Outside the Top

When pundits and hacks bemoan "spoilt, overpaid footballers", it's easy to forget that most of the lads out there playing the game for a living aren't like Wayne Rooney, earning £100,000+ a week, living in a mansion and shagging call girls at any opportunity.

One of these was Chris Hargreaves, a man whose career over 20 years never made the top flight. Instead, he went from his hometown club Grimsby Town to Torquay United via Hull City, Hereford United, Plymouth   Argyle, Northampton Town, Brentford and Oxford United. Never staying at one club for too long, his story is that of the perennial journeyman footballer.

A tale of which we can read about, as Chris has put his story down in Where's Your Caravan?, an entertaining tale of life in the lower rungs of English pro football. In an interesting approach, he tells his tale inbetween descriptions of his life at the time of writing: recently retired, he's worried about providing for his family, like any other Joe on the street.

It appears that Hargreaves didn't employ a ghost writer for this, doing it totally on his own steam. It's an admirable approach, and to his credit, he's not too shabby. Though there's plenty of "to be fair to him" and "credit to him" peppering the pages, as well as plenty of periods where it seems every other paragraph ends with a "!", the prose flows very well.

However, I do have gripes that could have been avoided with a decent editor. Some basic errors such as confusing Oxford United and City and the years Manchester United won the Champions League should have been spotted, and the bits where Chris turns a little bit "Sun Reader" don't fit well with this reader. I also wonder if Mrs Hargreaves was given a copy of the manuscript before it went to press.

But all is made up with his honesty of life as a footballer, and Hargreaves is nothing but upfront with his own failings, admitting he may have partied a bit too hard in his younger days, and that some bad decisions effectively ended his chances of making the top flight.

Where the book works best is the periods where our narrator is uncertain of his future - especially once he gets past 30 - and there's the constant worry of getting a new contract - it's a life shared by many others and it's not surprising to read of many of Hargreaves' teammates who are absolutely disillusioned with the game. One, Paul McGregor, gives up football in the belief he'd have a better time being in a band.

As a footballer's autobiography, Hargreaves deserves praise for making a much better read than the likes of Rooney or Gerrard would ever knock together. He's a bit of a lad too much a times, but also has a nice line in self-deprecation. Best of all, he doesn't hold back on slagging off those he feels wronged him in the past: as a youngster on trial with Everton in the mid 1980s, he gets revenge on Adrian Heath and Pat van den Hauwe for acting up.

Certainly, he manages to give an insight into being a footballer that is just earning a living. For that, it's a decent read for anyone with an interest in the game.