Longy: Booze, Brawls, Sex & Scandal, by Sean Long

Take a tip from Sean Long: if you're on the lash in Blackpool and have pulled the fittest bird in the bar, try not to have a bowel-loosening moment when you step outside to have a pee against the wall. Especially if you're going commando and wearing white linen trousers.

Other lessons the rugby league legend has learned the hard way are not to trash five motorbikes on a drunken rampage around the countryside, and to make sure it really is a friend's house before kicking the door in and bedding down for the night. All this in the first 15 pages of his memoirs, which leaves another 235 for more mayhem, interspersed with the odd game of rugby and occasional betting scandal.

Subtle it's not, and there's plenty of effing language, while thoughtful insights into the game are scarce. But Long has always been an intuitive player, and it's worked for him in his illustrious half-back career, with stunning success at St Helens. He is unlikely to win awards for authorship, but give him full marks for honesty, however embarrassing.

Published in hardback by John Blake, £17.99