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By OLIVER HOLT, CHIEF SPORTS WRITER
Published: 12:00 EST, 11 November 2025 | Updated: 12:13 EST, 11 November 2025
It was late in the evening at the Royal Lancaster Hotel on the northern edge of Hyde Park. Guests from a Football Writers’ Association dinner were starting to stagger towards the taxi rank at the other side of the lobby when former footballer and Reading coach Wally Downes walked up to me.
‘You and me, outside,’ he commanded. I gauged he may have had even more to drink than me but even though he is a sharp, intelligent man, he was also a founder member of Wimbledon’s Crazy Gang and not someone I had any desire to engage in any form of fistic combat.
There was only ever going to be one winner of that contest.
I asked him why he wanted to fight me. He said that his mother had been upset by a passage in Neil Warnock’s autobiography Made in Sheffield - recently published, and for which I had been the ghostwriter - that had referred to Wally being in a state of undress in the Reading manager's office.
My mind flicked back to the paragraphs in question: ‘I didn’t want anything to do with the post-match pleasantries,’ Warnock had told me about the aftermath of a tumultuous Reading-Sheffield United game at the Madejski Stadium, ‘but some of my staff were invited into Steve Coppell’s office.
‘Wally was in there holding court. He was sitting in the manager’s chair, stark naked other than his t-shirt. For the 15 minutes they were in there, all he could do was play with his b****cks. That shows you the class of the man. I can’t say I was surprised.’
It's been a privilege to ghostwrite many sports books, including Neil Warnock's
However, a story in Warnock's 'Made in Sheffield' caused a bit of stir
The former Reading coach Wally Downes objected to it and wanted to fight me at an awards dinner
On reflection, I could see why a mother might not be inclined to celebrate that description of her son. Rather ungallantly, I told Wally that if he was seeking retribution, he should take it up with Neil, who was also at the dinner. It was Neil’s book, not mine, I said. ‘Warnock’s already gone,’ Wally said, ‘so it’s going to have to be you.’
We did not go outside. Wally decided I should get my ghostwriter's come-uppance downstairs instead. Accompanied by my former sports editor, who had appointed himself a second for both of us, we traipsed into the toilets. Too many people, Wally said.
Eventually, we found somewhere quieter, at the foot of some steps behind a fire exit, and after due and decent warning, Wally took a swing at me. Fortunately, alcohol had radically impaired his considerable pugilistic talents. I swayed out of the way, he missed, I pushed him aside and got out of there as fast as I could.
Since then, Wally has become someone I have developed much respect for in terms of his knowledge of the game and his ability as an analyst but, still, it was the only time I wished I’d asked for danger money as part of a ghostwriting contract.
I thought about that exchange last week amid the furore that accompanied the publication of Mary Earps’ autobiography All In: Football, Life and Learning to be Unapologetically Me.
Some of the reaction dealt with Earps’ distress at the controversy caused and the vague insinuation that her ghostwriter had somehow let her down by including her thoughts on Earps’ replacement in the England side, Hannah Hampton.
I strongly disagree with that insinuation. A responsible ghostwriter has a duty of care to their subject and, in tandem with that, an absolute responsibility to reflect their thoughts accurately and meticulously.
If part of a book’s title is ‘Learning to be Unapologetically Me’, it also suggests that the reader be entitled to expect something more than the anodyne. As a reader, I would absolutely expect Earps to address the reasons why she retired from international football so abruptly and so close to last summer’s European Championship.
Mary Earps' book has caused a storm too but the insinuation that her ghost-writer somehow let her down is wrong
Earps (right) accused Hannah Hampton of 'bad behaviour' in her book
The ghost-writer in this case did her best to tread a line between shedding light on those reasons without elaborating on them. I wanted to know what the ‘bad behaviour’ was that Earps referred to but the ghost-writer clearly respected Earps’ wishes not to elaborate on that.
There is a balance to be struck. The ghost-writer does the best job they can and reflects the subject’s thoughts accurately and, sure, perhaps sometimes they point out to agent and publisher a possible adverse reaction to a theme.
But then it is up to an agent or a team to decide whether they want the copy to remain. There is a case to be made that criticising Hampton and England manager Sarina Wiegman a few months after one of the greatest triumphs in the history of women’s football in this country might not be a great public relations move for Earps. But if Earps wanted it to remain, that was her choice.
That’s the point. It’s Earps’ book. It’s not the ghost-writer’s book. What goes into print should be 100 per cent at the subject’s discretion. It’s her face on the front cover. It’s her life. It’s her story.
The idea that a decent ghost-writer would distort a subject’s words is fanciful. And anyway, Earps would have had sight of the copy at every stage of the process. Publishers have excellent and brilliantly thorough copy-editors and lawyers scrutinising every aspect of the words.
I do not know Earps or her agent but all the ex-footballers, golfers and jockeys I have worked with have had diligent agents with their best interests at heart, poring over the copy at every stage. If they wanted to take out the references to Hampton, they should have had ample opportunity to do so.
Still, the relationship between a writer and a subject does not come without questions for the ghost. Are you detached? Where does a duty of care begin and end? Should you act as a censor? Are you impartial? Are you just a cypher? Or are you, as Ruth Lang, one of the protagonists in Roman Polanski’s film The Ghost, an adaptation of Robert Harris’ best-selling thriller, suggests, ‘an accomplice’?
I don’t buy the ‘accomplice’ suggestion, partly because I’ve collaborated on books with Warnock, Stan Collymore, Theo Walcott, Ian Poulter, John Terry, Graeme Le Saux, Kieren Fallon, Kieron Dyer, Craig Bellamy, Stuart Pearce, Jordan Henderson and Zak Brown.
John Terry's agent used a red pen to wipe out sections of the text he deemed problematic
All the people I've worked with have had different views on politics, history, life, sport, family and how to conduct oneself. Whether I agree with those views or not is irrelevant
They are different people with differing views on politics, history, life, sport, family and how to conduct oneself. Whether I agree with those views or not is irrelevant. Once again, it’s their book. Not mine. My responsibility is to allow them to tell their story. Not to impose my own.
I’ve counted each one as an immense privilege, a window into the lives and motivations of some outstanding sportsmen. Some of them I was friends with before the process started. But I was closer to all of them by the time the process ended.
The words in the books were their words, not mine. I was not being paid to be a censor or a chronicler or a moraliser or a judge or a jury. It is an interesting assumption that my moral code would be superior to theirs. I was being paid to help them tell their own story.
Typically, I interviewed them for somewhere between 10 and 20 hours, transcribed the tapes and then wrote down what they had said. Some sections, inevitably, would be lost, either because of repetition or lack of brevity.
A book is not just one long transcript but everything has always been scrupulously scrutinised by both the subject and those close to him.
As a journalist, you often wish some details that have been excised had been left in. A journalist deals in news. A journalist has an instinct for a story. Sometimes, the concerns of an agent feel over-protective and over-cautious.
John Terry’s former agent, Aaron Lincoln, sent me a framed picture of the front cover of John’s newly-published book accompanied by the marker pen Aaron had used to wipe out sections of text he deemed problematic. Sometimes, it feels as if those excisions detract from the book.
Sometimes, you curse their caution. But I have to respect their concerns for their client.
With Jordan Henderson after collaborating on the England midfielder's book with him
I have regrets over some of the content of Stan Collymore's book - but it was his book. Not mine
I have got some things wrong. The first book I collaborated on was with Stan Collymore. Stan was determined to be brutally honest in his book, about his career, about the racial prejudice he had to fight against, about his mental health issues and about the details of some of his sexual encounters.
When the book was published, I was proud of its honesty. Not everyone felt the same. The brilliantly witty and superbly acerbic newspaper columnist Giles Smith wrote a review of it in which he said it was the first book he had read where he had had to turn the pages with a pair of tweezers.
I feel now that I should have protected Stan more. And I should have protected the women he was talking about. If I was ghosting that book now, I would argue strongly that some of those details should not be included.
I let him down. But if I had argued against the inclusion of those stories – which I didn’t - and he had insisted they remain, then I would have ceded to his wishes. It was his book. Not mine.