FOOTBALLER-TURNED-AUTHOR MARK BRIGHT COMES CLEAN ON HIS BAD FOUL IN ARSENAL-WEDNESDAY CUP FINAL: "I DID IT DELIBERATELY!"

Mark Bright - capable of dishing it out

GIVEN the opportunity to pen their memoirs, many ex- footballers see it as a chance to settle old scores.

But Mark Bright, who, on the field was never less than fearless and. competitive, takes a different tack

In his autobiography, Mark Bright - My Story from Foster Care to Footballer, he is unfailingly generous in how he describes those he has encountered both inside and outside the game - older brother Phil, foster parents, school teachers, players, managers, pretty well everyone.

Where he does find faults - for instance, with his Gambian father

(absent from most of his childhood),  maybe a manager and a player or two - he never really puts the boot in. 

Basically his message to any of the latter who happen to read the book, is  - "You could have been a bit more considerate, gracious even."

Bright doesn’t even have a go at referees! Indeed, the only one he mentions is Keren Barratt who gave him the benefit of the doubt by not sending  him off in the 1993 Arsenal-Wednesday Cup Final when he deliberately clattered his elbow into the face of  the London club's central defender, Andy Linighan, breaking his nose.

This is how the author  describes the dramatic moment  when the two challenged for the ball "As we both jumped, I stuck out my arm and smashed him in the nose with my elbow.

"He fell to the ground clutching his face, and it soon became obvious that he'd broken his nose.

"I'd done it deliberately. I hadn't set out to break his nose, but I did want to lay down a marker to him and fellow Arsenal defender Tony Adams they weren't the only ones who were capable of dishing it out.

"When the referee came over, I thought I was  gone. For a split second it looked as though he might send me off, but he didn't

"I had got away with it."

(A few days after the match,  he telephoned to apologise to Linighan who made light of the incident and told him: "See you at the far post next season!"

My Story is an absorbing account of how, through sheer determination and hard work, Bright disproved the doubters (including most of the  teachers at his Stoke secondary school) by overcoming many obstacles, including a tricky childhood and intermittent racial abuse) to fulfil his potential and to achieve  his ambition to become  a  professional footballer.

Starting at non-league  Staffordshire side  Leek town, then Port Vale, he made it to the highest level of the English game with first Leicester, then Crystal Palace, Sheffield Wednesday and Charlton.

Inevitably, there were plenty of colourful episodes along the way.

A lasting apprehension about large dogs was instilled in him by a childhood incident when he was terrorised by an Alsatian in the 'control' of an older boy with a cruel streak in his persona and a whip (in the form of a length of clothes line) in one of his hands.

Another time, he and a couple of footballing pals had to flee in their car after a road rage incident with another motorist who pulled out a gun.

Among numerous anecdotes about his playing days at Palace, some  of the most entertaining involve his friendship with team-mate Andy Gray.

On one occasion. Bright was appalled that, just hours before an important match, Gray (unbeknown to manager Steve Coppell) had happily scoffed down a Big Mac, French fries and a milkshake.

Bright told him he would never be able to run around for 90 minutes and should be ashamed.

Come the match, Gray played a blinder and scored a spectacular goal.

Recalls Bright: "As he ran back to the goalline after getting everyone's congratulations, he looked across at me, tapped his stomach with this right hand and mouthed 'Macky D' to me with a wide grin."

Other anecdotes in this absorbing book include a fascinating encounter with a faith-healer who  apparently 'cured' his  hamstring injury less than 24 hours after having treated it.

Evidently, the author's happiest times were  at Palace.

He is now back at the club where he is director of the under-23s and regularly to be seen in the Selhurst stand on matchdays  alongside  club chairman and co-owner Steve Parish.

Co-written by friend Kevin Brennan (and with an amusing foreword by Gary Lineker), My Story is a really big-hearted and inspiring autobiography.

It is published by Constable/ Little Brown and available wherever books are sold.