There's lots to admire in Jonathan Wilson's Nobody Ever Says Thank You, an exhaustively complete biography of Brian Clough.
Aside from recounting the bluster and the bust-ups, the book is forensic in its dissection of the mechanics of Clough's career, generally skimming over the famous outbursts and focusing instead on the minute brush strokes which make up a fascinating and complex picture.
Among countless gems unearthed through close reading of other works on Clough and newspaper archive research, Wilson records how the then-Derby County manager was set to appear on the ITV panel for England's October 1973 World Cup qualifier against Poland.
A few days beforehand, the Poles played a warm-up against the Netherlands. Clough, despite being employed full-time as manager of one of the country's leading clubs, travelled to the match in Amsterdam. For research.
How times have changed.
On Friday a lowlight of BBC TV's coverage of the opening game of the tournament, Poland v Greece, was a pitchside interview with Alan Shearer at half time.
The former England captain mouthed a few platitudes before confirming Polish goalscorer Robert Lewandowski looked 'as good as they say he is'.
In other words, Shearer had never seen the Bundesliga player of the season, the totemic striker of a team which had just claimed a German league and cup double, play.
For someone paid a king's ransom to comment on football throughout the year by our national broadcaster, that in itself is pretty inexcusable. But given Shearer will have known for some time in advance that he would be asked to discuss Poland live on television, it is quite frankly an insult to everyone watching.
The phrase 'we pay your wages' is overused in football, but feels particularly apt in this case.
In very few other jobs would such a disregard for the customer be tolerated by an employer.
The incident is symptomatic of a dull complacency at the heart of the corporation's coverage of football. Ukraine's meeting with Sweden, by common consensus among the games of the tournament so far, was viewed entirely through the prism of whether England were likely to beat either side.
The constant posing of the question 'is there anything for England to fear here?' acted as a grotesquely misplaced punctuation mark disrupting the flow of an otherwise gripping encounter.
It's become a commonplace that the BBC does football better than ITV, with no ads, no Andy Townsend and above all no Adrian Chiles.
Yet while the commercial network's failings are manifest, there has been a bracingly upfront feel about many of their contributors this summer.
In Roberto Martinez, Patrick Vieira and Gordon Strachan, at least, they have independent voices with an interest in the world game and an opinion or two.
Neither of those qualities seem to be a requirement for the BBC, with a lost-looking Clarence Seedorf among the only concessions to a world outside the England and the Premier League, where football fans might enjoy something other than cheering on Roy Hodgson's attempts to mould a new generation of utility midfielders.
Rumour has it there may even be viewers in Wales or Scotland who aren't actually that concerned about whether multiple Scudetto winner is good enough to haunt the dreams of Joleon Lescott.
They, like the rest of us, are poorly served by BBC TV's analytically bankrupt, willfully ignorant, autopilot punditry.