Towards the end of this entertaining footballer’s take on the big bad world, two revelations catch you unawares. The first is that Alan Mullery is a devout Christian, the other that he and his wife June came close to commiting suicide when they found themselves deep in debt. Make that last fact a third shocker — that Mullery, former skipper of a great Spurs side and disciplined midfield enforcer in that marvellous England team at the 1970 World Cup, could get himself in such a muddle that even now, at the age of 64, ‘the mortgage won’t be paid off until I’m 72’.

He spends a large chunk of his book raging. He was an angry young man and a bitter middle-aged man. To his credit, he tells it as it was, without looking back and trying to revise his grudges from a Christian viewpoint, saying how he would not act or think in that way now.

His resentment at what he perceives as bad treatment fairly boils off the pages. Bill Nicholson, his mentor at White Hart Lane, comes across as a sullen, rude, callous control freak. Once, when Mullery was injured, Nicholson belittled him thus: ‘You’re not the man Dave Mackay was. You’re dropping out when I need you.’ Alec Stock at Fulham was ‘the biggest bullshitter I’d ever met’. Former QPR supremo Jim Gregory’s influence meant that Mullery’s tenure as manager at Loftus Road ended briefly and was ‘the worst job I ever had in football’. Brighton chairman Mike Bamber’s egocentric traits wrecked a dream time.

The list goes on. Even Sir Alf Ramsey left him ‘crushed inside’ after omitting him from England’s European Championship clash with West Germany in April 1972. That would lead Mullery to call time on his international career. True, England lost 3-1 that day, even with Colin Bell as his replacement, but there can’t be much doubt that Bell was the better player.

Mullery still feels deep shame about becoming the first England player to be sent off, in the 1-0 loss to Yugoslavia at the 1968 European Championship, for kicking an opponent. Sir Alf eased the pain by telling him: ‘I’m glad somebody decided to give those bastards a taste of their own medicine.’ Good times? Winning the FA Cup and League Cup at Spurs and leading them to the Uefa Cup in 1972 and scoring a vital goal in the 3-2 aggregate triumph over Wolves that secured the trophy.

In 1976 he became boss at Brighton, taking them from the Third Division to the First Division and keeping them there with a series of shrewd buys.

There is a happy ending. Mullery realised that the only person those long-held grudges were hurting was the man in the mirror. He made his peace with Bill Nick, sorted out his readies, and now loves being a TV pundit. His autobiography ain’t bad either.

To buy this book at the Books First price of £16.99, including post and package, telephone 0870 165 8585