Some parts seem to repeat two or three times, Not for Celtic fans
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
While on my Dad's side of the family we are Carlisle United fans on my mums side they tend to favour Glasgow Rangers. In fact from a young age I was brought up as both a fan of Carlisle and Rangers but as the years have gone by and I got older Carlisle came to the fore with Rangers becoming a club I looked out for. Over the years though there have been some truly memorable players pulled on the Blue jersey at Ibrox and one of my favourites has to be Arthur Numan. He signed for Rangers for 4.5 million in 1998 after the World Cup and played for the club over 5 years.
While Numan himself isn't a universally known superstars like David Beckham or Steven Gerrard the chance to read his autobiography seemed like one I couldn't pass up. The book itself details his career from humble beginnings with his local team in Holland, through his moves to Haarlem, Twente, PSV and finally to Ibrox. He also goes into detail about his international career and unlike some autobiographies I have read he isn't afraid to voice his opinions of people he has worked with and come across throughout his career.
While Numan will not have the mass appeal he makes up for it by writing a very well thought out map of his life in professional football. Now retired it seems the perfect time for him to look back and reflect on a very successful club career. The writing style is very personal and really reflects Arthur's thoughts on certain subjects. My only complaint with his writing and really the book as a whole was the amount of padding their seemed to be. At 232 pages long it isn't the longest book but there are a few paragraphs that he seems to bring up in different sections of the book.
It's split into 18 paragraphs and some of the stories are repeated 2 or 3 times, giving the book a bit more length than it may otherwise of had. There is also a foreword by former Rangers and Holland manager Dick Advocaat, a man who Numan seems to have had a lot of time and respect for during his time as a player. He also gives quite open and honest opinions on other players such as Barry Ferguson, Lorenzo Amoruso and Frank De Boer. On top of all those he also speaks about other managers he has worked under and Guus Hiddink in particular comes in for a bit of criticism from Numan.
I found that Numan's book has been one of the easiest to read of the Football autobiographies I have read recently. It's written in quite a simple way that lets the reader become quite engrossed in Numan's opinions and life. He won't sell as many books as the big name players but it is a book that anyone with an affinity to Glasgow Rangers should read. There are part of his book that suggest Numan was unfortunate not to reach a major competition at International level and the story he tells of Holland's penalty woes seem incredibly similar to England's.
He gives quite a frank account of his life and doesn't really pull any punches, laying a number of details of his life from Childhood to Rangers legend on the line. He covers his sacrifices as a youngster to make sure he made it as a professional footballer. While the majority of us believe that a lot of footballers have it easy a few of them seem to really appreciate the fact they get to do something they love. Numan seems to be one of those guys and while he may at times during this book appear arrogant it shows he had real believe in himself as a player and quite rightly so.
Overall the Arthur Numan story isn't going to have mass marketing appeal, far from it. What it does have is a remarkably honest opinion from someone who realises; he was good enough and more importantly lucky enough to have played at the top of the sport. He doesn't seem to take things for granted and talks quite lovingly about his time in Scotland and his new found passion for the Country. It's a book for not only Rangers fans but also Football fans in general will really enjoy this one. Of course Celtic fans will probably want to stay clear.
