Secret Footballer

[sandman]

I'm sure with book deals and money that comes his way for writing TSF that he was really going to admit to being the player behind it to some bloke in the queue for the papers.

[YateleyRoyal]

I'm sure with book deals and money that comes his way for writing TSF that he was really going to admit to being the player behind it to some bloke in the queue for the papers.

But he looked him in the eye.

[tidus_mi2]

I'm sure with book deals and money that comes his way for writing TSF that he was really going to admit to being the player behind it to some bloke in the queue for the papers.

But he looked him in the eye.

Was it the look of love?

[Forbury Lion]

If you bump into him again, can you pass on some advice re: punditry.

1. Avoid wearing a stripy shirt or white on the tv, stripes causes inference and white is dull.
2. Remember the camera is always on you, So when Leroy Rosenior is speaking look at him. Your eyes sometimes roll all over the place.

[Silver Fox]

TBF that's what my eyes do when Leroy is speaking

[Ian Royal]

If you bump into him again, can you pass on some advice re: punditry.

1. Avoid wearing a stripy shirt or white on the tv, stripes causes inference and white is dull.
2. Remember the camera is always on you, So when Leroy Rosenior is speaking look at him. Your eyes sometimes roll all over the place.

3. Call Claridge a stupid pc*nt.

[Forbury Lion]

I'd love it if the person doing the football subtitles just typed "blah blah blah" when they gave their views.

[PieEater]

He said he didn't write the Secret Footballer, he didn't say he wasn't the person behind it (and some one else wrote it for him)

[Forbury Lion]

Should have asked him if he knew who the secret footballer was.

[Armadillo Roadkill]

I'm begging to think there's more than one.

[GH Royal]

Still think it's him, he matches up with it more than anyone else. Maybe one day we'll know for sure, until then I think part of the fun is the speculation

[JSK]

For what it's worth: Brian McDermott all but confirmed that Dave is TSF via a series of not-so-veiled responses when asked this evening.

[Ouroboros]

In your face, Dave,

[RoyallyFcuked]

I'm not quite sure how the identity of TSF has been kept secret for so long.

For example, I remember reading a bit in the book where, during a game, TSF thought a referee (I think it was Rob Styles) was favouring the bigger team (not for the first time he also says)

After TSF questions a decision the ref says something like "Have you ever refereed before?" to which TSF responds "No, have you ever played football before? The ref replies "Not as badly as you", then TSF goes on about it being a great comeback and how he's used it on refs since.

My question is, why doesnt someone involved in football who knows Rob Styles personally (and who has obviously read the book), go to him and say "Rob, which player did you have this arguement with?" and show him the text.

Its not like he's going to have this exact conversation with many other players is it? Surely he would remember?!

[Westwood52]

Good thread starter

He is the secret footballer though

Not sure-don't think he has had the number of Clubs/Money referred to in the books.

Bullard perhaps ?

[From Despair To Where?]

Good thread starter

He is the secret footballer though

Not sure-don't think he has had the number of Clubs/Money referred to in the books.

Bullard perhaps ?

Jimmy Bullard is a village idiot, absolutely no way he is TSF.

Kitson has had 6 clubs, Cambridge, Reading, Stoke, Portmouth, Sheffield Utd and Oxford. There's loads in the books that correspond to verifiable events at Reading, Stoke and Portsmouth. As for the money, there's no reason to believe he wasn't on £30,000-40,000 a week at Stoke and it's also very much in the public domain that he was on £20,000 a week at Portsmouth.

He talks about joining a club at short notice out of the blue under exceptional circumstances which absolutely ties in with his move to Sheffield utd in the wake of Ched Evans' conviction.

As the Secret Footballer, there's going to be an element of smoke and mirrors whilst he was still playing to mask his identity so some of the tales may be apocryphal but there's just far too much that ties in with definite events and periods in his career to convince me that TSF is anyone but Kitson

[Dawn]

http://www.thesecretfootballer.com/articles/the-secret-footballer/20771/has-america-really-fallen-in-love-with-the-beautiful-game/

Three weeks ago, I was talking to an American player who I know extremely well. He was capped many times by his country and tagged with the “all-American” label from the age of 15.

He went on to play in Europe with a great deal of success and actually made a fortune by sending his wages back to the US when the exchange rate was two dollars to the pound … but I digress.

And he always tries to persuade me to join him in the MLS whenever we talk on “Skype”.

Up until now, I haven’t been all that interested, but then he moved to New York and the football snob in me came racing to the surface.

The Red Bulls have a collection of very good footballers. Thierry Henry is there, Tim Cahill and, of course, my friend. The Red Bulls are a team that I could certainly get on board with.

So I asked my agent to explore the possibility and what he came back with was interesting, if not disappointing. A representative told him that the offer was $35,000 (£20,800) a year.

Now I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to rent an apartment in New York – I used to own one – but a family could not afford a shoebox in Manhattan, let alone have money to live on, for $35,000 a year.

A few days later, my friend called me. “How did you get on?” he asked. I told him about the offer and there was a strange silence at the end of the phone before he said: “Well, what did you expect? It’s the experience that you want, not the money, right?”

It was a lesson for me. We may speak the same language, we may like the same things and we may appreciate a good footballer when we see one, but clearly my American cousin and I are still very capable of losing the meaning of something in translation.

Trust me, I would love to play for the Red Bulls. But if players are earning millions of dollars a year, why on earth would anybody, effectively, pay to play for them?

And yet, that is exactly what has happened.

In 2013, Peguy Luyindula signed for the Red Bulls from cash-rich French club Paris Saint-Germain. It was strange because PSG had just been acquired by the multibillionaire Qatari fund, Qatar Sports Investments.

The club went on to sign a host of world-class players for eye-watering transfer fees. Luyindula seemed to be leaving the club just as the big money was arriving.

“I thought you wanted to do what Peguy did,” my friend said. “He got a huge pay-off to leave PSG and the Red Bulls gave him a crappy contract but he didn’t care because he wanted his family to come to America to live.

“We got his whole family green cards, visas and jobs so that, when he finishes playing, they can still live in America. I thought you just wanted to come to live in the States, too?”

No wonder it’s taken the Americans so long to fall in love with the beautiful game.

The American player has to be Bobby Convey. Him and Kits were good mates at RFC

[Royalcop]

Just bumping this to say his latest book TSF: Access all Areas is an entertaining read though with a very sobering (and genuinely upsetting) ending. It's also so blatantly Kitson now it's hilarious; tells a story of him getting a red card at Old Trafford, a game his club then managed to get a draw from with 10 men. What I do like is that his love for our club continually shines through and he clearly regrets leaving when he did.

[stealthpapes]

Just bumping this to say his latest book TSF: Access all Areas is an entertaining read though with a very sobering (and genuinely upsetting) ending. It's also so blatantly Kitson now it's hilarious; tells a story of him getting a red card at Old Trafford, a game his club then managed to get a draw from with 10 men. What I do like is that his love for our club continually shines through and he clearly regrets leaving when he did.

There's enough 'chaff' in there to make me think its two players. At least.

And I've been told, from someone I tend to believe, that Ellington is the source of some of the anecdotes. His name never comes up.

[Ian Royal]

I think Kits is smart enough to get at least one other person involved to obscure things slightly and double the possible anecdotes.

Wouldn't surprise me if it was, say, 70% him, 20% one other and then 10% from a small group as more people work out it's him and offer him stories to use. Blur them about a bit and hey presto.