While perusing the selection of sports books in my local charity shop I was faced with the daunting choice of biographies/autobiographies concerning Dennis Wise, Ruud Gullit, Gianfranco Zola and Tony Cascarino. What didn’t strike me then but is glaringly obvious now is that all four have had a substantial Chelsea link, some illustrious others not quite so. I don’t know what drew me to the Cascarino book over and above the others, all of whom I would imagine have something worthy of reporting from their footballing lives. Perhaps it was the promotional snippets that were provided front and rear of the main text that swung it.

Tom Humphries of the Irish Times is quoted as saying; ‘I can only describe it as the best sports book I’ve ever read and among the most courageous ever written.’ Or for even greater hyperbole try this from The Guardian; ‘Compared with the standard-issue footballer’s autobiography, this is Tolstoy. What it says is astonishing. And if the potential reader is not yet hooked, Eamon Dunphy of The Times declares; Belongs with the finest sports books ever written.’ I was hooked. I grabbed the dog-eared paperback, paid my 99p and started reading immediately on the bus journey home.

Where to place this little footballing tale? For me it has both echoes of Roy Keane’s wonderfully told story from the high end of the illustrious football world, and of Gary Nelson’s compelling story of life at Torquay at the very bottom of the football league. I was also reminded of Paul Canoville’s ‘Black and Blue’, not for the racial component, but for the way domestic trials and tribulations make themselves felt on football fields. Cascarino is a story of great international achievement along side the daily grind of domestic football complete with ongoing and persistent injuries, flagging enthusiasms and domestic train wrecks. Whether I would put it alongside Tolstoy is another question, but it did make for compelling reading and it did have a good wallop of pathos, surely an essential ingredient for ant great piece of literature.

We have in the public consciousness this idea that all modern-day footballers are inundated with riches beyond our everyday comprehension, but Cascarino’s story puts pay to that notion straight away. I particularly liked the bit where he is tallying up his income over his 18 year professional career-over two million pounds, and then, even after considerable deductions for tax, divorce, maintenance payments, school fees and agents fees etc, he still should have had nearly a whopping one million pounds at his disposal. The truth of the matter was very different. By the end of his infamous playing career Cascarino was still forced to count every penny. By the end of the story the reader is forced to regard Cascarino more as one of us as opposed to one of them. His financial worries become very much the same as ours. Summing up his financial situation, Cascarino soberly explains it this way: And when you add it all up, or rather take it all away, nine hundred grand is not a lot of jam when spread over what it costs to live for eighteen years. And it certainly hasn’t insured my happy-ever afters. So you keep fighting the pain when you step out of bed each morning. And you keep taking the pills that rot your stomach and burn your arse. And you keep putting the dye in your hair and pretending you’re ten years younger. You survive. You do what you can. But on mornings like this when the rain is lashing the windscreen, it’s hard.’ P9

To get a hint of what makes Cascarino’s story different from all the other countless footballers autobiographies, one need only ponder this short passage between Cascarino and the journalist he hopes will set up the book deal. Cascarino tentatively broaches the subject:

I’ve been thinking of writing a book. What do you think? ‘There’s a lot of them about. It depends on what you’ve got to say and why you want to say it.

How do you mean?

The bookshops are heaving with ex-footballers tales. If you’re thinking of it in terms of a pension, forget it. Publishers are the only people making money from books these days, unless your name is Alex Ferguson or you’re married to a Spice Girl.

No, it wouldn’t be for the money.

So, why do you want to do it? Didn’t you just mention something about players with short memories?

Yeah, but it wouldn’t be that kind of book. I’m not interested in talking about the games I’ve played or the goals I’ve scored or the wankers I’ve met in the dressing rooms. I’m not interested in hurting anyone but myself.

And why would you want to hurt yourself?

Because I’ve made mistakes and hurt my two boys. Because a lot of things happened that they don’t know or understand. Because there’s more to football than the ninety minutes of a game and more to the people that play it than a 5 in the ratings. Because after eighteen years of being cheered and jeered and analysed, I would like people to know who I am.’ P35

As Cascarino’s story unfolds, including the childhood bullying and beatings at the hands of his father, the bedwetting and psychological traumas that followed, the fluctuating fortunes on the field and the fluctuating fortunes in his domestic affairs; all this reveals to the reader that all athletes, all sportsmen, all footballers are pained and flawed individuals like the rest of us mere mortals. They have the same guilts, the same family baggage and the same failed dreams that is the lot of all of us. This is patently obvious but all too often, in our rush to create sporting heroes and sporting villains, we obliterate the human and create a cardboard, comic cut-out. Cascarino’s story, more than anything, reminds us of the human dimension lurking behind every sporting headline.

The blockbuster revelation offered up in the story is best left under wraps for those who, like me last week, are not familiar with the Cascarino story. Let it suffice to say that Cascarino’s life, like all of our lives, is full of shadows and deceptions, some of our own making and others cruelly foist upon us. No, it is not Tolstoy, but it is a damn good read that is right up there with the best of them.