Chris Evans’s biography of Gary Lineker provides a fascinating insight into one of football’s most popular characters. Lineker led the itinerant life of a footballer with Leicester City, Everton, Barcelona, Spurs, Grampus Eight and England before becoming the accomplished presenter of Match of the Day and other sports broadcasts, a successful entrepreneur and owner of sports podcasts.

After establishing a reputation as one of England’s greatest ever goalscorers he has not been afraid to give his opinions on social media.

He recently became a controversial figure when he commented on Twitter/X about the UK Government’s policy on banning illegal immigrants who tried to cross the English Channel from ever claiming asylum.

The highest-paid man on the BBC’s payroll had been asked to step back from presenting Match of the Day until an agreement was reached on his social media use.

His BBC colleagues immediately decided to offer their support and withdraw their labour which meant the BBC’s sports coverage was paralysed over one weekend in March 2023. Lineker is well liked by his colleagues and this revolt demonstrated the power of Lineker as a personality.

Lineker’s football career had humble beginnings in Leicester and one of his school reports had the classic line, “He concentrates far too much on football. He’ll never make a living doing that.”

Lineker’s popularity really took off when he scored a hat-trick against Poland in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.

Evans states, “The three goals he scored against Poland had great significance in helping England to progress to the last-16 of the World Cup, but they’d prove to have even greater personal significance. This was the catalyst for Gary Lineker to become a global football icon.”

Lineker went on to win the tournament’s golden boot, but England were knocked out at the quarter-finals stage by Argentina. In 1990 his goals helped England reach the semi-final against West Germany, where his reaction to Gazza’s tears became an iconic moment.

In his last season at Spurs, he was named the Sports Writers Footballer of the Year and became only the sixth player to win the award on more than one occasion, following in the footsteps of Stanley Matthews, Tom Finney, Danny Blanchflower, Kenny Dalglish and John Barnes. He also managed to finish second to Bobby Charlton in the all-time England goalscoring records when he stopped playing.

A foot injury plagued his time in Japan with Grampus Eight and he had to retire earlier than he had hoped. But his time on the sidelines had helped him to work out that he wanted to work in Journalism.

Lineker became the BBC’s Football Focus presenter in 1996 and took over from Des Lynam at Match of the Day in 1999. By the time he stepped down at the end of this season after more social media controversy he was the programme’s longest serving host.

Despite criticism from some quarters, commentator Barry Davies believes that Lineker is an authentic character on-screen. “He’s not only a footballer, but he’s also a television personality, he’s an interesting guy, he’s a man in the street you can talk to.”

Evans successfully argues in this biography that Lineker has accomplished seemingly impossible things while staying grounded and true to his roots. He believes that he is now one of the most famous and influential people in Britain.

Gary Lineker: A Portrait of a Football Icon by Chris Evans. Published by Bloomsbury Sport. Price £15.99.

This review first appeared in the July/August 2025 edition of Late Tackle magazine.