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gerbieA biography can be interesting to read. Then again the vast majority of the biographies about football players isn't. They are not written to give you any information, but are written because the player is hot and therefore it is a certainty that money will be made. I don't like to read them. The stories are boring and so are the modern football players.
I make an exception for Jan Molby. I saw his debut for Ajax in the early eighties. It was a coincidence, as I did not live really close to Amsterdam then, but once a year (on average) we tried to see Ajax. The Danish midfield player turned out to be completely different from the other Danish players Ajax used to have in the late seventies and early eighties. After two reasonable successful years Molby moved to Liverpool, reason enough for me to call that team my favorite in England.
The good thing about Molby is that he dares to be different. He inspired me to dedicate a complete column to him, when I still had a monthly column in the fanzine I write for. He had a great sense of humour. He gambled, not just on the horses (though he did do that as well), but also on which suitcase will be the first one to appear at the airport. Or on the colour of the next traffic light. He drank. As most players in Britain tend to do. But he was caught driving once and ended up in jail. In the meantime he was a player of one of the best teams Liverpool has had in their history.
The book disappointed me a bit, as it still is one of the standard books about football players that should be named 'the story so far'. But some of the incidents at Ajax and Liverpool were unknown to me and it gives a bit of an insight. His career at Anfield went a bit passed me, as in those years television and media weren't paying as much attention as they do now. There wasn't even 10% of the tv channels anyway then.
His injuries are all there, all the reasons why he only became a good player at top level, getting caps for Denmark, but never a indisputable regular. The start of his career as a player-manager gets plenty of attention, his last club is there as well. Brilliant book for fans (i.e. me), good book for die hards (I guess that's me as well), but not for the rest of the world (which is probably 99% of the football fans and 100% of those who aren't interested in the sport).
I make an exception for Jan Molby. I saw his debut for Ajax in the early eighties. It was a coincidence, as I did not live really close to Amsterdam then, but once a year (on average) we tried to see Ajax. The Danish midfield player turned out to be completely different from the other Danish players Ajax used to have in the late seventies and early eighties. After two reasonable successful years Molby moved to Liverpool, reason enough for me to call that team my favorite in England.
The good thing about Molby is that he dares to be different. He inspired me to dedicate a complete column to him, when I still had a monthly column in the fanzine I write for. He had a great sense of humour. He gambled, not just on the horses (though he did do that as well), but also on which suitcase will be the first one to appear at the airport. Or on the colour of the next traffic light. He drank. As most players in Britain tend to do. But he was caught driving once and ended up in jail. In the meantime he was a player of one of the best teams Liverpool has had in their history.
The book disappointed me a bit, as it still is one of the standard books about football players that should be named 'the story so far'. But some of the incidents at Ajax and Liverpool were unknown to me and it gives a bit of an insight. His career at Anfield went a bit passed me, as in those years television and media weren't paying as much attention as they do now. There wasn't even 10% of the tv channels anyway then.
His injuries are all there, all the reasons why he only became a good player at top level, getting caps for Denmark, but never a indisputable regular. The start of his career as a player-manager gets plenty of attention, his last club is there as well. Brilliant book for fans (i.e. me), good book for die hards (I guess that's me as well), but not for the rest of the world (which is probably 99% of the football fans and 100% of those who aren't interested in the sport).
