All of Liverpool's Players

Book Review: Player by Player by Ivan Ponting

Some years ago, I accepted to write some Liverpool player profiles for a site, foolishly thinking that this was going to be an easy job. After all, how difficult could it be to write a couple of hundred words about players you knew inside out? Well, as it turned out, it was quite difficult. Putting your thoughts and views on players - particularly those who have won everything that there is to win like so many in Liverpool's history - in coherent sentences isn't easy especially when you're limited with the number of words you have to use. You find yourself unconsciously turning to those cliches with which you have been bombarded over the years and whom you had sworn never to use.

It is for this reason that I have the utmost respect for Ivan Ponting. I had received an earlier edition of his Liverpool: Player by Player book some years back as a present and it turned out to be not only an extremely useful reference book but also a highly enjoyable book in its own right. Ponting, you see, has turned the job of profile writing into an art form: within the confined spaces that he has to write in he manages to capture the essence of each player providing not just the basic information but also real insight on each player.

Never does he sound repetitive which, for a book that deals with hundreds of players (280 in total, apparently), is the best compliment that I can think of.

Having written about players from the glory years in the previous edition that was published nineteen years ago, this latest version of Liverpool: Player by Player - which, as you might have latched on to by now, is a collection of profiles on every player to have put on Liverpool's red shirt since Bill Shankly's arrival - must have been extremely difficult for him to write given the mediocrity of some of those players.

But, even here, Ponting excels by delivering sharp criticism of each player that deserves it without ever going overboard. How does he conclude his profile of Josemi - whom he had earlier flagged for his aimless distribution - for instance? By mentioning that his arrival probably spurred Steve Finnan into finally starting to prove his worth.

It is this balanced look that makes each profile relevant and the whole book so priceless.

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