I'm Not Really Here

His tale is one of incredible neglect, which makes for fascinating reading on a sporting, but mostly human level.

The Sports Diaries

Paul Lake could have been a world superstar but will forever be a legend at the club he loves

Steve McManaman

Paul Lake was the most gifted in the group of young players who brightened Manchester City up for fans in the 1980s who were pining for the glory days to return...his is an inspirational human story

David Conn, The Guardian

I'd be frightened to put a price on his head these days ... Paul was as good a young player as I've ever worked with.

Howard Kendall

Without question, he is the best young player I have ever worked with

Mel Machin

You would class Paul in the top bracket. I always likened him to Colin Bell - he had that great ability to get up and down the park.

Tony Book

It was like having one of your mates playing for City. He would've captained England. No question. He was - and remains - one of us

Noel Gallagher

'... a raw, sometimes unsparing and frequently moving account of how Lake's career was shipwrecked and how a man with the world at his feet ended up as one of football's hard-luck stories...It is an epic, harrowing and gripping story of a man living, as the front cover confesses, "a life of two halves" and it is maybe because the book is ghosted by his wife, Joanne, that he is able to provide such an unflinching account of how dark and tormented the days became once that joy - the buzz, the adrenaline, the fix - of running out on a pitch was removed...an astounding football autobiography.'

The Guardian

'I read Paul Lake's­­ ­autobiography, I'm Not Really Here, from cover to cover yesterday. I started it and couldn't put it down. It's the best book I've read for a long time. It's not easy reading. In fact, some of the passages in it made me cry. Beautifully, powerfully written, it is particularly raw and unsparing about the former Manchester City captain's brutal, brutal struggle with injury. "My knee felt like a stone in a beer can," he says of one of his ill-fated comebacks. It's a must-read for any fan of football. It's out at the beginning of next month.'

Oliver Holt, The Mirror

His memoir - I'm Not Really Here - spares nothing in the raw details of what Lake endured. A football read even more harrowing than an England player's World Cup diary

Sport

my favourite player in those days was always Paul Lake. I used to love watching him. I don't know what it was about him, but he was just a top footballer and cool as !**k, never any pressure on him, always knew what he was doing. He could play for us now, man

Liam Gallagher, Sport

Best football autobiography ever? Unquestionably

Metro