A former Norwich Evening News journalist has lifted the lid on the sleazier side of football with a new book detailing when players have got caught up in sex scandals.

Everything from Ruud Gullit's fling with a pizza house waitress to wide-ranging tales about Stan Collymore are covered.

Playing Away: The A-Z of Soccer Sex Scandals was written by Matthew Clark, who has also worked at The Sun, the Mirror and now The People.

He identified a gap in the market and decided the book would be a sure-fire winner.

Rather than stick to drink-driving convictions, brawls and "bungs", he has devoted the whole 360-page volume to sex.

It is billed as the first encyclopaedia of the stars who moved football from the back pages of the tabloids to the front.

It mentions Best and Beckham, Sven and Sir Alex, "roasting" and Rooney.

As well as detailing foibles and affairs, it attempts to give the definitive version of some long-running rumours.

Matthew told the Evening News: "I'm involved in writing all the headlines about footballers who are ‘playing away'.

"It's a traditional thing in Sunday Newspapers and people find it fascinating.

"In a way, it's the perfect book for me to write. I love football and find footballers fascinating, and I love newspapers, especially the tabloids.

"This is the perfect way of writing a book that combines both, which I'd always wanted to do."

The book covers exploits of stars in the 60s and 70s, like George Best and Malcolm Allison, through the 80s and 90s with Bryan Robson and John Barnes, and then on to today, where Dwight Yorke and Mark Bosnich get some column inches.

He said: "Nobody's perfect. Footballers are just human beings and there's nothing new in footballers using their fame and fortune to score off the pitch – but like it or not, they are role models."

Although he concedes many of the tales in his book are "harmless tittle-tattle (unless you're the wife of the player concerned)", he said some fascinating tales didn't make it into the pages.

"Not every soccer sex scandal could be included in Playing Away, due to legal reasons, deadlines and sheer lack of space," he said.

"You have to draw a line somewhere… if only the stars could remember that!"

Playing Away: The A-Z of Soccer Sex Scandals by Matthew Clark, is published by Cutting Edge at £7.99 in paperback (ISBN 1-903813-06-9).