Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Book Review: Frank Lampard: The Biography
I made the mistake of buying two books at Heathrow to read on the plane. Chris Patten's Not Quite the Diplomat and a biography of Frank Lampard. Naturally I decided to read the Lampard book first (!) but I have to say it's truly the worst football biography I have ever read. It's a shame because I have been a great fan of Lamps ever since I saw him play at the age of 17 in the FA Youth Cup Final at Upton Park in 1996. Some West Ham fans couldn;t get over the fact he was his father's son and felt he was helped by nepotism but it was clear he was a huge talent right from the day he made his debut. I cannot understand the poeple who boo him whenever he returns to Upton Park. We should be proud that he has gone on to be one of the best players in the world. But back to the book. It seems to be a collection of randomly put together paragraphs which bear little relevance to each other. The typeface is so large and the line-spacing so huge that the editor clearly struggled to get the book over 200 pages. So should you be tempted to buy Mr Douglas Thompson's fucking awful mediocre attempt at a football biography I'd advise you to spend your £17.99 on something else. I wonder if Chris Patten's tome will be any better...
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3 comments:
The best - that is, most intriguing and thought-provoking - footballer auto/biographies I've read are those by or about Danny Blanchflower, Eamon Dunphy, Tony Cascarino, Garrincha and Roy Keane.
Though I can also dip into the sainted Glenn's books every so often too, more for the reminders than the prose style...
Helped write a section of Shearer's, but wouldn't really try to claim it was anything other than your runnest-of-the-millest blandathon (though no creosote involved...)
And this is why only trash should be bought at airports. You'll never be disappointed by a good Jilly Cooper
Stan Collymore's book is worth a read. Slags off a lot of former colleagues. Marvellous.
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