A Life in Football: My Autobiography

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Wright loves the role that he has been given in Okwonga’s storytelling. “The great thing about the book,” he says, “is it’s kind of me talking to my younger self. And Jerome doesn’t always respond to my character, despite all the help I’m trying to give. I like that. Because part of being a mentor is not pressuring people but giving them some space. That’s the kind of advice I would have wanted.” We meet as racism in football is, once more, dominating the headlines, after a fan was accused of making monkey noises at the Manchester United player Fred during the recent Manchester derby. Wright is clear that racism at football matches needs to be dealt with more vigorously. “Everybody talks about education and we do need to educate young people, but when you look at the people who are racially abusing players now, they’re older people, so education is wasted on those people. Those people need to be punished severely so it can be a deterrent, so people will see that when you racially abuse someone in this ground you are out for life.”

Ian will also frankly discuss how retirement affects footballers, why George Graham deserves a statue, social media, why music matters, breaking Arsenal's goal-scoring record, racism, the unadulterated joy of playing alongside Dennis Bergkamp and, of course, what he thinks of Tottenham. Rocastle developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma and died in 2001, aged 33. It was the first major bereavement Wright had experienced, and it devastated him. “I’ve not come to terms with his passing,” he says. “If we were in a place where the lighting was darker, you know, I can easily snap off into pure emotion. I can’t even speak. I think about him every day.” Rocastle’s wife and daughters are like family to Wright. “I will never come to terms with it because I’ll always feel that, at 33, one of the loveliest men in the world was taken and it was just so difficult to deal with,” he says. “My biggest arguments now are with God. Sometimes I believe, sometimes I don’t. I just ask him: ‘Why?’” A really enjoyable, frank, amusing, and enlightening autobiography. What inner strength to get from his beginning to his current status. I’ve always tried to say: this is the way I think you might go,” he says, “without telling them: go this way. I don’t want them to make mistakes I made. When we wrote the bits where I’m speaking to Jerome in the book, I was thinking: ‘Jesus Christ, if I could have just had that person there… ’”I never had the kind of tactile love my missus and I give to my girls now,” he says. “Being hugged wasn’t something I remember happening a lot,” he says. Although he loved Maurice, he never bonded with his other siblings. His stepfather – who he has described as a weed-smoking, gambling womaniser – was cruel and neglectful to Wright (“ He was rough with my mum and rough with all of us kids,” he told the Players’ Tribune), while his mother rarely showed him support or affection. Yet there was one adult who did take an interest in Wright’s early development: his teacher, Sydney Pigden. For a time, he was the only positive male role model in Wright’s life and would tell Wright to overcome the “red mist” by counting to 10 (“It always made me smile because, when I was young, it never worked”). Striking Out will be published by Scholastic UK in September 2021 and is aimed at children aged nine-plus. This book is so riddled with inconsistencies and confusing that it turns what should be an enjoyable read into a jumbled, muddled mess.

For graphic design enthusiasts, compulsive Wikipedia readers and those looking for the sort of gift they buy for someone else and wind up keeping for themselves, this book will change the way you see the world and your place in it.We’ve adapted details from the stories of several players,” Okwonga says, “Raheem, Jadon Sancho, Mason Mount. Like Jerome, for example, Jadon Sancho left home for a boarding school on a football scholarship. And then Raheem will talk about the importance of certain mentors in his life.” I can’t take people who just sit there pointing their finger [saying] Héctor Bellerín shouldn’t be saying that,” says Wright. “Football and politics are always linked. Why shouldn’t he, somebody who is affected by the government, have an opinion on Boris? Okwonga, born in London to Uganda parents and now based in Germany, went to Eton aged 13 on a scholarship and then trained as a lawyer at Oxford University before becoming a full-time writer and journalist. Not many years later, Match of the Day viewers would bear witness to the consequences of that abuse. The scared, anxious boy became, in part, an angry if successful footballer. In a montage, we see Wright squaring up to Chelsea’s Dennis Wise, scything down defenders and – oh dearie me – getting restrained by a teammate to stop him thumping the ref.