Fast bucks don't make good books

Jaap Stam's book seems to have caused a bit of a fuss at Old Trafford with its ''revelations'' that Sir Alex Ferguson held talks with the player before his club PSV Eindhoven had given clearance and because of comments about playing colleagues. It appears that Stam chose David Beckham's well-documented intellectual capacity as the means of weaving his most illustrious team-mate into his narrative, but, as the front page of the paper which serialised the book contained so many asterisks as to be almost indecipherable, I'm still not clear what he is supposed to have said about Gary and Phil Neville.

At this point, for United to take umbrage at the tapping story would be akin to Captain Mainwaring saying, "Don't give them your name, Pike". It's no secret that these approaches are made.

But the story of the story does illustrate the continuing difficulty football experiences when those in the game venture into the media. The standard player's contract states that, subject to the overriding obligation not to bring the game or his club into disrepute, he may contribute to the public media in a responsible manner. The players fought long and hard to obtain this right, because previously there was a blanket ban on speaking out publicly. The right, with its attendant caveats, can only be exercised provided the player takes all reasonable steps to put the club on notice beforehand.

I have no knowledge of the matter whatsoever, but can only conclude that in this case Stam may not have made Sir Alex, who has occasionally been somewhat sensitive about these things, fully aware of his intentions in advance.

As, directly or indirectly, supporters contribute towards the riches football people enjoy, should they be entitled to read it how it is? By and large, yes, for, subject to the defamation laws, footballers should be able to give honest and constructive accounts of their lives and the issues of their times.

Nobody wants to see the public conned by a mass of ghosted cuttings jobs which are very much of an anaemic muchness, and, when I worked in football, it was only in the most extreme of kiss-and-tell cases that I agreed to disciplinary action being commenced when somebody complained.

Where a laissez-faire policy falls down is in team situations like the case of Glenn Hoddle, whose World Cup book laid himself open to charges of profiting at the expense of team confidentiality. Many Liverpool fans would love to hear Robbie Fowler's account of his bust-up with Phil Thompson, but there is no way that can happen. No player can divulge the secrets of the training ground without wrecking team spirit.

If he were to be seen to be doing so for money, the damage would be even greater, and, whilst there may be one or two football men who hold literary ambitions or who genuinely feel the need to set the record straight, the pound signs usually blink faster than the cursor on the keyboard, particularly when there is the possibility of a serialisation deal.

Nowadays, of course, these commercial imperatives, if such they are, mean that agents are seeking book deals almost as soon as a player is given a squad number and, avid reader though I am, without being too superior about it I prefer my subject to have actually had some semblance of a life before I am invited to purchase his collaborator's account of it.

Until they have gained the perspective that only experience can give them, I am only really interested in their lives to the extent of what makes them special, how they develop their particular and enviable ability.

I no longer have it to hand, but remember as a child the excitement of opening a gift-wrapped Steppes To Wembley, the autobiography of the German ex-prisoner-of-war Bert Trautmann who either did or did not, depending on which medical account you believe, break his neck playing for Manchester City in their Cup Final victory over Birmingham City in 1956. Now there was a life: Hitler, war, capture, a strange land and Manchester City.

Eamon Dunphy's Only a Game? demonstrated that, for those plying their football trade outside the top flight, life was anything but a bed of roses. Dunphy's diary was brutal, heart-rending, and did the game a service in lifting the veil on the harshness and insecurity that afflicted so many practitioners, even in a supposed golden age.

You would think that, with all the television coverage now, we would be better informed. But we do still need an enlightened written perspective to complement all the rapid information fired at us. If that comes in the form of the player's retrospective, so much the better. But not when his hair's still wet.

Grahamkelly@btinternet.com