It’s Episode 18 and its Johan Cruyff’s My Turn for the Ademola Bookmen Podcast. Join us as we take a trip through the life of arguably the best influential person in the history of football. Cruyff won the European Cup three times with Ajax, the team whose stadium he grew up across the road from. He also invented the modern game of football with th…

It’s Episode 17 and we are reading Boyeln Boy by Mr. West Ham himself, Mark Noble. Having been released in November 2022, this is by far the most recent book we have reviewed. Noble famously played for only one club (if you don’t count the time he spent at Arsenal, Hull, and Ipswich) but this book is perhaps most memorable for the revelation that h…

Episode 16 focuses on the life and times of that most overlooked of the Class of 92, Robbie Savage. Less famous for his time as an underweight and underscoring striker in the Man United Youth Team than he is for his displays as an all tackling, all bullshiting midfielder for Leicester, Birmingham and Blackburn and others, Robbie is by his own admis…

With a career in English football going all the way back to 1967, Neil Warnock has traveled to every corner of the country. In his 2013 book, The Gaffer – The Trials and Tribulations of a Football Manager, Warnock outlines his view of the football world. It’s an old fashion view, in many respects, but a romantic one too. Less an autobiography than …

James Milner's first appearance in the Premier League was as a substitute for Manchester United's new technical director, Jason Wilcox. He is that bloody old. 634 Premier League appearances later, he may soon takeover Gareth Barry as the player with the most appearances of all. In 2019, he wrote Ask a Footballer, which is not so much an autobiograp…

In Episode 13 we read about the life and times of the chicken licking, Marseilles fan kicking, Patrice Evra. Born in Senegal, one of 24 children (not a typo), and raised in the meanest streets of Paris, Evra won five Premier Leagues with Manchester United and two Scudettos with Juventus. He also has the less enviable accolade of being the player wh…

Arsene Who? In Episode 12, we review our first book by a manager. He may have been a stranger when he arrived in England in 1996 but he is no stranger now. In his 22 years with Arsenal, Wenger went from nobody to managerial royalty, with a turn towards the end as the most hated man in North London, or at least so it seemed at the time. Is this the …

Who better to follow Diego Maradona than the Aldershot Hotshot Steve Claridge? Probably most famous for scoring the goal that got Leicester up to the Premier League in 1996, football's fruit and veg man played for 24 (by our count) clubs in a career that spanned four decades. Throughout that period, he traveled around in battered cars as he commute…

Episode 10, the magic and mayhem of Diego Maradona. In this episode, Al and Johnny slalom their way around flailing defenders and through the life of arguably the best and certainly the greatest player of them all. Written in 2004, El Diego examines the life of a boy from Villa Fiorito in Buenos Aires who conquered Italy with lowly Napoli and the w…

In Episode 9, we take a tour on an open top bin lorry with Neville Southall's The Binman Chronicles back to a time when Everton FC were riding high at the top of the English football pyramid. In a career that brought him such highs as two league wins, Southall also experienced the lows (or at least, the lowers) of playing in the basement of English…

In Episode 8, Al and Johnny visit the first literary work by Peter Crouch, the all volleying, sometime header-ing, everyman of English football. At 6ft 7 inches, Crouch is the 3rd tallest player ever to play in the Premier League and while he ended his career as a universally liked person, his road to stardom started with regular abuse from fans, i…

In the introduction to his Back from the Brink, his 2006 autobiography, Paul McGrath is described by his ghostwriter, Vincent Hogan, as "undeniably Ireland's best loved sportsman". In Episode 7 of the Ademola Bookmen Podcast, Al and Johnny wrestle with what must surely be one of the heaviest books in the football canon. The book, which won both the…

With Ademola Lookman plotting a course to the final of the African Cup of Nations where he may (fingers crossed) find himself taking on Ivory Coast, the Ademola Bookmen Podcast bring you our AFCON special. Didier Drogba, the greatest Chelsea player of all time according to Chelsea fans. A scorer of great goals - that one against Liverpool in 2006 c…

In 2016, as his playing career was coming to an end, Joey Barton published his autobiography. Titled "No Nonsense", the book takes us through Joey's turbulent childhood in Liverpool; being spurned by Everton, the team he supported as a boy; and through his professional career with teams including Manchester City, Newcastle United, and Marseilles. B…

South London icon and Arsenal/Palace legend Ian Wright's book has such heft that it took us two episodes to get through it. Join Al and Johnny as they wander with Ian through the streets of Brockley, the gates of Chelmsford prison, all the way up the steps of Wembley Stadium, and right into the hearts of (many although not all) football fans everyw…

South London icon and Arsenal/Palace legend Ian Wright's book has such heft that it took us two episodes to get through it. Join Al and Johnny as they wander with Ian through the streets of Brockley, the gates of Chelmsford prison, all the way up the steps of Wembley Stadium, and right into the hearts of (many although not all) football fans everyw…

"It was a fairytale and I was Zlatan". These are the final words of the Zlatan book, described by the Guardian as the greatest ever football biography. Is this just more Zlatan hubris or is I am Zlatan the literary equivalent of an overhead kick from 50 yards out? Listen to hosts Al and Johnny as they wrestle with this most pertinent of questions r…

In the first episode of the Ademola Bookmen Podcast, hosts Al Bond and Johnny Coughlan tackle the literary heft of the Jamie Vardy story. The skittle vodka swilling goal machine takes us from the lows of the English 8th tier to the highest of highs, the top of the Premier League. Is it worth a read? Listen & find out.…