Book review: Steve Price - Be Your Best

Steve Price. Photo / Herald on Sunday

First a confession. I don't really like sports biographies. I just couldn't care when a sportsperson first kissed a girl, burned themselves with matches or hit their first six playing for the school 3rd XI.

All I want is the dirt. Who they hated, who hated them and what really happened on the 13th floor of the Park Royal at 4am on that fateful Tuesday night.

Given his Mr Clean image, Price's book was never going to produce any of that. The only reasons I read it were a) it was free and I commute 45min each way to work and b) I was ordered to review it.

Oh, and, given the spirit of honesty in which some parts of it were written, I also thought it might fill in the few blanks created by my dealings - and often lack of them - with Price as his career came to a cruel, injury-enforced end.

Happily, that's where this book succeeds best.

The new chapters, 30 and 31, detail Price's reaction to losing the Warriors captaincy and his unsuccessful battle to beat a heel injury.

For Warriors fans they are certainly of interest. For journalists who largely looked on from the outside, they are compulsory reading. But whether they make it worth wading through the other 32 chapters will depend on how big a Price fan you are.

If you love the bloke and you'd like to lap up every detail of his life, buy the book. But if you want to know what really happened at Coffs Harbour, don't bother.

Price fans will particularly enjoy the chapter detailing how Pricey's mum's mate communed with the deceased Peter "Bullfrog" Moore via the spirit of a Welsh bloke called Dafid using a handed down wedding ring that contains psychic powers (seriously).

For me, Price's unshakeable belief in such mysticism - his pre-match ritual included a quick chat with those close to him who have passed away - was the real "blow me down with a feather" moment in the book.

The rest of it is a bit like Price's game - steady but seldom spectacular.