Peter Shilton

Interesting account of a long career in football - had no idea just HOW long until I read the book, actually; over 30 years, after first making a top flight appearance in the early 1960s!

Fairly honest (although lacking detail) about his financial problems which took over the latter half of his professional career and its clear he had a gambling problem but played that down too. How a top flight player, well paid (for the time) gets in such dire straits I can't really imagine - and the lack of detail doesn't really make it clearer. Bad investments and bad luck, in the main - but clearly not giving much away about how much was actually gambled away on the geegees. Enough, no doubt...

The book ends with him having worked hard to pay off his debtors and embarking on a simpler life, free of debt in 2003/4. I wonder if he was able to keep to that.

Entertaining about the football too, although his strong self belief does mean quite a few grumbles when some England managers didn't fancy him at all (Don Revie) or used to alternate between him and Ray Clemence (Ron Greenwood). There's a fine line between self belief and sounding like you're a bit up yourself. As it was, I did hear form a friend who had colleagues at a bank dealing with him during the worst of his financial troubles and he was extremely rude to them and full of his own self importance. Hints of that do occasionally come through in the latter part of the book. Given the pressures he was under (and the mess he was in), maybe some of that is understandable.

Hopefully he's a bit wiser now.… (mer)