This is the fourth time I have bought this book, I have given three away and recommended it to many others. It does what it says explains how a captain can make all the difference to a team, in this case sports teams but it applies to any team. Well researched and well written. I highly recommend the book.

This book challenges everything you think you know about leadership. The stories Walker picks out are colourful and well researched, to illustrate his findings. As a sport lover and a team leader this was an absolute page turner. He steps away from the kind of boring leadership theory thinking which I have seen strangle management within businesses. He does make some errors, he doesn't rate Man United's 1992-2001 team as Tier 1 (ie. top class) as they never won 4 titles in succession and suggests that this was down to the fact that Keane wasn't a Tier 1 Captain. This fails to spot that Keane missed almost the entire 1997-8 season and that with him United effectively won 5 titles... There's also an American bias to his team selection but this doesn;t detract to the point being made. Does it work? I tested it objectively on the top 6 sports teams I have been lucky enough to watch over 50 years... and yes in terms of a Tier 1 captain it works well for 5 of them. In terms of the captains' traits I would only question his assertion that Tier 1 captains push the rules. I actually think successful captains often push the rules less then their less successful contemporaries... You read and you decide