I AM SAM by James Durose-Rayner
High-flying sports-media mogul and David Beckham doppelgänger, Mr. Arsenal is living every football fan’s dream: he’s loaded, has his pick of the ladies and drives a flashy sports car. And to make his life even sweeter, he’s been chosen to work on coverage for the 2014 World Cup.
Tasked with producing a short documentary, Mr. Arsenal, stumbles upon footage from Mexico 1970 and a high-profile spat between television pundit and Manchester City coach Malcolm Allison and Tottenham Hotspur player and captain Alan Mullery.
On further investigation, he unearths a reference to a half-forgotten player named only as ‘Sammy’ and referred to as the one who was ‘left behind’. Determined to discover the man behind the name, Mr. Arsenal quickly becomes obsessed with the tragic story of this once top-flight footballer whose brilliance has been all but lost in the annals of sporting history; a player who was once one of the highest paid and most successful players in Britain: Jon Sammels.
As Mr Arsenal revisits Sammels’ professional heyday in the late 1960s and early 70s, the impact on his own life is extraordinary.
Read our review here: I AM SAM by Ja (footballbookreviews.com)
(Publisher: Clink Street Publishing. February 2015. Paperback: 498 pages)