Frank to take criticism in his stride? Fat chance

When Frank Lampard steps on to the pitch on Saturday afternoon the reception will be quite predictable. It will be the same one he has received every season for the last nine years. I honestly cannot remember if I normally boo him. I suspect that I do but without too much vigour. He left us to play for one of our biggest rivals so the least I can do is show my disapproval. That’s as far as it goes. I have never especially liked Frank because, let’s face it, he’s not an especially likeable person but, equally, he does not stir any great emotion in me.

My attitude may take a slightly different slant this Saturday, having spent the last week forcing myself to read his self-serving autobiography Totally Frank. Why would I put myself through the arduous task of reading a book so dull it makes a Carlo Ancelotti interview sound enthralling? In short, a friend recently read it, told me of Frank’s incredible tirade against West Ham fans, and curiosity got the better of me.

Joey Barton famously commented on the plethora of post-2006 World Cup autobiographies: “England did nothing in that World Cup, so why were they bringing books out? ‘We got beaten in the quarter-finals. I played like s***. Here’s my book.’ Who wants to read that?” Steven Gerrard conceded that Barton had a point. Frank couldn’t help but take the bait and made public his grievance. As his book makes evident, he has the least thick skin in the world.

I half suspected that my friend was winding me up and that on reading the book I would discover that it merely contained a few anecdotes of isolated incidents of over-the-top abuse directed at him by West Ham fans. How wrong I was. Frank hates West Ham with a passion that I could not reciprocate if I tried. His grievances are in equal measure spurious and bizarre.

The target for one of his first criticisms is also one of the most odd – West Ham’s youth development. It’s about as coherent an argument as praising the club for its ability to hold on to its best players. He talks of being tempted away from West Ham before he had even signed, in particular by a guy at Arsenal who used to take him out for sausage and chips (which explains a few things).

For someone who isn’t motivated by money, as he claims he is not, he does rather like to talk about it. At one point he remarks on Lee Chapman, whose boots he used to clean, only tipping him £20 at Christmas compared to Julian Dicks’s £100. He does not exactly ridicule Chapman, but why even mention it?

I would like to think that the pages dedicated to his loathing of West Ham - all 130 of them - are there merely to liven up an otherwise dull book (and it really is dull. He even makes the story of a threesome in Ayia Napa sound like an episode of Little House on the Prairie). This was the mistake Wayne Rooney made. Making up stuff in his book about David Moyes, that is, not having a threesome. I have no reason to believe that Rooney has ever done the latter. It seems safe to assume though that Frank’s hatred of all things claret and blue is genuine.

His egotism knows no bounds. At one stage (and at this point I almost have to go back to the book to check I have not invented this) he actually criticises those West Ham fans who have taken the time to write him a letter condemning the abuse dished out to him by other fans. His reason? A letter is meaningless. They should stand up during the game and implore their fellow fans to keep quiet. Yes Frank, and maybe they should also walk out of the stadium, burn their shirt, go 23 stops west on the district line and start supporting the plastics. Now that really is a place where the fans keep quiet.

In his defence (well sort of) he is the first to admit that he lacks a thick skin, but even this is the understatement of the century. He retells the story of being at a West Ham fans forum when one supporter said that he wasn’t good enough to be in the first team. “That was the moment I knew I had to get out”. No Frank, that was the moment you had to man up and get on with it.

Perhaps most mystifying of all though, is his insistence that he would have stayed at West Ham were it not for all the abuse he received as a West Ham player. I saw him play in a West Ham shirt dozens of times and this supposed vendetta must have been erased from my mind, because I don’t remember any of it.

The book does have its more light-hearted moments. My personal favourite is Frank’s justification for going on an all-dayer just after 9/11 in which he and his teammates proceeded to make fun of the tragic events for the benefit of everyone around them. “I can honestly say that we did not at any point abuse any Americans who were in that bar. We didn’t shout at them or moon at them.” No mooning? Fair enough.

I can only guess that the ghostwriter let this comment slip through the net as payback for having had to spend so much time in Frank’s company. Only this week he was talking on Five Live of the “demanding” experience of working with him.

The book left me feeling not so much an anger at Frank, more a sense of pity that someone in such a privileged position should be so fixated on the negatives in life. He admits to having an intimate knowledge of West Ham fans’ views by reading fans’ websites. He comes across like a Daily Mail reader who tunes into a Russell Brand radio show, just waiting to be offended.

His conclusion then is that West Ham fans are the root of all evil and have made his life hell with their criticism. Well Frank, I really hope you have kept away from the media this week. There have been plenty of people calling time on your England career and, get this – they’re not all West Ham fans.