Jan The Man: From Anfield to Vetch Field

I make an exception for Jan Molby. I saw his debut for Ajax in the early eighties. It was a coincidence, as I did not live really close to Amsterdam then, but once a year (on average) we tried to see Ajax. The Danish midfield player turned out to be completely different from the other Danish players Ajax used to have in the late seventies and early eighties. After two reasonable successful years Molby moved to Liverpool, reason enough for me to call that team my favorite in England.

The good thing about Molby is that he dares to be different. He inspired me to dedicate a complete column to him, when I still had a monthly column in the fanzine I write for. He had a great sense of humour. He gambled, not just on the horses (though he did do that as well), but also on which suitcase will be the first one to appear at the airport. Or on the colour of the next traffic light. He drank. As most players in Britain tend to do. But he was caught drunk driving once and ended up in jail. In the meantime he was a player of one of the best teams Liverpool has had in their history.

The book disappointed me a bit, as it still is one of the standard books about football players that should be named 'the story so far'. But some of the incidents at Ajax and Liverpool were unknown to me and it gives a bit of an insight. His career at Anfield went a bit passed me, as in those years television and media weren't paying as much attention as they do now. There wasn't even 10% of the tv channels anyway then.

His injuries are all there, all the reasons why he only became a good player at top level, getting caps for Denmark, but never a indisputable regular. The start of his career as a player-manager gets plenty of attention, his last club is there as well. Brilliant book for fans (i.e. me), good book for die hards (I guess that's me as well), but not for the rest of the world (which is probably 99% of the football fans and 100% of those who aren't interested in the sport).


A blunt and refreshing read   May 24, 2001
davidnesbit@hotmail.com (Surabaya, Indonesia)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

As a liverpool fan I was interested to read this book about the long serving Dane. As a player he was well liked for his personality as well as his ability.

His book takes us through his career in pretty much the way most football autobiographies do regarding their subject, but deviates in two interesting and unusual ways. Firstly he is very outspoken on things such as his own ability, the way he was treated by others through out his career, and his time in prison for driving offences.

The second deviation of interest is that this book contains whole chapters of other people giving their opinions on Jan, and not all of them are complimentary! Even Kenny Dalglish is somewhat critical of him.

Jan really failed to live up to his potential as a player, and has started his management career with mixed success at Swansea and now Kidderminster and this is readily admitted by Jan himself in his book.

In fairness, this is a book I would recommend Liverpool fans to buy, but supporters of other clubs might be better off trying to cadge a read from their local library


Rather like Jan himself-solid and forthright.   October 7, 2000
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

The book covers the ground well from a a factual point of view, but is short on the sort of insights that may be anticipated from the hallowed dressing room at Anfield. It comes to life a little more during his time at Swansea, with the board room battles and double dealing, but never fully reveals the man behind 'Jan the Man'. Worth a read if you like football, but also disappointing if you want to find out more from a player's perspective.Jan tends to describe himself as a narrator would, rather than as the person who was there, so much of it is a rather plodding style of 'we did this and we did that' Perhaps I was hoping for a 'you'd never guess what.....'


One of the best.   October 26, 1999
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

Jan the Man, from Anfield to Vetch Field is a great book. Jan Molby tells all about his career. He take the readers behind the scenes with the danish national team, in prison, Liverpool F.C and Swansea City. I strongly recommend this book.


Jan Molby - A True Liverpool Player - on and off the pitch   August 4, 1999
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

An absolute brilliant book, Jan is very open with his feelings about Hilsborough, Heysel and being in prison whilst giving the books some very funny comments, to me Jan was always one of my favourite players, and I always used to think "what if Jan was a bit slimmer, he would be one of the best players in the world" but then again that would not have been Jan. It is defenitely a must read for any Liverpool, Danish fan.