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The long-awaited memoir from England, Chelsea and West Ham legend, Joe Cole
'I want to tell you about how football - English football - felt different for me. For much of my life it felt like I was in the wrong place, trying to play a different tune.'
One of the best players of his era, Joe Cole was the teenage prodigy in a West Ham team that challenged at the top of the Premier League and also had a scrap at the bottom. He was a star in Roman Abramovich's Chelsea that changed football forever as well as England's so-called Golden Generation.
He grew up playing football in the parks and cages of North London's estates, and Joe's ability, grit and hard work, took him to the very top. But Joe was often mistrusted by managers and out of step with the style of English football in the 2000s. The game was still suspicious of creative footballers it considered luxury players - the kind it could regard as an indulgence.
With honesty and an eye for the absurdities of football, Joe takes us inside the dressing room to reveal it all. From his days at the prestigious Lilleshall School of Excellence and rising through the ranks at West Ham, to signing for Chelsea and winning it all under José Mourinho and Carlo Ancelotti, before being discarded by his boyhood club after a remarkable 7-year spell.
He offers an insider account of a fascinating era in modern football, playing alongside the likes of Lampard and Drogba, Beckham and Rooney, Gerrard and Di Canio. He talks about his experiences playing for England, his extraordinary goal against Sweden at the 2006 World Cup, and the reality of being managed by Sven-Göran Eriksson and Fabio Capello.
It was a remarkable career. Then came the tumultuous end, as Joe battled severe injuries and his family suffered loss. He takes us on the journey of a great player coming to terms with his waning powers as his body began to fail him and football moved on. Football had given him everything. But then, it was over. Beyond football, Joe writes movingly of his family, his father's brushes with the law, and how an inner-city working class family adjusted to the fame of their son.
Candid, raw and unforgettable, this is Joe Cole in his own words for the very first time, a must-read for any football fan.
