Book Review - We All Live In A Perry Groves World

John Blake Publishing RRP £17.99

At a time when we are being inundated with ‘life stories’ from footballers who have barely made it out of their teens it is a relief to see Perry Groves story hit the shelves.
Born in Bow in 1965, Perry signed for Arsenal from Colchester in 1986, and served the Gunners for six years before injury cut short his career at Southampton.

If you preferred Tony Adams book to Bob Wilson’s then this will be for you. It starts, as you would expect, with a couple of chapters on his childhood years, and failure to get taken on by Wolves, Norwich, and Peterborough. By chapter three he is an apprentice at Colchester United pestering the manager for a first-team chance.

It’s chapter six before Perry finds himself heading to Highbury to become George Graham’s first signing for Arsenal. Groves knows his likely audience well. He goes into some detail about the infamous ‘Tuesday club’, and the players’ black market ticket sales, but his most damning revelations are about himself.

I can imagine some team mates shuffling uncomfortably as they read the book, but he reveals nothing about named former colleagues that wasn’t already common knowledge. For the main part he reveals himself to have been a binge drinking womaniser.

Turn to chapters seventeen and eighteen if you want the Groves take on ‘That’ night at Anfield. The ginger one breaks the party line on everybody being full of confidence in George Graham’s decision to play a back five that night.

‘Don’t you think we’ve got a chance?’ Theo asked.
‘We’ve got two,’ I said. ‘Slim and no.’

The closing chapters deal with the painful end to his career at Southampton, his divorce, and his subsequent working life. The mood is lifted by a proud father’s tribute to his two sons.

Given the recent spate of releases from those only too happy to criticise those who have helped them to positions of wealth and substance this book deserves to sell well. Perry has more reasons than most to bemoan his lot, having been forced to retire early from his career. By and large, though, you get the impression that you have just read a man who appreciates both his faults, and the life that top football afforded him in his prime.