How Not to Be a Professional Footballer

How Not to Be a Professional Footballer
Paul Merson

An anecdote-driven narrative of the classic footballer's ‘DOs and DO NOTs’ from the ever-popular Arsenal legend and football pundit Paul Merson, aka ‘The Merse’.

When it comes to advice on the pitfalls of life as a professional footballer, Paul Merson can pretty much write the manual. In fact, that's exactly what he's done in this hilarious new book which manages to be simultaneously poignant and gloriously funny.

Merson was a prodigiously talented footballer in the 80s and 90s, gracing the upper echelons of the game - and the tabloid front pages - with his breathtakingly skills and larger-than-life off-field persona.

His much-publicised battles with gambling, drug and alcohol addiction are behind him now, and football fans continue to be drawn to his sharp footballing brain and playful antics on SkySports cult results show Soccer Saturday.

The book delights and entertains with a treasure chest of terrific anecdotes from a man who has never lost his love of football and his inimitable joie de vivre through a 25-year association with the Beautiful Game.

The DO NOTs include:

DO NOT adopt 'Champagne' Charlie Nicholas as your mentor

DO NOT share a house with Gazza

DO NOT regularly place £30,000 bets at the bookie's

DO NOT get so drunk that you can't remember the 90 minutes of football you just played in

DO NOT manage Walsall (at any cost)

How Not to be a Professional Footballer is a hugely entertaining, moving and laugh-out-loud funny story.

HOW NOT TO BE A

PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALLER

PAUL MERSON

with Matt Allen

Contents

Title Page (#u0119fb13-1152-5b3d-9a64-7170185f0b3c)

A Note from the Author

Introduction - Last Knockings

Lesson 1 - Do Not Go to Stringfellows with Charlie Nicholas

Lesson 2 - Do Not Drink 15 - Pints and Crash Your Car into a Lamppost

Lesson 3 - Do Not Cross Gorgeous George

Lesson 4 - Do Not Shit on David Seaman’s Balcony

Lesson 5 - Do Not Bet on Scotland on Your Wedding Day

Lesson 6 - Do Not Wax the Dolphin before an England Game

Lesson 7 - Do Not Go to a Detroit Gay Bar with Paul Ince and John Barnes

Lesson 8 - Do Not Wander Round Nightclubs Trying to Score Coke

Lesson 9 - Do Not Get So Paranoid That You Can’t Leave the House

Lesson 10 - Do Not Ask for a Potato Peeler in Rehab

Lesson 11 - Do Not Miss a Penalty in the UEFA Cup

Lesson 12 - Do Not Leave Arsenal with Your William Hill Head On

Lesson 13 - Do Not Let Gazza Move into Your House

Lesson 14 - Do Not Ask Eileen Drewery for a Short Back and Sides

Lesson 15 - Do Not Give Gazza the Keys to the Team Bus

Lesson 16 - Do Not Tell Harry Redknapp You’re Going into Rehab only to Bunk off to Barbados for a Jolly

Lesson 17 - Do Not Smile at a Sex Addict Called Candy

Lesson 18 - Do Not Try to Outwit Jeff Stelling

Lesson 19 - Do Not Admit Defeat (the Day-to-Day Battle)

Appendix

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

A Note from the Author

One thing before we crack on: an apology. You’ll only hear it from me on this one page because I’ve read too many life stories and books where people are constantly tripping over themselves to make up for all the bad things they’ve done. Page after page after page of it, and after a while it just doesn’t ring true.

The thing is, you’re going to read a lot of bad things over the following pages, and some of it is pretty shocking. The last thing you need to get through is a million and one apologies as well, so you’re only reading the one, but it’s sincere. For the terrible things I’ve done and to some of the people I’ve hurt and let down: I’m sorry.

Introduction

Last Knockings

I’ll tell you how bad it got for me. At my lowest point as a gambler, the night before an away game for Aston Villa, I sat on the edge of my bed in a Bolton hotel room and thought about breaking my own fingers. I was that desperate not to pick up the phone and dial in another bet. At that time in my life I’d blown around seven million quid with the bookies and I wanted so badly to stop, but I just couldn’t – the next punt was always too tempting. Slamming my own fingers in a door or breaking them one by one with a hammer was the only way I knew of ending the cycle. It was insanity really. The walls had started closing in on me.