On Days Like These: The Lost Memoir of a Goalkeeper

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Emotional, insightful, beautifully-written book about the 1990 FA Cup final, Les Sealey, Alex Ferguson, Sealey's son Joe and a box full of cassette tapes. Ferguson seems to be genuinely wary of him, as if he knows Eric has turned his back on so many people in his career.

He made his last first-team appearance on the final day of the 1996–97 season, fittingly against Manchester United at Old Trafford. The son of the late Coventry, Luton, Manchester United, Aston Villa, Blackpool and West Ham keeper had his football dream crushed by injury just days before his dad suddenly died in 2001. That meant Sealey’s last four games in a Man United shirt were a League Cup Final, a Cup Winners’ Cup Final, an FA Cup quarter final and another League Cup Final – show me another player with that record!As the players clatter down the corridor and into the away dressing room, Ferguson is waiting by the door.

In December 1989, Alex Ferguson needed an experienced backup to his out-of-form number one, Jim Leighton. Having moved around a bit and had spells when he was away from home earlier in his career, we were now all living at home in Loughton, but there was no way he would help me. I had to walk to Loughton station, which was about a mile, to go to Stratford, from there to Chadwell Heath, then another mile walk to the training ground. Given that he’s been involved in one of the goals of Manchester United’s season, Paul looks like he’s just been slapped.Back in European Cup – now Champions League – for first time since 1968, United go out on away goals against Galatasaray in 1993.

But just when things looked to be really good, fate intervened, changing the course of Joe’s career, and his life. At half-time, United are 4–0 up against Sheffield Wednesday [On March 16, 1994] and as we go down the tunnel, the manager says to me: “I’m going to put you on for the second half. Sealey died in 2001, a few months after leaving West Ham, where both Joe and George were goalkeepers in the youth ranks. With his career and whole identity in ruins, he went into a downward spiral of ill-health and drug addiction, before, with the help of wife Nicole, turning his life around and discovering a new life as a hugely successful serial entrepreneur.Thirteen years after Sealey died at 43, his son Joe was handed a box of cassettes his dad had recorded.