For those of us who came from the Seventies, it should be obligatory reading. But younger folk should take a look too, for it beautifully captures a bygone era... Brian Viner, The IndependentThere is a rough edge to his diary that reinforces its immediacy and credibility...a funny and fascinating document... Michael Parkinson, The Daily TelegraphThe flavour of the club [Notts County] is brilliantly captured... when younger first team players still took the bus to training a...

The sequel to David McVay's highly-acclaimed Steak Diana Ross: Diary of a Football Nobody, has been delivered with all the alacrity of the author's prodigious goalscoring acumen: one every 14 years or so. Titled as creatively as his midfield passes, Steak Diana Ross II: Further diaries of a Football Nobody sees the former Notts County player revisit the 1970s in Nottingham a little later in the decade that discovered prog rock but discarded style while Jimmy Sirrel has returned to Notts Co...

Football fans will love this insight into the life and mind of Big Sam. With nearly 20 years as a player - plus almost 25 years as a coach and manager - under his belt, Sam Allardyce is one of the most recognisable figures in British football.'Big Sam' has been a robust defensive general throughout the seventies and eighties, and an imposing touchline presence as a gaffer since 1994.Over the last four decades, Allardyce has seen it all. The game he so loves...

Jimmy Bullard may not have had the perfect hair-do, his Granada Ghia may not have been the flashiest of cars, and he definitely didn't have a string of Page 3 girls trying to sell kiss and tell stories about him to the tabloids. But what he has in spades is a genuine love for The Beautiful Game that few of his peers can match. One of the last graduates from football's old school, Jimmy actually worked in the real world - including as a painter and decorator - before turning pro. Maybe that...

'Psycho' is a word rarely bandied about in football today. There is no place on the pitch for player contact, let alone the sort of hard, robust tackling that could earn a player such a nickname. But 25 years ago, things were different. Only when players really overstepped the mark were their names added to the referee's little black book. And Pat Van Den Hauwe had a reputation as one of the hardest players in the game. In a career encompassing some 401 Football League appearances for Birm...

Robin Friday was an exceptional footballer who should have played for England. He never did. Robin Friday was a brilliant player who could have played in the top flight. He never did.Why? Because Robin Friday was a man who would not bow down to anyone, who refused to take life seriously and who lived every moment as if it were his last. For anyone lucky enough to have seen him play, Robin Friday was up there with the greats. Take it from one who knows: 'There is no doubt in my mind...

Paul Lake was Manchester born, a City fan from birth. His footballing talent was spotted at a young age and, in 1983, he signed coveted schoolboy forms for City. Only a short time later he was handed the team captaincy.An international career soon beckoned and, after turning out for the England under-21 and B teams, he received a call-up to the England training camp for Italia '90. Earmarked as an England captain in the making, Paul became a target for top clubs like Manchester Uni...

John 'Budgie' Burridge is a true journeyman pro and a hero to football fans up and down the country. In a unique career spanning 30 years, Budgie played 771 league games for 29 teams, including Crystal Palace nad QPR (under Terry Venables at both clubs), Southampton (alongside a young Alan Shearer), Manchester City, Aston Villa (where he would play against Barcelona in the European Super Cup), Wolves, and in Scotland with Hibernian where he was a hero in their League Cup win of 1991. That ...

Ollie is more than just a football book - this is a story of personal grit and determination. Ian Holloway is one of football's most fascinating characters as well as being a highly respected football coach. He controversially moved from Plymouth Argyle, whilst seventh from top in the Championship and with a real chance of making the play-offs, to relegation-threatened Leicester City, a club in freefall who had already had four managers in the previous 12 months. Why did he really quit Arg...

Ever wondered how a transfer deal is done? What a manager says during his pre-match team-talk? What he screams from the techincal area? What goes on in training sesions, and on those long away trips? How a manager carefully builds a team, and what he does when the planning is disrupted by injuries? How he lifts a team after a crushing defeat, and keeps their feet on the ground after a resounding victory? How the man in charge handles the ever-present danger of getting sacked in the ultimat...

Forget Torres, Rooney, Beckham and the like. This is what football is really about. One man’s story of a career in the lower leagues.Chris Hargreaves has been a professional footballer for twenty years. Having started out as a youth team player at Everton he made his debut for Grimsby Town in 1989 and was earmarked as their first million pound sale.It never happened.Instead he went on to play for Scarborough, Hull City, West Brom, Hereford United, Plymouth Argyle, N...

On 11th May 2009, Ward left Kirkham prison in Lancashire, the one-time top-flight winger had spent four years at Her Majesty's pleasure for drugs offences. His crime was renting a property in which cocaine with a street value of ?645,000 was found during a police raid in May 2005. Ward never denied his involvement. Broke and with no permanent home at the time, he had accepted ?400 a week from an acquaintance to rent a house for an unspecified "stash". He was sent down for eight years. He h...