Apart from families I can think of no other social unit that fizzes with simmering tension more than a sports team.

Even people who have no interest in sport whatsoever will find the explosive autobiographies of former Manchester United legend Roy Keane and ex-England star batsman Kevin Pietersen utterly riveting.

For they give the reader a rare insight into what goes on behind the scenes and sweeps away all those platitudes about team spirit and how everyone can’t get enough of that wonderful dressing room harmony...zzz If their teams were orchestras it would be a very raucous kind of music that emerged indeed.

These guys really hated some of their team-mates – passionately – and what makes both books so compelling is that they were forced to spend much of their lives cooped up together, unable to get away from people they loathed.

Pietersen’s tome, KP: The Autobiography, has been particularly eagerly awaited given that he was under a legal diktat that meant he could not write bile about his England team-mates until the end of September.

Like the swaggering, ultra-confident batsman he was in his prime, he gives no quarter and some of his colleagues will never recover from their lampooning.

Matt Prior, the strutting wicket keeper, known as the Big Cheese is memorably described thus: “the Big Cheese has earned some beer tonight!” And: “A Dairylea triangle thinking he was a Brie. A schoolyard bully who was also the teacher’s pet.” Ouch.

England coach Andy Flower is said to be “contagiously sour, infectiously dour.” One of those people who could walk into a room and suck all the joy out of it in five seconds. In short “The Mood Hoover, vinegar puss”.

What makes his portraits so believable is that he was at the beating heart of the England set-up for 10 years since his introduction in southern Africa in 2004 and for two years in 2010-12 was part of one of England’s most successful teams ever.

And what is telling is his description of the cliques that formed over those years. Bowlers James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann were a ruthless trio and their sniggering behind his back about the hilarious Pietersen parody twitter account, @KPgenius, reduces him to tears at one point in 2012. Amazing, how ridicule can render the strongest of characters vulnerable.

Inevitably, there has been a backlash with the “extrovert, loudmouth” Swann dismissing the allegations as “the biggest work of fiction since Jules Verne”.

Perspective has been added by former England captain Nasser Hussain who told the Telegraph “All this comes from losing the Ashes 5-0. In the end, the respect had gone between Kevin and his team-mates. Once you lose that respect and games of cricket then the wheels can only come off.”

And yet another former England captain Michael Vaughan told the paper he thought Pietersen not being “in the inner circle would have frustrated him hugely’’.

The idea that other players’ views would be eagerly entertained while his own, as a former England captain were not, must have rankled deeply.

A similar dysfunctional set-up is portrayed in Keane’s new autobiography The Second Half. Again, we have a hugely successful team renowned throughout the world but riven with tensions. Two big characters, Peter Schmeichel and Keane end up fighting in a pre-season tour of Hong Kong with the Danish goalkeeper sustaining a black eye. And although they were part of the Treble-winning squad, strikers Andy Cole and Teddy Sheringham spent the rest of their time at United on non-speaking terms.

But the biggest, most damaging split was between Keane and the manger, Sir Alex Ferguson, which ended the Irishman’s 12-year career at Old Trafford after a Keane tirade too far. What always makes these disputes so compelling is the previous affection and deep respect which had previously characterised their relationship. At one time the Ferguson/Keane love-in was so intense Mills & Boon could have offered them a contract. Ferguson purred that he would like a team full of Keanes and Keane reciprocated the sentiment in spades.

But as we know all good things come to an end and it is often the qualities that attracted you in the first place that cause the problems – the aggression, the dedication, the tenacity.

All destined to end in tears.