Quote from: "dave.woodhall"
Player autobiographies are usually done to a formula - young lad growing up, good at football, gets taken on by a league club, progresses through the youth set-up, reserves, makes the first team and on to greater glories. There's a few 'revealing insights' about the legendary figures they came across and sometimes a chance to put their side of a controversial story or two.
Or occasionally you come across one that takes a different approach and ends up being surprisingly readable - The Secret Life of Tony Cascarino and Left foot Forward by Garry Nelson, for example.
No prizes for guessing which direction this one takes. Young lad, good at football, gets taken on....... There's just one thing that makes it a bit different to the usual formulaic blandness - they're written about big star names. This book is about a player who's already been forgotten. He spent most of his career with big clubs, and had a fair bit of success, but will Forest, Spurs and Leeds fans remember his name now? Would we, if he hadn't been such a slimy, vile reptile?
Hodge's mark in history is to have been in the right place at the right time, once. He took part in the most infamous England game of all time and that, really, is it. Nothing he ever did was big enough to base a book around. He glosses over his Villa career, and tries to re-write history. In Hodgeworld there were no constant demands to move, he didn't boast about joining a big club when he finally skulked out of Villa Park, no gloating at leaving the sinking ship.
But maybe that was a different Hodge to the one I remember. According to The Man With, the Villa he played for has a Holt End, a Bodymore Heath training ground and a former player named Chris Nichol. Typos are one thing; such easily checkable errors show how careless and slipshod this tome is.
And it's not just Villa he shafted - there's one team in Sweden whose name Hodge can't remember but agreed to join, only to change his mind the day before he was due to sign for them. But they were based in a small town, so that's acceptable.
This book could be worth reading - if it was written with a spark of flair or originality. But there's nothing of the sort. Hodge talks about Brian Clough, but there's nothing new to be said on the subject. He was involved in two World Cup campaigns, and for all the insight he delivers they might as well have been pre-season friendlies.
Hodge, like many of his fellow players, seems to have drifted through football not realising how lucky he was or how interesting his story could have been. The Man with Maradona's Shirt could be re-titled Diary of a Nobody.
Orion books, £18.99.
Quite possibly, the best book review I have read in a long time.
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