On Days Like These: The Lost Memoir of a Goalkeeper
by Tim Rich
Narrated by Rupert Farley
Why You'll Love This
Rupert Farley narrates a forgotten goalkeeper's memoir that's less about the sport and more about the moments that save us.
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About This Book
When Sir Alex Ferguson replaced goalkeeper Jim Leighton with Les Sealey in the 1990 FA Cup final replay, it saved Ferguson's career. Les Sealey left behind a Tupperware box of cassette tapes — his unfinished autobiography — and his son Joe, who spiraled into addiction after Les's sudden death at 43. On Days Like These is both Les's story and Joe's: the goalkeeper who shaped football history and the son who almost didn't survive losing him, reconstructed from the tapes and from Joe's own reckoning with grief.
Rupert Farley narrates with the emotional precision a story structured around two rescues — one of a football club, one of a man — demands. His voice handles the period details of early-90s Manchester United with affection, and his rendering of Joe's journey carries the weight of genuine recovery rather than redemption-narrative convenience. At just over eight hours, William Hill Sports Book of the Year longlist, this is sports writing that transcends its subject.