The classic inside account of a season at a professional football club. Midfield player Eamon Dunphy charts the progress of Millwall during a season that begins with high hopes and ends with him on the transfer list. Populated with extraordinary characters and filled with high drama,Only a Game? is a riveting read as well as being an exceptional insight into professional sport. "The best and most authentic memoir by a professional footballer" Brian Glanville
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About the Author
Eamon Dunphy was a professional footballer in the 1960s and early 70s,who started his career with Man Utd but played mostly for Millwall. He was an Irish international. He now lives in Dublin where he works as a journalist. He currently has his ownradio chat show.
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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Until recent years there was a scarcity of good writing on football. Anodyne biographies and glossy club histories were pretty much all one could find. However, there was one book that broke the mould of football writing and which has been extremely influential on many of the best books on football today: Eamonn Dunphy's Only A Game.
Dunphy was a much-travelled, hardworking and relatively skilful midfielder. Only A Game is his account, in diary form, of the 1973/4 season at Millwall, then in the old second division. The season began with great optimism as Dunphy, realizing that he had not too many years left in football, saw this as perhaps his final opportunity to achieve something significant in his career. His account of how the season quickly turned sour is compelling, and if the end to the ‘story’ is in some ways unsatisfying it is because this is not a fairytale but a slice of reality.
Throughout it is clear that Dunphy has literary aspirations, and he is indeed a good writer. Above all, however, the book has all the best qualities of a personal diary: honesty, frankness, occasional contradictions, and immediacy. Only A Game provides a particularly fascinating insight into a time when professional footballers earned similar salaries to the rest of us, when the game was not awash with money, glamour and foreign stars, and when the ‘hard men’ ruled and matches frequently descended into muddy pitched battles – in this respect the book has genuine historical value. Dunphy is very good when discussing the nature of his profession, and he brilliantly conveys the unglamorous side to the game. As an antidote to the numerous showbiz biographies of footballers, Only A Game is perfect. Read more ›
Dunphy was a much-travelled, hardworking and relatively skilful midfielder. Only A Game is his account, in diary form, of the 1973/4 season at Millwall, then in the old second division. The season began with great optimism as Dunphy, realizing that he had not too many years left in football, saw this as perhaps his final opportunity to achieve something significant in his career. His account of how the season quickly turned sour is compelling, and if the end to the ‘story’ is in some ways unsatisfying it is because this is not a fairytale but a slice of reality.
Throughout it is clear that Dunphy has literary aspirations, and he is indeed a good writer. Above all, however, the book has all the best qualities of a personal diary: honesty, frankness, occasional contradictions, and immediacy. Only A Game provides a particularly fascinating insight into a time when professional footballers earned similar salaries to the rest of us, when the game was not awash with money, glamour and foreign stars, and when the ‘hard men’ ruled and matches frequently descended into muddy pitched battles – in this respect the book has genuine historical value. Dunphy is very good when discussing the nature of his profession, and he brilliantly conveys the unglamorous side to the game. As an antidote to the numerous showbiz biographies of footballers, Only A Game is perfect. Read more ›
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
With Only a Game?, Dunphy made his name and his account has had many imitators, the latest being Tony Cascarino. Nick Hornby also picked up the format for Fever Pitch - installments game by game - from this.
He takes the abortive season he spent with Millwall in 1973 and infuses his account with a career's worth of understanding. How a coach can lose the respect of the team, how the manager is weakened by having to accommodate a captain who is fundamentally uncommitted, how the need to impose oneself undercuts the ability to play to one's potential.
Yes, it's lots about football: the mundane details of training, the changing room, the team bus etc, but the acuity of his observation breathes life into it. Moreover, though his subject is footballers, the book has to say has much about any group you may be part of, any office, any team, any group of people. Why respect comes and goes; how a new entrant changes the dynamics of the group; what it's like to go from being near the end of a career to over the hill, and what it's like never to make it at all.
Dunphy is compelling in his insight, deeply sympathetic in his analysis, and - while flawed as a person - somewhat like Alan Clarke, this attracts you more deeply into what he is saying.
Miles above the standard sports book, this is revered as a classic, and deservedly so. Its wisdom stretches far beyond the football field. Whatever you think about the Keane book, this is well worth reading.
He takes the abortive season he spent with Millwall in 1973 and infuses his account with a career's worth of understanding. How a coach can lose the respect of the team, how the manager is weakened by having to accommodate a captain who is fundamentally uncommitted, how the need to impose oneself undercuts the ability to play to one's potential.
Yes, it's lots about football: the mundane details of training, the changing room, the team bus etc, but the acuity of his observation breathes life into it. Moreover, though his subject is footballers, the book has to say has much about any group you may be part of, any office, any team, any group of people. Why respect comes and goes; how a new entrant changes the dynamics of the group; what it's like to go from being near the end of a career to over the hill, and what it's like never to make it at all.
Dunphy is compelling in his insight, deeply sympathetic in his analysis, and - while flawed as a person - somewhat like Alan Clarke, this attracts you more deeply into what he is saying.
Miles above the standard sports book, this is revered as a classic, and deservedly so. Its wisdom stretches far beyond the football field. Whatever you think about the Keane book, this is well worth reading.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
In an age where a Footballer's haircut is front-page news and players endorse everything from Crisps to Hair Growth treatments, this book is a reminder of what foootball is about- hard graft and a love of the game. Eamon Dunphy gives an unbelievably accurate account of life a a professional footballer. As somebody whose cousin plays professional football, I knew that the beautiful game wasn't about sponsorship deals and boot endorsements. No matter how much the sport is sanitised and taken away from the real fans, football is still about blood, sweat and tears. It's easy to forget that pro- footballers are human beings and within a football club there are bound to be personality clashes. I couldn't put this book down. I also recommend 'A strange kind of glory- Sir Matt Busby and Manchester United'. Dunphy is not afraid to speak the truth and honesty shines through in all of his books. Pure class.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By wicko1
Format:Paperback
I first read this when I was a teenager and recently re-read it after a lot of life 'experience'! Hugely informative, this gritty realism of professional sport is perhaps a better indicator of what the vast majority of today's journeymen Footballers go through than the ghost written pap of some of the premier league's prima donnas
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By Dublinia
Format:Paperback
I don't know if it's the best, but it's certainly up there. This is the story of a journeyman footballer, told via diary entries, playing for deeply unfashionable Milwall in the 1970s. The journeyman pro was to become a first class football analyst (or controversialist, depending on your viewpoint) on Irish tv in later years but this story can be told in isolation. It's a page turner of a book, raw and unadorned and should have a place on the shelves of anyone who loves football and books.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is one of, if not the best book ever written about Football. Like the cantankerous one or not (Mr Dunphy), you have to admire his writing panache and passion for the sport, even if his skills on the pitch were never amazing. He takes the mundane and elevates it to something approaching religious fervour. An absolute ripping read for anyone who has ever wondered what it was like to play the beautiful game back before it became glam and corporation infested.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Atmospheric, authentic
Interesting account from Millwall midfielder Eamon Dunphy of half a season at Millwall (things open brightly and gradually deteriorate) widely regarded as one of the most authentic... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Gareth Smyth
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Strange Kind Of Glory
For Danny Blanchflower, Tottenham Hotspur's Northern Irish legend of the 1960s, football was undoubtedly 'The Glory Game'. Read more
Published 3 months ago by S. Bailey
4.0 out of 5 stars
The thinking player
Excellent. Probably the first insightful book on a professional football career and not just a memoir of football matches on particular dates.
Published 5 months ago by Kevin O'Sullivan
3.0 out of 5 stars
Depressing
This was a book purchased as a second hand item bought on the recommendation of a friend. Whilst it was a good and revealing insight into the life of professional football, there... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Shiromar
3.0 out of 5 stars
Yes it is only a game!
Interesting book but Dunphy appears not to accept his performances were not good enough in that season to cement a first team place. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Mr. I. W. Peacock
4.0 out of 5 stars
Motson's choice!
I recently attended a football book launch at Southend for Roy McDonough's autobiography Red Card Roy, introduced by BBC commentating legend John Motson. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Bernie Friend
4.0 out of 5 stars
honest insight into the beautiful game
The real strengths of Only a Game? are the level of reflexivity and that Dunphy doesn't pull any punches. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Rob Kitchin
2.0 out of 5 stars
An endurance test!
First up, I have a great deal of respect for Dunphy. I have enjoyed plenty of his other writing. In this book though, I really tried to like it but found myself just wanting it to... Read more
Published on 16 July 2008 by J. Buckle
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