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The Stupid Footballer is Dead: Insights into the mind of a professional footballer
Professional football in the modern era is played every bit as much in the mind as on the pitch. More and more it's becoming clear that natural talent is nowhere near enough to sustain a career in the modern game. Players need to be smart; not academically but in terms of their thinking. The ones who are dedicated, with mental resilience and a winner's psychology are prospering and will continue to do so as the game evolves. The stupid footballer is dead.
Ex-Premiership footballer Paul McVeigh looks back on his professional career and how he learned to play the mental game and gives a look behind-the-scenes into the approach of some of the game's highest performers.
This book will appeal to sports fans and players who want to get inside the head of top professionals. And if there is one book to be read by players at all levels who want to improve their performance on the pitch then this is it - from someone who hit the heights in top-level sport and is driven to share what he learned along the way.
Ex-Premiership footballer Paul McVeigh looks back on his professional career and how he learned to play the mental game and gives a look behind-the-scenes into the approach of some of the game's highest performers.
This book will appeal to sports fans and players who want to get inside the head of top professionals. And if there is one book to be read by players at all levels who want to improve their performance on the pitch then this is it - from someone who hit the heights in top-level sport and is driven to share what he learned along the way.
- GenresFootball
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
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43 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 9, 2014
The Stupid Football is Dead – He Really Is!
Paul McVeigh is what we fans call a good honest pro, he never let you down on the pitch gave his all in the shirt and used his skills to the best of his abilities. Now making a living out of the sport in both the academies and media a lot has changed for Paul and his book The Stupid Football is Dead shows how far he has come since his retirement from playing.
To me this book is in part a sports book and also a sports psychology book, a lot has changed since he started playing and since I started watching football. When I started watching football it was a mixture of football violence on and off the pitch, a career would last maybe ten years and the player would run a pub if he were not a manager. If you were good enough you were old enough to play there were no sponsorship deals and no real pressure on the footballer so he could go drinking and dancing and all in private.
Move on thirty or so year’s football and footballers are part of modern culture and available to the public via rolling sports news they have no real privacy even if they do earn lots of money at the top level. There are different pressures on players of all levels to succeed and have a wonderful image at the same time.
Professional footballers at one time as they were coming up through the ranks besides clean boots used to play on terrible surfaces, were never spoken to about success and failure in the game and were not basically prepared for what could happen in their lives whichever way they go in their career.
The Stupid Footballer Is Dead by Paul McVeigh is in part an answer and part guide of what a player really needs to do if they want to succeed. Paul uses many of his own insights and anecdotes to help illustrate the examples he uses throughout the book. I would also add that what Paul has written is not only applicable to footballers and their fans but to the person in the street that wants to succeed in whatever they do.
With short chapters on subjects such as “Take Personal Responsibility” or “Define and Follow Goals” McVeigh uses his experiences and those of other professionals on how to succeed if you want to be a success. All the chapters are clearly defined and illustrated with excellent examples who he uses as role models as well as key aims and messages.
The Stupid Football is Dead is an excellent book by a former professional who has thought deeply about his subject and wants people to succeed. It explains to footballer and those interested in the sport what it takes to be a success and understand the reasons why you need to change your thinking if you want to move forward.
This is an excellent book worth reading and gives some excellent examples of what you need to do to succeed. It is an excellent read interesting and applicable to all people who want to be a success inside and out of football.
Paul McVeigh is what we fans call a good honest pro, he never let you down on the pitch gave his all in the shirt and used his skills to the best of his abilities. Now making a living out of the sport in both the academies and media a lot has changed for Paul and his book The Stupid Football is Dead shows how far he has come since his retirement from playing.
To me this book is in part a sports book and also a sports psychology book, a lot has changed since he started playing and since I started watching football. When I started watching football it was a mixture of football violence on and off the pitch, a career would last maybe ten years and the player would run a pub if he were not a manager. If you were good enough you were old enough to play there were no sponsorship deals and no real pressure on the footballer so he could go drinking and dancing and all in private.
Move on thirty or so year’s football and footballers are part of modern culture and available to the public via rolling sports news they have no real privacy even if they do earn lots of money at the top level. There are different pressures on players of all levels to succeed and have a wonderful image at the same time.
Professional footballers at one time as they were coming up through the ranks besides clean boots used to play on terrible surfaces, were never spoken to about success and failure in the game and were not basically prepared for what could happen in their lives whichever way they go in their career.
The Stupid Footballer Is Dead by Paul McVeigh is in part an answer and part guide of what a player really needs to do if they want to succeed. Paul uses many of his own insights and anecdotes to help illustrate the examples he uses throughout the book. I would also add that what Paul has written is not only applicable to footballers and their fans but to the person in the street that wants to succeed in whatever they do.
With short chapters on subjects such as “Take Personal Responsibility” or “Define and Follow Goals” McVeigh uses his experiences and those of other professionals on how to succeed if you want to be a success. All the chapters are clearly defined and illustrated with excellent examples who he uses as role models as well as key aims and messages.
The Stupid Football is Dead is an excellent book by a former professional who has thought deeply about his subject and wants people to succeed. It explains to footballer and those interested in the sport what it takes to be a success and understand the reasons why you need to change your thinking if you want to move forward.
This is an excellent book worth reading and gives some excellent examples of what you need to do to succeed. It is an excellent read interesting and applicable to all people who want to be a success inside and out of football.
April 11, 2019
Paul McVeigh’s curiously named The Stupid Footballer Is Dead outlines some important lessons potential footballers must learn in the modern age of footballing. With great focus nowadays on sports science, the days of when a footballer could sink pints down at the pub following a game are well and truly over. McVeigh, however, insists that understanding sports psychology—a fascinating yet underappreciated frontier—is just as important in a footballer’s quest to succeed at the professional level and beyond.
Chapters titled ‘Create a Helpful Self-Image’, ‘Think About Thinking’, ‘Focus on Success’, and ‘Take Preparation and Recovery Seriously’ aren’t exactly new and edifying topics for a footballer already initiated at any professional level. Such advice is straight out of an instructional training session of an honest pro made good in the world beyond football. However, McVeigh very often hits the right tone when doling out his wisdom that is based on his experience mentoring young footballers and aiding in their psychological development. Paul McVeigh is a rare breed—a former pro at the highest level who is also an authority on footballing psychology. He provides case studies of footballers embodying the psychological tenets he describes—examples include James Milner typifying ‘Preparation and Recovery’, and Robert Green typifying ‘Meet Adversity with Strength’.
The anecdotes from McVeigh’s playing days are there too, and serve to flesh out his points. You’ll get snippets of what happened to Rory Allen, McVeigh’s fellow professional at Tottenham; how McVeigh got a gig with Sky Sports; and his on-field tussle with Tim Cahill. He touches on tragedy too, particularly with a car accident following a win in the Championship playoff semi-final.
Here is where The Stupid Footballer is Dead seems to be caught between self-help and autobiography. Autobiographies of players of McVeigh’s ilk are gold dust in a burgeoning market for football literature. Content here, however, is often abridged so as not to override a point. From his Belfast boyhood to sharing a dressing room with the likes of Craig Bellamy, Dean Ashton, and Robert Green (“never fully integrated with the team”), the kernel of an entertaining autobiography is here, yet never fully explored.
Some of McVeigh’s assertions are perhaps a little wide of the mark, also. With the wealth of excellent footballing journalism and long-form nowadays, his criticism of journalists who have never played the game is needlessly dismissive, churlish and straight out of the Robbie Savage book of punditry.
Despite the above shortcomings, The Stupid Footballer is Dead certainly also holds value for the typical footballing fan. McVeigh is a success story in retirement from football, and is a product of the discipline and open-mindedness that he practiced during his playing career. Many of the lessons McVeigh describes can be applied to high-performance tasks or everyday life, and will attract the more reluctant reader of self-help books. He introduces the wonderful mantra to live by, “There is no such thing as failure, only feedback” which should inspire many readers.
HIGHLIGHTED PASSAGE
From McVeigh’s mentor, Gavin Drake:
STARS: 3/5
FULL TIME SCORE: An inspiring 2-0 win led by the red-faced veteran at the heart of defence, willing his young charges on until the final whistle.
Chapters titled ‘Create a Helpful Self-Image’, ‘Think About Thinking’, ‘Focus on Success’, and ‘Take Preparation and Recovery Seriously’ aren’t exactly new and edifying topics for a footballer already initiated at any professional level. Such advice is straight out of an instructional training session of an honest pro made good in the world beyond football. However, McVeigh very often hits the right tone when doling out his wisdom that is based on his experience mentoring young footballers and aiding in their psychological development. Paul McVeigh is a rare breed—a former pro at the highest level who is also an authority on footballing psychology. He provides case studies of footballers embodying the psychological tenets he describes—examples include James Milner typifying ‘Preparation and Recovery’, and Robert Green typifying ‘Meet Adversity with Strength’.
The anecdotes from McVeigh’s playing days are there too, and serve to flesh out his points. You’ll get snippets of what happened to Rory Allen, McVeigh’s fellow professional at Tottenham; how McVeigh got a gig with Sky Sports; and his on-field tussle with Tim Cahill. He touches on tragedy too, particularly with a car accident following a win in the Championship playoff semi-final.
Here is where The Stupid Footballer is Dead seems to be caught between self-help and autobiography. Autobiographies of players of McVeigh’s ilk are gold dust in a burgeoning market for football literature. Content here, however, is often abridged so as not to override a point. From his Belfast boyhood to sharing a dressing room with the likes of Craig Bellamy, Dean Ashton, and Robert Green (“never fully integrated with the team”), the kernel of an entertaining autobiography is here, yet never fully explored.
Some of McVeigh’s assertions are perhaps a little wide of the mark, also. With the wealth of excellent footballing journalism and long-form nowadays, his criticism of journalists who have never played the game is needlessly dismissive, churlish and straight out of the Robbie Savage book of punditry.
Despite the above shortcomings, The Stupid Footballer is Dead certainly also holds value for the typical footballing fan. McVeigh is a success story in retirement from football, and is a product of the discipline and open-mindedness that he practiced during his playing career. Many of the lessons McVeigh describes can be applied to high-performance tasks or everyday life, and will attract the more reluctant reader of self-help books. He introduces the wonderful mantra to live by, “There is no such thing as failure, only feedback” which should inspire many readers.
HIGHLIGHTED PASSAGE
From McVeigh’s mentor, Gavin Drake:
“Gavin had explained to me that when we ‘focus’ we should be channelling our energy into what we want to happen with an expectation of achieving that aim. The brain works ‘teleologically’, which means that it will lock on to and help you achieve whatever you focus on, and quite naturally, you will gravitate in that direction.” (pg. 52)
STARS: 3/5
FULL TIME SCORE: An inspiring 2-0 win led by the red-faced veteran at the heart of defence, willing his young charges on until the final whistle.
July 22, 2025
Nowhere near as academic or psychological as I hoped. Instead, it provides advice from a former professional footballer (complete with examples) on how to really apply yourself to make the most out of your profession and life in general. Still an interesting read packed with insights into professional football, but does nothing to dispel the likely unsustainable perfectionism associated with professional sports and ultimately isn't truly groundbreaking.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews