On Days Like These: The Lost Memoir of a Goalkeeper

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But it is Les’s son Joe, a former West Ham trainee who never made it to first team level, who has the most remarkable and fascinating story of the lot, the story of his own life and that of his father. He was sure he’d seen a ghost once,’ smiled Joe, flicking through others, mostly labelled with the names of football teams and occasions, such as ‘ FA Cup final’.

The goalkeeper Les Sealey was only ever a loanee at Manchester United, but he played a fundamental part in the history of the club and the first trophies there for Sir Alex Ferguson, which secured his survival as manager. It’s a nice thing that people remember him because you're going back 30 years ago or more to remember the games he played, but people still remember them like they were yesterday.

Rules at the time allowed the young Sealey to play for as many teams as he wanted before signing for one, and he was turning out for Sheffield Wednesday, Southampton, Charlton and Southend, before telling his father he wanted to play for West Ham. Maybe the addiction side of my brain makes me drive hard at work now or would have made me play football to a high level if I didn’t get injured. If he wasn’t on the sofa watching telly or doing something with his kids then he was doing something with his car.

Looking at his story, after Coventry, Luton, Manchester United, Aston Villa and the rest, to finish it at West Ham, after all he’d done and all the places he’d been, was the perfect ending. When I went to the Old Trafford museum the other week and saw the appearances rankings on the wall, I saw he played three more games than Zlatan Ibrahimovic, one game less than Shinji Kagawa, and I hadn’t realised that. Ad Feature Ollie Pope and Tom Hartley starred as England snatched an unlikely victory in the opening Test against India. This can be a tough read sometimes, with a lot of hard times, and the kind of heartbreak that only the death of a parent can bring, but it's well worth it in the end. Despite his personal turmoil, Joe started to rebuild his life, and became a sports agent representing a host of big names in football and boxing.He only played twice, once as a sub in the FA Cup quarter-final after big Pete got sent off and then in the League Cup Final, a 3-1 defeat to Aston Villa. Sealey was still employed as West Ham's goalkeeper coach when he died of a heart attack on 19 August 2001 at the age of 43. PLAYER RATINGS: Andre Onana is the man of the moment with last-second penalty save, Harry Maguire silences his critics. Even if people aren’t already aware that I’m Les Sealey’s son, when they find out, there are two things that virtually everybody says to me when they realise. Thirteen years after Sealey died at 43, his son Joe was handed a box of cassettes his dad had recorded.