Ian Roberts: Finding Out by Paul Freeman

With the odds stacked against him making a career out of football, and despite an injury-hampered rise in first-grade rugby league, Ian Roberts was widely acclaimed as the best front-rower in the world in the late eighties. There was acrimony and even bomb threats when he left his humble working-class South Sydney surrounds to play with the 'silvertail' club Manly in 1989, a move that made him the league's highest-paid player ever at the time.

Three years later, he was broke and broken.

By 1995, having once again overcome insurmountable odds and amidst further controversy, he signed with Rupert Murdoch's Super League, while fulfilling his commitment to the ARL flagship club, Manly.

This is his own story, told in his own words but also told by his friends, family and teammates, the story of an ordinary man with an extraordinary talent and the courage to live his life the way he wants to.