My Life as a Basket Case

Published today, Jonny Wilkinson's stunning autobiography, My Life as a Basket Case:

"I...lower myself into the water until I'm completely submerged, and then I let out a scream of total frustration. I come up for air and then submerge myself again and scream again. No words, just pure desperation. I carry on screaming as long and as loud as I can and I don't stop until I am hoarse. I cannot find any other way of dealing with this non-stop barrage of thoughts and negativity."

"I am so desperate to get it right, so driven by the annoyance and fear of not getting it perfect, that the anger I feel inside begins to express itself physically. I don't know what it is, but my frustration is so intense I start shouting at the walls, screaming obscenities."

"When my left foot lets me down, I stamp down hard on it. At one stage, I am so livid that, before I know it, I am sinking my teeth into my hand, trying to bite right through the skin between my thumb and index finger."

"I have visualised perfect outcomes of every kick, but when my practice doesn't match that, I have to take it out on something, so I start tearing my T-shirt apart. This becomes habitual; I start getting through way too many T-shirts."

Available at all good book shops and psychiatric clinics.

Dog days

One of the many positives about lazing around by a pool for 2 weeks was the opportunity to catch up on a spot of reading and one of the many books I devoured was Brian Moore’s “Beware of the Dog”.

It was a book I’d been meaning to read for some time and it certainly didn’t disappoint. Not a comfortable read by any means, the opening chapter detailing his abuse as a child being particularly difficult, but it’s nevertheless a compelling and brutally honest autobiography written in Moore’s inimitable and combative style.

I had previously read his first autobiography (written with Stephen Jones) in the mid 90s and I recall that book as being far more entertaining than your typical sportsman’s biography. “Beware of the Dog,”  however, takes the genre to another level, detailing Moore’s battles with his inner demons as much as those with his on-filed opponents – the daily conflict with his “Gollum” alter-ego being of particular fascination (if a little bizarre).

If anything the book comes across almost as a means of therapy, as if the process of writing allowed Moore to come to terms with his past and deal with his character flaws. I may be over-stating things here, but I’d go as far as to say that it is as brutal a self-assessment as I’ve ever read.

Hardly surprising then that the book won the William Hill Sportsbook of the year in 2010. Much like Marmite, Brian Moore tends to divide opinion but, love him or hate him, you really must read this book.