Come in Number 37 Book

It's hard to feel sorry for top-flight professional footballers--something to do with earning more in a couple of weeks than most people do in a year--but Rob Lee's tribulations at Newcastle brought him widespread sympathy. Captain of his club and in the early stages of what looked to be a promising international career, Lee suddenly found himself on the sidelines, without even a squad number to call his own. When you have carried the responsibilities of captain with huge pride and tried to represent the club you love with dignity and then it's taken off you, it makes you sick. Gullit didn't even have the guts to tell me first.... The popular thinking was that this "injustice" was perpetrated at the whim of one man--tabloid whipping boy and soon-to-be-departing coach Ruud "the Dutchman" Gullit--and not surprisingly this theory gets plenty of support in Lee's analysis of a period in Newcastle's history that had sports editors licking their lips. It's a cautionary tale of how managing personal relationships within a club--and how they are perceived by the media--can make or break careers. Lee weathered the stormy reigns of Dalglish, Keegan and Gullit to become a key part of Bobby Robson's set-up at St James' Park, and tells his own version of events in a lively, indiscreet manner which makes for enjoyable reading. The "backdrop" to the offstage machinations--Newcastle's charge into the Premiership and Europe, with the likes of Ginola, Beardsley, Shearer and Asprilla in the vanguard of several fine, entertaining sides--will warm the cockles of Toon fans. The rest of us can revel in the always-compelling spectacle of egos colliding. --Alex HankinRead More