Pele's New Book

[Pele_Is_God]

Confessions of a highland hero................ Anyone know when it's out?

[FortressICT]

Don't know when its out but will purchase it!

[Pele_Is_God]

31st December according to Waterstones...

[SMEE]

WOW....i was just reminiscing about the Pele era today. back in the days when ICT were a joy to watch. Oh to get back to them days!

[Yngwie]

First I've heard of this, but straight away I'm looking forward to it. Here's the blurb.

Steve Paterson was set for fame and stardom with Manchester United in the 1970s, but from the age of sixteen he became gripped by an addiction to gambling before descending into alcoholism and debt. He became a soccer mercenary in Hong Kong, Australia and Japan, but his gambling and ruinous lifestyle followed him everywhere. Despite his personal problems, Paterson became a successful football manager, first in the Highland League and then, leading Inverness Caledonian Thistle all the way to the brink of promotion to the Premier League before taking the reins at Aberdeen Football Club from which he was sacked as his drinking and gambling escalated. By then, he had spent more than GBP1m on gambling over a 30 years period and racked up thousands of pounds worth of debt. In November 2008 Paterson decided to confront his addictions and booked into the famous Sporting Chance Clinic in Hampshire. He has now turned his life around and today works as a social worker helping youngsters in the north of Scotland. This candid and brutally honest memoir recounts the heady days of footballing success, twinned with the devastating hubris of his addictive personality. It is a heart-rending and insightful account of one of the most fascinating players and managers in the Scottish game.

About the Author

Frank Gilfeather is a journalist and broadcaster and has written news and sport for all of the UK's leading newspapers over a period of more than 40 years. He currently covers football for The Times, The Herald and the Sunday Herald and writes a weekly current affairs column for the Aberdeen Evening Express. In addition, he covers football stories for Sky Sports News and hosts a weekly non-sports phone-in programme on the radio station, Northsound 2.

Edited November 13, 2009 by Scotty
added the picture of the book cover - go buy this book !!!!

[Pele_Is_God]

I believe Tomorrow's Daily Record will have a preview. He says he's looking to get back into management...

[Yngwie]

He's doing a book signing session at the stadium on Thursday evening, then at Waterstones on Saturday, and then at Elgin and Huntly later in the month. Not Aberdeen though!

[Pele_Is_God]

Not Edinburgh....?

[WYNESS101]

He's doing a book signing session at the stadium on Thursday evening, then at Waterstones on Saturday, and then at Elgin and Huntly later in the month. Not Aberdeen though!

This thrusday? Any more info about it?

[Yngwie]

Found this on the publisher's website.

http://birlinn.co.uk/events/?p=all

[maimie]

confesskions???

bet there's a few folk around inverness running for cover at the moment!!

[clacher_holiday2]

Read this in the Daily Record today, the guy will always have my best wishes

He seems to have given his best days to ICT and even when he was on a downer he seemed to put our club first, cant be forgotten and surely will always be welcome in Inverness.

[clacher_holiday2]

Also noticed that he was only 51, for some reason I thought he was older than that, theres no reason a fit and healthy Pele couldnt have a role within ICT some day.

[Johnboy]

I met Frank Gilfeather a few months ago when he was having regular meetings with Pele in connection with this book.

Frank has "ghost written" quite a few books from various Scots sporting celebrities, but he told me he was really excited about this one as he found Steve to be one of the most interesting and fascinating characters he has ever met.

Reading up on Pele on Wikki, I came across this interesting paragraph :

In November 2002, Paterson was strongly linked with the vacant manager's job at Dundee United, but he stayed at Caley Thistle for another month. He was offered the manager's position at Aberdeen and became the clubs manager on 11 December 2002. This move was not without controversy, as Paterson and his assistant Duncan Shearer were each supposed to have agreed a five-year contract with Caley Thistle not long before their departure to the Dons

This was just before I came to live in Inverness, and I can't remember hearing of any contractual disputes. Did ICT have Pele and Shearer signed on 5 year contracts or not? Did Aberdeen have to pay Caley much in compensation? Were those at the club who handled Niculae's transfer to Dinamo Bucharest, with ICT in 2002?

Hope someone can enlighten me.

.

[Yngwie]

As I recall it, ICT were well aware that their manager was hot property and offered a long term deal, as an incentive to turn down the Utd job. The key terms of it were agreed in principle with Pele but the contract was never signed.

I'm not sure if this was just because of the time it takes contracts to go through lawyers and agents, or if the club were slow, or if it was because Pele knew that the Aberdeen job was imminent and he wanted to keep his options open. (It was widely rumoured that having initially agreed to go to utd he changed his mind at the last minute because he was advised by someone to sit tight and the Dons job would be his, but I don't know if that is true. Hopefully his book will clarify!)

I believe though that despite the absence of a signed contract Pele ensured that ICT were fairly compensated, so it didn't make any difference in th end.

[Caley Mad In Berks]

Its just gone to the top of my Xmas present list. I see you can pre order it on Amazon for ?14.99 incl delivery.

[CaleyD]

ICT have been fairly fortunate when it comes to compensation for losing managers. Pele was not on a contract when he left for Aberdeen (rumour was he never ever actually had a formal contract the whole time he was with us), but refused to go unless we were compensated.

The situation was (rumoured to be) the same when Brewster left after his first spell with us, and he also ensured we received just compensation....although he did then go on to offer silly amounts for players.

Thoroughly looking forward to this book, not only due to his ICT connection, but the fact that Pele was (and still is) a very interesting person.

Would love to think that he could find himself in a position to return to management one day. Some people seem to have that "X Factor" when it comes to football management and he is one of them and a club somewhere is missing out......maybe even our club.

[tokelyisvictorious]

Just reserved a signed copy of the book from Waterstone's, take it I just pick it up when it comes out?

[WYNESS101]

Phoned waterstones today and they said he'll be there from 11.30 to 12.30 signing the book

[Scotty]

In November 2002, Paterson was strongly linked with the vacant manager's job at Dundee United, but he stayed at Caley Thistle for another month. He was offered the manager's position at Aberdeen and became the clubs manager on 11 December 2002. This move was not without controversy, as Paterson and his assistant Duncan Shearer were each supposed to have agreed a five-year contract with Caley Thistle not long before their departure to the Dons

This was just before I came to live in Inverness, and I can't remember hearing of any contractual disputes. Did ICT have Pele and Shearer signed on 5 year contracts or not? Did Aberdeen have to pay Caley much in compensation? Were those at the club who handled Niculae's transfer to Dinamo Bucharest, with ICT in 2002?

Hope someone can enlighten me.

There was a lot of rumour surrounding the whole thing but I can add some facts to it ...... He was "allegedly" offered the DUFC job by Eddie Thomson but turned it down on the advice of "handlers". It was probably a good move given Eddie's fondness for welcoming managers in one door and straight out another at the time. Not sure if he turned it down because of that reason though as the strong rumour at the time was that he was told to "bide his time" for a while as the Aberdeen job would be vacant very soon. McCall ended up getting the DUFC job.

In between turning down the DUFC job (allegedly) and taking the Aberdeen job he stated that he had signed a new 5 year deal with ICT. I can attest to this as I was present at the press conference in the boardroom where he (accompanied by our current DoF) announced that fact. He also confirmed that Duncan Shearer had signed one as his assistant. Shearer had been working without a contract prior to this. In typical ICT fashion, the clouds of semantics descended again a few days later when "signed" seemed to get replaced by "agreed in principle but not actually signed". However, as I was present representing the official website at the time (and I believe Messrs Bannerman and Chalk were there too representing other media) I can categorically confirm that the word used was "signed".

A week or two later, he was unveiled as Aberdeen manager and the one thing that seemed to rankle a lot of fans - and hence the somewhat less than warm feelings towards Duncan Shearer by a sizeable proportion of our fans - was the way in which Shearer seemed to smugly confirm the signing the night before it was official with an appearance on Tam Cowan's TV show.

The one thing that really p***** me off at the time was that at the press conference, Pele looked me straight in the eye, called me by name, and praised the fans who had been supporters of the club since day 1 and said something about not going anywhere as there was more work to be done. To my mind, it proved to be a bare faced lie and it took a lot of time for me to forgive him for leaving after making a statment like that.

looking back on it now after a few years have gone by, it doesnt hurt so much. I have forgiven Pele for the statement that got me wound up so much in the aftermath of his departure, and would indeed welcome him back to the TCS in some capacity as I feel he probably still has a lot to give to the right club. Perhaps if we were ever to go down the route of having another inexperienced manager, Pele could act as a bit of a mentor ... you certainly cant deny his managerial pedigree (at Huntly and ICT if not elsewhere).

Hearing about his alcohol and gambling problems and seeing him virtually self-destruct in a very public way at Aberdeen also put the whole thing into a bit more perspective. He had huge issues at the time that we as fans either didnt know about or chose to ignore. The fact that he has faced those demons and seems to be getting himself back on track should be far more important to us as fans than how he departed the club. Respect.

[Tug]

In November 2002, Paterson was strongly linked with the vacant manager's job at Dundee United, but he stayed at Caley Thistle for another month. He was offered the manager's position at Aberdeen and became the clubs manager on 11 December 2002. This move was not without controversy, as Paterson and his assistant Duncan Shearer were each supposed to have agreed a five-year contract with Caley Thistle not long before their departure to the Dons

This was just before I came to live in Inverness, and I can't remember hearing of any contractual disputes. Did ICT have Pele and Shearer signed on 5 year contracts or not? Did Aberdeen have to pay Caley much in compensation? Were those at the club who handled Niculae's transfer to Dinamo Bucharest, with ICT in 2002?

Hope someone can enlighten me.

There was a lot of rumour surrounding the whole thing but I can add some facts to it ...... He was "allegedly" offered the DUFC job by Eddie Thomson but turned it down on the advice of "handlers". It was probably a good move given Eddie's fondness for welcoming managers in one door and straight out another at the time. Not sure if he turned it down because of that reason though as the strong rumour at the time was that he was told to "bide his time" for a while as the Aberdeen job would be vacant very soon. McCall ended up getting the DUFC job.

In between turning down the DUFC job (allegedly) and taking the Aberdeen job he stated that he had signed a new 5 year deal with ICT. I can attest to this as I was present at the press conference in the boardroom where he (accompanied by our current DoF) announced that fact. He also confirmed that Duncan Shearer had signed one as his assistant. Shearer had been working without a contract prior to this. In typical ICT fashion, the clouds of semantics descended again a few days later when "signed" seemed to get replaced by "agreed in principle but not actually signed". However, as I was present representing the official website at the time (and I believe Messrs Bannerman and Chalk were there too representing other media) I can categorically confirm that the word used was "signed".

A week or two later, he was unveiled as Aberdeen manager and the one thing that seemed to rankle a lot of fans - and hence the somewhat less than warm feelings towards Duncan Shearer by a sizeable proportion of our fans - was the way in which Shearer seemed to smugly confirm the signing the night before it was official with an appearance on Tam Cowan's TV show.

The one thing that really p***** me off at the time was that at the press conference, Pele looked me straight in the eye, called me by name, and praised the fans who had been supporters of the club since day 1 and said something about not going anywhere as there was more work to be done. To my mind, it proved to be a bare faced lie and it took a lot of time for me to forgive him for leaving after making a statment like that.

looking back on it now after a few years have gone by, it doesnt hurt so much. I have forgiven Pele for the statement that got me wound up so much in the aftermath of his departure, and would indeed welcome him back to the TCS in some capacity as I feel he probably still has a lot to give to the right club. Perhaps if we were ever to go down the route of having another inexperienced manager, Pele could act as a bit of a mentor ... you certainly cant deny his managerial pedigree (at Huntly and ICT if not elsewhere).

Hearing about his alcohol and gambling problems and seeing him virtually self-destruct in a very public way at Aberdeen also put the whole thing into a bit more perspective. He had huge issues at the time that we as fans either didnt know about or chose to ignore. The fact that he has faced those demons and seems to be getting himself back on track should be far more important to us as fans than how he departed the club. Respect.

well definitly be getting this one

[Johnboy]

Thanks to all who responded to my query at 14....

Looking forward to picking up my signed copy tomorrow, although I've been told it's for my Xmas stocking, and not to be read until the 25th Dec!

[tokelyisvictorious]

Thanks to all who responded to my query at 14....

Looking forward to picking up my signed copy tomorrow, although I've been told it's for my Xmas stocking, and not to be read until the 25th Dec!

y'see thats the bit I'm confused at. Does the book not come out in december? I ordered a signed copy, so am I able to pick it up anytime after tommorrow?

[Johnboy]

Thanks to all who responded to my query at 14....

Looking forward to picking up my signed copy tomorrow, although I've been told it's for my Xmas stocking, and not to be read until the 25th Dec!

y'see thats the bit I'm confused at. Does the book not come out in december? I ordered a signed copy, so am I able to pick it up anytime after tommorrow?

See here :

Join Steve Paterson for the launch of this candid and brutally honest memoir, recounting the heady days of footballing success, twinned with the devastating hubris of his addictive personality. It is a heart-rending and insightful account of one of the most fascinating players and managers in the Scottish game.

Steve will be signing copies of Confessions of a Highland Hero in the Kingsmill Suite at Tulloch Caledonian Stadium, Inverness from 7.30pm onwards. To reserve a signed copy please contact Waterstone?s on 01463 233 500.

I'm hoping so. I phoned the Waterstones number - they took a note of my number and said they'd call me back..

:023:

[Kingsmills]

A must for all ICT fans. If Pele can control his demons he still has the potential to be a very successful manager perhaps even one day back at ICT.