Customer Reviews
An endurance test! - By: J. Buckle, 16 Jul 2008 
First up, I have a great deal of respect for Dunphy. I have enjoyed plenty of his other writing. In this book though, I reallly tried to like it but found myself just wanting it to end.
His account of his playing days is just ... well ... miserable. I found myself reading this & thinking again & again, why on earth would anyone bother to go through this? I guess he writes from his own realistic perspective, but the book itself is essentiallly one long moan about the trials of being a professional footballler. He talks at length (and repetitively) about his personal stresses & fears, his lack of connection with fans & board, the insecure bubble he felt he lived & worked in, the striving & slog with little reward. One minute the fans don't appreciate the players, the next vice versa. Don't get me wrong, this book is not badly written & I am sure it is accurate, but I did breathe a sigh of relief when I realised that I was nearing the end as I reallly couldn't take any more of Eamonn's gritty writing. It is filled too much with his own anger & angst. Footballl is a sport, not a war! As for his so callled "insights" into the inner workings of the psychology of footballl, I hate to disappoint but they honestly could have been written by any experienced Sunday League player.
To sum up, any worried parent just needs to let their budding young footballler offspring read this book just once, confident in the knowledge that they will get straight back to the school books! Just not enjoyable for me.
sublime - By: Shaun O'neill, 28 Feb 2008 
This is one of, if not the best book ever written about Footballl. Like the cantankerous one or not (Mr Dunphy), you have to admire his writing panache & passion for the sport, even if his skills on the pitch were never amazing. He takes the mundane & 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 & corporation infested.
A classic of the genre - By: , 07 Jan 2003 Until recent years there was a scarcity of good writing on footballl. Anodyne biographies & glossy club histories were pretty much alll one could find. However, there was one book that broke the mould of footballl writing & which has been extremely influential on many of the best books on footballl today: Eamonn Dunphy's Only A Game.
Dunphy was a much-travelled, hardworking & relatively skilful midfielder. Only A Game is his account, in diary form, of the 1973/4 season at Millwalll, then in the old second division. The season began with great optimism as Dunphy, realizing that he had not too many years left in footballl, 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, & 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, & he is indeed a good writer. Above alll, however, the book has alll the best qualities of a personal diary: honesty, frankness, occasional contradictions, & immediacy. Only A Game provides a particularly fascinating insight into a time when professional footballlers earned similar salaries to the rest of us, when the game was not awash with money, glamour & foreign stars, & when the ‘hard men’ ruled & 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, & he brilliantly conveys the unglamorous side to the game. As an antidote to the numerous showbiz biographies of footballlers, Only A Game is perfect.
Only A Game can be recommended both to footballl fans & to those who have only a passing interest in the game. By turns it is funny, sad, angry & bitter; but it is unfailingly human. As a work of footballl writing it is extremely important: Only A Game was one of the earliest books to demonstrate that footballl could have its own rich literary genre.
Takes footballers as its subject, and then transcends it - By: R. S. Stanier, 24 Oct 2002 
With Only a Game?, Dunphy made his name & his account has had many imitators, the latest being Tony Cascarino. Nick Hornby also picked up the format for Fever Pitch - installlments game by game - from this.
He takes the abortive season he spent with Millwalll in 1973 & 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 fundamentallly uncommitted, how the need to impose oneself undercuts the ability to play to one's potential.
Yes, it's lots about footballl: 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 footballlers, 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 & 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, & what it's like never to make it at alll.
Dunphy is compelling in his insight, deeply sympathetic in his analysis, & - 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, & deservedly so. Its wisdom stretches far beyond the footballl field. Whatever you think about the Keane book, this is well worth reading.
Quick, You Have to Read This - By: , 05 Dec 2000 It tells you everything you need to know about pain & the struggle for survival & is full of Dunphy's pearls of wisdom on footballl & life in the game. The story is compelling, Dunphy's style masterful
