Rio Grand

“I’m afraid I’ve got to tell you something very, very sad. Mum’s not going to be able to get out of here. She’s got cancer again, and this time she isn’t going to get better.’’

Telling his children that their mum was going to die was the hardest thing Rio Ferdinand had ever done in his life.

A major theme in Thinking Out Loud is how all that made Ferdinand one of the best footballers in the world, also made him totally ill-equipped to deal with Rebecca’s death.

The book describes a happy childhood in south London but one where love was always implicit, not explicit. He describes himself as “a mixed-race lad from a … council estate” who one minute was being turned away from West End designer stores and the next was a rising star footballer with his photo all over the papers. He reveals himself as a very private person, not wanting to have a girlfriend because it would involve her knowing his business, and who would dread having to enter a room of strangers.

As a footballer he reveal...