Psycho; The Autobiography of Stuart Pearce (Headline) £17.99

THE sight of Stuart Pearce attempting to spring back on his feet moments after a crunching tackle left him with a second broken leg in the same season spoke volumes about the man.

It is one of several images of this soccer warrior etched on my mind. All football fans will know that look of tearful desperation when he missed the penalty that could have ensured England's place in the final of the 1990 World Cup, and that extraordinary grimacing posture of determination when he exorcised the ghost of that miss by firing home from the spot against Spain in Euro 1996.

Now he has committed to print the stories of these incidents and many more from a career that has spanned park football to the Premiership, electrician to England skipper.

In his own words, Pearce is a nearly man, a player who never quite reached the pinnacle, who lost in too many semi-finals, who never won titles. But he came close many times.

His honesty, endeavour and passion leap out of these pages in tales of big matches, penalty shoot-outs and relationships with other big-name soccer personalities.

He wore three lions on his England shirt with intense pride, and at club level enjoyed a reputation for fierceness that earned him that tag, Psycho. You may wince at some of the encounters mentioned here.

Readers will be surprised by his stormy relationship with Forest manager Brian Clough, whom he both admired and loathed.

"I would walk past him in the corridor; he would say hello and I would ignore him. That went on for an entire season," he recalls.

But this is largely the story of a very ordinary man who took a long and bone-crunching route to become one of the most endearing players in the game. I suspect several other players still have the scars as well as the memories of close encounters.

Expect the next chapter in his story to be about his move into management, probably with a certain Nigel Clough.