There has never been a footballer like him; and it is almost certain there never will be. Captain then player-manager of Melchester Rovers from 1954 until a 1993 helicopter crash claimed his famous left foot, Roy scored 481 goals, and contributed towards nine league titles, eight FA Cup victories and three European Cup wins. It’s an improbably long career, but then Roy was an improbable player: teetotal, honourable, fair and respectful of authority.

Sporting autobiographies are normally repositories for grudges. Here we encounter the beautiful game at the peak of its beauty: when players arrived at the ground by bicycle; when youngsters on trial were happy to regrout the dressing room tiles, or polish the manager’s Morris Oxford; when a striker could light up a fag after scoring a goal and finish it by the time he had walked back to the centre spot, without an outcry from some busybody from health and safety.

But there were times when the dangers of the outside world intruded. Let him put it in his own words: “I’ve been kidnapped nine times, including seven while on club tours abroad, which remains a record in top-flight English football, and each time it’s been a new and slightly surprising experience. I suppose it’s a bit like winning the FA Cup. You certainly don’t get bored of it!” The team tended to get kidnapped while on tours to despotic African or South American states broken apart by revolution; the deal was that they would play against a scratch team of insurgents and then be granted their freedom.

Some say you should never negotiate with terrorists but, as Roy points out, it was better to look on the episodes as opportunities to showcase not only the talents and style of English football, but to act as “ambassadors for English sport in the wider definition”. Their first match against revolutionaries ended in a 14-1 trouncing by the boys from the war-torn republic of Beltigua. Largely responsible were the unfamiliar style of the Beltiguans, the rudimentary nature of the playing surface and the fact that the referee, Mr EF Sanchez of Pandiamo, was carrying a pistol. However, the Melchester lads learned from the experience, and although they lost their next game against a Brigands XI from Malagos by a goal, it was the last time they lost to insurgents.

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You might suspect, behind the narrative, the hand of a deep design. The assassination attempt, the mysterious fire connected to a recent bank robbery, the years-long courtship of his wife, Penny Laine, and much else, suggest a destiny shaped by the caprice of artifice. You could say it was comic book stuff, were it not for the unmistakable tang of veracity that comes off the pages. There are gaps, though. He doesn’t mention that Penny left him for a while; perhaps it’s too painful to recall. Nor that during a spell in the 1980s Martin Kemp and Steve Norman of Spandau Ballet were on the team sheet. Perhaps this is also too painful to recall; or too improbable. (I wonder, at this point, if Wikipedia, from where I have gleaned this information, is pulling my leg.)

But, cavils aside, this is a heartwarming picture of perhaps the greatest sportsman this country has produced. No sordid episodes, no spit-roasts in swanky hotels, none of the shameless cupidity of the modern game, and certainly no corruption. And it’s all delivered in the rich, full style of the typical football memoir. I looked at Alex Ferguson’s and there isn’t a cigarette paper between them. A glorious achievement.

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