Made in Sheffield: Neil Warnock - My Story

"Neil Warnock should be more popular. Sure, you wouldn’t want to watch his players lamping the ball up to the big man every week, but his moaning about referees is far from unique and, in an age when distinctiveness is at a premium among managers, Warnock stands out as one of very few with a personality rather than a checklist of banalities. When most football autobiographies seem as achingly dull as their authors’ TV interviews, then, Made in Sheffield ought to shine out as Warnock lays into his long list of adversaries. Made in Sheffield is not a bad book, however. The travails of being a lower-division journeyman as a player are evoked well, with strong period detail (playing for Aldershot after the IRA hit Guildford, he is evacuated from a cinema in a bomb scare). The bluster about referees is inevitable, but his critique of the system that produces them is surprisingly coherent. And there are hints of a hinterland in his love of stamp collecting and pottering about on his tractor (it’s a shame there’s no mention of the love poetry written to his wife). If Warnock’s book resembles his teams in its lack of refinement then it does so too in its effectiveness, as the story is a good one. It is another story, of course, how many people like the author enough to want to read it" -Reviewed by Pete Green From WSC 248 October 2007

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