Who is The Guardian’s Secret Footballer?

Originally published on Talking Sports on 04/04/11

As anyone who has seen any of the three Goal! films will know, attempts to dramatise the football world are, and I hate to generalise, disgustingly hideous flops.

Now you could make the easy mistake of confusing this hammed-up, wooden, predictable, celebrity-ridden piss fest of a trilogy for a tongue-in-cheek, postmodern masterpiece, or you could say: “Hold on a minute. These films are probably shit because real-life football is imbued with enough of a genuine sense of drama to make any staged version of a 94th minute winner seem like a poor imitation of the real thing.”

And you’d be right to do so.

But football doesn’t just have drama on the pitch. It has air rifles at training grounds, people shagging each other’s girlfriends, rivals saying nasty things about one another and the farcical spectacle of men getting dressed up in glorified PE kits.

It’s like Eastenders stuffed into the mouth of Lock, Stock and shat into the toilet bowl of Carry On.

What makes Eastenders so great, apparently, is its history of baddies, and everyone’s favourite moment is when a new baddy appears. But there’s only one thing that can top a new baddy, and that is a baddy with a secret identity.

As Guardian readers will know, football has just acquired its own mystery baddy in the shape of The Secret Footballer (TSF), a Saturday columnist who “lifts the lid on the world of football”.

Conjecture about who he might be is, well, I won’t say flooding online forums, invading pub airspace and sending footballers into paroxysms of terror – I recently met John Salako, not exactly the dumbest ex-footballer out there, and he’d never even heard of the column – but it has got a certain group of people feeling quite curious.

So, I’ve combed through TSF’s 12 columns, picked out any hints as to his identity, and tried to figure out who the fucker is.

Here are my findings:

He is a Premiership player, who grew up on a council estate. He has played for at least two Premiership clubs, has an agent, and says he has played for “great managers” – one of whom he played under for “a long time” – and “one or two where I would happily have faked my own death if it meant not working with them a minute longer”.

He has also said: “Another manager I played for was more proactive. He felt he had to step in when he became concerned about the card school on the back of the coach getting out of hand.”

He knows a fair bit about Twitter, and was once “fined for going out to a pub with a couple of friends while injured”.

He is “a more senior member of the squad”, he seems to refer to Tottenham quite a lot, says he will need hip and knee replacements when he retires, and has been in contract negotiations where “the Bosman ruling hung over proceedings”.

He has a lifelong Scandinavian friend in football, played with “a group of French players… at one club who were not interested in communicating with anybody else”, and has a wife and, probably, kids.

Astonishingly, he also once won a free-kick at Old Trafford. This, plus other comments, means I am assuming he is an outfield player.

Who could it be?

I’m automatically discounting Manchester United players, because they are likely to be too high profile to do something like this. In addition, most of their British players haven’t been at more than one club – bar Rio Ferdinand, who ticks a lot of the boxes (married; Twitter user; played for great managers; been at a few clubs; probably has won a few free kicks at Old Trafford) and Michael Owen, as he has nothing else to do. By the same token I am ruling out Chelsea (Lampard and Cole are unmarried; John Terry is a one-club man) and Arsenal players.

We can also dismiss many newly-promoted teams, as most of their players haven’t got much Premiership experience or played for more than one Premiership team. So, count out Wigan, Blackpool (James Beattie is their only viable option, but he’s a posh lad, and in all likelihood didn’t grow up on a council estate), Wolves, Blackburn (David Dunn is the only option there, but he hasn’t played under any great managers), Stoke and West Brom (only Nicky Shorey seems to fit the bill, but he hasn’t played that much in the Premiership, and only for one arguably kind-of-great manager, Martin O’Neill). In addition, no one at Everton fits the bill.

So that leaves us with quite a small group of players that it could be:

Manchester City – Joleon Lescott, James Milner, Gareth Barry
Tottenham Hotspur – Jonathan Woodgate, Jermaine Jenas, Peter Crouch (not married), Jermain Defoe (not married)
Liverpool – Joe Cole
Bolton – Zat Knight, Kevin Davies
Newcastle – Sol Campbell, Joey Barton, Alan Smith, Kevin Nolan
Fulham – Steve Sidwell, Danny Murphy, Damien Duff, Jonathan Greening, Andy Johnson, Bobby Zamora
Sunderland – Titus Bramble, Anton Ferdinand, Kieran Richardson
Aston Villa – Luke Young, Stephen Warnock, Richard Dunne, Emile Heskey, Darren Bent
West Ham – Matthew Upson (not married), Wayne Bridge (not married), Scott Parker, Robbie Keane
Birmingham – Bowyer, Kevin Phillips, James McFadden (not married)

TSF said in his April 9 column that “My wife told me that last week… I came in for a particularly vicious barrage after miscontrolling a pass”.

Jonathan Woodgate, Jonathan Greening and Emile Heskey didn’t play on April 2/3 weekend. Zat Knight, Stephen Warnock, Titus Bramble, Sol Campbell, Alan Smith, James Milner, Gareth Barry and Kieran Richardson also didn’t play, so that leaves us with:

Manchester United – Rio Ferdinand, Michael Owen
Manchester City – Joleon Lescott,
Tottenham Hotspur – Jermaine Jenas
Liverpool – Joe Cole
Bolton – Kevin Davies
Newcastle –Joey Barton, Kevin Nolan
Fulham – Steve Sidwell, Danny Murphy, Damien Duff, Andy Johnson, Bobby Zamora
Sunderland –Anton Ferdinand
Aston Villa – Luke Young, Richard Dunne, Darren Bent
West Ham –Scott Parker, Robbie Keane
Birmingham – Lee Bowyer, Kevin Phillips

If we’re after someone who has played with a bunch of Frenchies, is big pals with a Scandinavian and has played under “great managers”, one for “a long time”, I’d say Lescott, Jenas, Barton and Anton Ferdinand are out. For my money, that also rules out Darren Bent and Damien Duff, and probably Luke Young and Richard Dunne. This leaves:

Manchester United – Rio Ferdinand, Michael Owen
Liverpool – Joe Cole
Bolton – Kevin Davies
Newcastle –Kevin Nolan
Fulham – Steve Sidwell, Danny Murphy, Andy Johnson, Bobby Zamora
West Ham –Scott Parker, Robbie Keane
Birmingham – Lee Bowyer, Kevin Phillips

In all likelihood we could also get rid of Bowyer and Phillips.

Another clue is that, on Twitter, @TSFGuardian follows Michael Owen; Rio Ferdinand; Chris Kamara; Robbie Savage; Radiohead; Oasis and Biffy Clyro.
For those reasons, I’d knock off Rio and Owen.

Most people in web forums seem to think it is Kevin Davies, who is very active on Twitter and apparently mates with The Guardian’s Barry Glendenning

But from what’s left, I’d go for Murphy. He’s been around a few clubs, arguably played for some great managers (Hodgson, Dario Gradi) and some clowns (Houllier), was around for the tail end of Liverpool’s Spice Boy period (fits with the card school and the Owen Twitter follow). He also played with a few French players at Liverpool, and a few Scandinavians.

It’s also fair to say that, even though the column must be quite liberally edited, TSF must be reasonably intelligent, which rules out Joe Cole, Andy Johnson and Bobby Zamora for my money.

So, who do you think it is?