Feed The Goat

I could introduce this “book review” by recounting the heart-wrenching story behind how I came to own this book and then the equally heartbreaking turn of events that led me to getting round to actually reading it, but I don’t go in much for those type of reviews that are more about the reviewer than the review itself, and besides, that’s all the filling I think necessary to give this post a passable word count.

Autobiographies and biographies, ghost written or not, are my secret favourites. Reader, I read it.

What happens in the book: The football is racist. The football is sexist. The football banter makes you want to eat your own head whole without a dressing or sauce. Shaun Goater – relative to some other footballers – is a person (though surprisingly arrogant).

This was probably my favourite bit:

(On Steve Coppell) On one occasion we were preparing for an away game with Stoke and he said, ‘When you see Ade Akinbiyi racing around and his dreads going all over the place, coupled with the passion and anger in his face, that typifies Stoke. If you can stop those dreads going from side to side and keep their fans from singing “Delilah”, you’re halfway there.’

Sometimes I would look around the dressing room and wonder how many of the lads understood what he was trying to say. Undoubtedly it went over the heads of a lot of them, but I thought this guy was talking some very, very clever stuff. I used to love hearing his half-time talks and observations, because more often than not it was quite profound.