Robot).

Although not strictly an autobiography, most of the advice is based on hard lessons learned during the author's early years as a professional footballer, such as earning the disapproval of Roy Keane regarding a choice of car.

In the prologue to the book, Peter Crouch invites the reader to accompany him into the dressing-room, to loiter at the back post of the opposition's penalty area ready for an incoming cross, or to a post-match interview, stating that it will be fun and like nothing that will have been read before. I can confirm that this is the case. The book is full of very amusing anecdotes and the author's sense of humour, together with his love of the beautiful game, lights up every page. So, if you want to know which player came to training wearing a bright red suit with a top hat, cane and glasses with no lenses; which player's pre-match meal always comprised a croissant, a hot chocolate, a can of cola and a packet of crisps; or some of the antics that players get up to in the team hotel during tournaments, then this is the book for you.

To order your copy now, just click the link: UK or US