ISSUE FIVE GROUND

1 THE SQUALL Matt Thacker

It's worth repeating here the reasons We are very grateful to all of the people why we set up The Squall five months who have waived fees and donated to ago as a digital football magazine to give The Squall since we announced the freelance writers a forum for their work. project. Special thanks go to: Nick Ames, Not just so they can get paid to write, Philippe Auclair, John Brewin, Kieran but so they have something to aim for, a Canning, James Corbett, John Cross, sense of job satisfaction at a time when Martin da Cruz, Miguel Delaney, Andrew such satisfaction is in short supply. The Downie, Peter Drury, Ken Early, Emmet return of football has meant more work Gates, Sasha Goryunov, John Harding, for freelancers and the possibility that we Simon Hart, Gary Hartley, Ian Hawkey, will not need to produce The Squall for Frank Heinen, Tom Holland, Adam Hurrey, much longer, but for the moment that Elis James, Neil Jensen, Samindra Kunti, needs remains. Jonathan Liew, Simon Mills, James Montague, David Owen, MM Owen, The Blizzard has never been about the Simone Pierotti, Jack Pitt-Brooke, Gavin here and now, it’s much more taken with Ramjuan, Callum Rice-Coates, Philip the there and then. And although current Ross, Paul Simpson, Marcus Speller, Jon events led to its emergence, we see Spurling, Seb Stafford-Bloor, Ed Sugden, The Squall as serving the same function, Jonathan Wilson, Suzy Wrack, and showcasing great football writing on Shinobu Yamanaka. And huge thanks to subjects you are unlikely to read about Getty Images, for use of the photos. anywhere else. We hope you enjoy this “Ground” issue.

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September 2020

2 EDITOR'S NOTE Jonathan Wilson

As the daily death rate, in the UK and that we will keep going for a little while most of Europe at least, falls to less longer – but we do need your support. horrifying levels, and we begin to get used to the restrictions caused by The magazine has been funded largely by the pandemic, the economic impact writers for The Blizzard waiving their fees becomes increasingly apparent. Jobs for last year, but also by kind donations are already being lost in journalism, from the public. In addition, all editorial but with the UK entering its deepest and design staff are working for free. ever recession, the likelihood is for Such sacrifices to help the community devastation across a range of industries. of readers and writers suggests the initial spirit that fired The Blizzard’s launch a Quite how that will play out in football decade ago still burns. remains to be seen. Even if some fans are allowed back into stadiums at some But The Squall can’t be a charity. It has to point later this year, substantial damage stand as a magazine in its own right. We has already been done. The likelihood is needed the donations to launch, but now that the wealthy, able to sustain losses we need people to buy the product. Each in the short term, will benefit as they issue will be available on a pay-what- pick off assets from smaller clubs who you-want basis. We recommend £3, but need transfer revenues to survive. But if that’s a stretch then pay what you can as more people are squeezed, television afford; conversely, if you can afford more, companies will find their revenues hit, then every extra penny is welcome. And partly through cancelled subscriptions please do promote us however you can. and partly through a fall in advertising revenue. Everybody, at every level, will Hopefully we won’t need to exist for too have to reset. much longer. We’re a temporary product to get us through the crisis and we urge Even though matches are being played, you to support us on that basis. few journalists are allowed in to games, several leagues have been cancelled September 2020 and, with budgets limited, so too are opportunities. The Squall was established as a short-term measure to try to provide at least some work for at least some people and, perhaps more importantly, as a symbol that some opportunities do still exist, remains just as relevant now as it did when we launched. Which is to say

3 AN UNMISSABLE HIGHLIGHTS PACKAGE The Best of the First Five Years features 23 brilliant essays originally published between 2011 and 2016. Buy now at theblizzard.co.uk

4 CONTENTS The Squall, Issue Five – Ground

8. Dave Bowler, The Summit 48. Finn Ranson, Strangers in a How West Bromwich Albion came to Strange Land have the highest ground in England The role of football in Jewish displaced person camps after World War II 14. Luke Connelly, Diplomatic Manoeuvres 54. Alasdair Mackenzie, Why is it so What Russia’s World Cup stadiums say hard to build a ground in Italy? about Vladimir Putin’s government The struggle to update Italy’s increasingly decrepit stadiums 20. Ewan Flynn, The Boycott How Blackpool fans forced out the 60. Jessy Parker Humphreys, Oyston ownership Freeholding Tight How the Stamford Bridge pitch has been 28. Gregory Wakeman, Going to kept safe from the developers Ground Six of the greatest sliding tackles of all 66. Harry Robinson, The Highest time Derby in the World Bolivar, The Strongest and how altitude 34. Themis Karapanagiotis, influences La Paz’s great rivalry Rizoupoli How a temporary ground on the 72. Jonathan Wilson, Terroir outskirts of Athens became a byword for How vacant lots overcame the playing thuggery fields

40. Joseph Fox & Matt McGinn, 78. Contributors Returned to the Elves The rugged beauty of Iceland’s abandoned stadiums

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6 About The Blizzard

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We want as many readers as possible for All advertising, sales, press and business The Blizzard. This is why we make three communication should be addressed to the free articles available to read for everyone, this office: every month, at www.theblizzard.co.uk The Blizzard Digital Version Unit 34, (Current & Back Issues) 4th floor Bedser Stand, All issues of The Blizzard are available Kia Oval, to download for Kindle, Android, iOS London, and PC/Mac via the Amazon Kindle and SE11 5SS Google Play Stores. • RRP: £3 (or local currency Email: [email protected] equivalent). Telephone: +44 (0) 203 696 5730 Website: www.theblizzard.co.uk Printed Version Facebook: www.facebook.com/blzzrd (Current & Back Issues) Twitter: @blzzrd Purchase a physical copy of The Blizzard in all its luxurious, tactile, sensual glory About The Blizzard at: www.theblizzard.co.uk. If you haven’t Editor Jonathan Wilson felt our cover-varnish and smelled Publisher The Blizzard Media Ltd the inner genius, you haven’t properly www.theblizzard.co.uk experienced its awesome true form. Design TriNorth Ltd Read it, or leave it on your coffee table to www.trinorth.co.uk wow visitors. Copyright • RRP: £12 (+P&P) All content is © The Blizzard Media Ltd and may not be reproduced without explicit consent. Thanks to Jeanette G Sturis at the Kingsley Motel, Manjimup, for kind use of Warren Walker’s original sketches of Dog.

7 THE SUMMIT

How West Bromwich Albion came to have the highest ground in England

BY DAVE BOWLER

The West Brom groundsman checks the pitch at The Hawthorns, 1990

If there’s one fact that most fans of any Considering they’ve been at the allegiance know about The Hawthorns, Hawthorns for so long, Albion come from home of West Bromwich Albion, it’s that itinerant stock. They initially played on it is the highest league ground in the Cooper’s Hill and Dartmouth Park before whole of England – 551 feet above sea moving to an enclosed ground, Bunn’s level, seeing as you’ve asked. Field, in August 1881 and then to Four Acres a year later. Albion’s imperial phase An extremely well-known national coincided with the 1885 move to Stoney broadcaster once asked me to verify the Lane which, like its predecessors, was story and, once I had, asked me, “Why?” within a stone’s throw of the town centre. I’ve mused on the appropriate response for years now. Did the architects have That land was leased and so, after initial the sea specially lowered just to claim enthusiasm, including building the the prize? Was it constructed atop a “Noah’s Ark” grandstand, as time went slumbering Black County volcano – by and the lease ran down the directors which would at least account for the showed no interest in improving the eventual emergence of Gary Megson? ground. Couple that with Albion’s success in the FA Cup and a plot not large enough Romantically, my preference was to think to cope with the general growing interest Albion were God’s chosen football team in the game and Stoney Lane had built in and He simply wanted to be closer to the its own obsolescence. action, though that rather flies in the face of 120 years of results. If He is omnipotent, In April 1899, with Albion struggling so why would He apparently choose to have badly to make ends meet that a general so many Saturday afternoons off? It’s meeting was called to see whether not as if being used to playing at altitude the club could even continue, the Free helped Albion on their travels either. Five Press portentously intoned, “The fact FA Cup finals and two wins in 14 years at is that with the high prices now ruling Stoney Lane, the previous ancestral pile, for players, and the transfer system, stack up better than five more finals (three the Albion are placed at an enormous wins), one League Cup and a First Division disadvantage in their comparatively poor title in 120 years since. Come on God, eye financial position in securing really good on the ball! men. These demands for high wages are gradually killing the game in many towns.” The truth is the Hawthorns is where it is, And they say history can teach us nothing. and as high as it is, because of another of its curious facts – it was the first out- To compete financially, Albion needed of-town League ground in the country, to speculate to accumulate and head built not to facilitate the construction of for new territory. Land in the town a retail park around it but because it was centre was in short supply and pricey the cheapest and quickest way of creating with it, so the Throstles had to look a stadium to meet the demands of the towards Birmingham to find the space rapidly burgeoning crowds created by the they needed. The search wasn’t easy, so growth of the Football League. when, on 5 December 1899, the cavalry

10 came to the rescue in the unlikely shape – and is now a Greggs. From the sublime of the Sandwell Park Colliery Company, to the sausage roll. it was a godsend. There was £1,800 worth of work needed, They had a ten-acre pocket of land on to drain and relay the ground and the corner of Halfords Lane and the construct suitable stands. To save a few Birmingham Road and it was Albion’s bob, the club decided to ferry Noah’s for the next 14 years for an initial £70pa. Ark to the new site, but debentures were The Colliery chose to hedge its bets issued to fund the rest. Plenty of clubs by stipulating that they “reserve full some 70 and 80 years later (including powers for working the mines under Albion) failed to learn from these dangers and adjacent to the land, without being and got into the same financial peril that liable for damage to surface or erections nearly destroyed the club within five thereon.” So if your centre-forward years, but that’s another story. suddenly dropped 250 feet through a hole in the six-yard box, it would be, in Some 120 men were engaged on the job, a very real and legally binding sense, the and little wonder. They had to lead the club’s problem. brook underground, install 1,600 yards of drains under the new pitch, lay 300 The proposed stadium had good access, loads of ash under the top soil, put down wide roads coming up to the ground 12,000 yards of turf, then take 5,000 from West Bromwich, Smethwick and square yards of soil from the Birmingham Birmingham, though the later arrival Road end to the Smethwick end to try to of the car meant that easy post-match level off the slope on the pitch. But the departures became a thing of the dim and pièce de résistance, as they say in West distant. With the main tram routes into Bromwich, was the building of a new Birmingham running right past the site, 5,000-seater stand on the Halfords Lane the perfect location had dropped into the side, though it was not quite ready for the laps of the Albion directors. start of the season, with parts of the roof and the south wing not finished. It was an area of marshland in a rural location. There was a brook running But what to name the place? Frank Heaven, diagonally through what was effectively the secretary-manager of the time, had a meadow, forming a border between done a little research and discovered the Smethwick, Handsworth and West site had been part of an estate covered Bromwich. The Woodman Inn was in trees, bushes and wildlife. Given on the Handsworth side, along with a the existing relationship between the blacksmith’s forge and a few houses. At emblematic throstle, or song thrush, and the Smethwick end was a large house, the most prevalent of those trees, what Oaklands, and a garden nursery. A large better name than that of the original private house was to one side of the land. estate? Welcome to the Hawthorns. It later became the Hawthorns Hotel and housed many Albion players – Ray Barlow As Kevin Costner would tell you, “If you got word of his first England call-up there build it, they will come.” And, if they

11 ISSUE FIVE GROUND were coming to The Hawthorns, Albion It looked as if the Throstles might have to were going to having their money. It endure a bitter disappointment on such a was sixpence a game to get in and big day for the club but with 12 minutes stand to watch, a price that remained to go, Chippy Simmons smacked in the until 1919-20 when it was doubled to a equaliser. Following the game, the two shilling – how’s that for rewarding the sides repaired to the Sandwell Hotel in homecoming heroes who’d just won a West Bromwich for what used to be known war? The most expensive seats were in as a slap-up do with all the trimmings. the centre of the Halfords Lane stand, coming in at two shillings a game or 25 Attendance figures of the time are shillings for a season ticket. If you fancied notoriously unreliable, but the crowd your luck in Noah’s Ark – the woodworm was put at 20,104, impressive enough went in two by two – that was a shilling given the Halfords Lane stand still wasn’t a game or 12s 6d for the season. Ladies finished. Since the final First Division were admitted to the Halfords Lane stand crowd at Stoney Lane five months at a discount, paying just 15 shillings for a earlier was only 5,187, this was an early season ticket. indication that the move had been a sound decision. Further evidence came The Hawthorns was declared ready the following Saturday when 35,417 to host its first ever game, the great packed the ground to watch Albion take occasion taking place on Monday, 3 on Villa, though apparently plenty more September 1900, a local works holiday, got in after scaling the fences. Albion meeting Derby County in the First 1 Division. Amid appropriate pomp and The initial enthusiasm had inevitably circumstance, even William McGregor, waned a little by the time the Throstles doyen of the Football League and WG got their first Hawthorns win, at the fourth Grace’s stunt double, was in attendance. attempt, beating Manchester City 3-2 The game was no classic, but midway before a crowd of 11,183. But even if the through the first half, the first goal was numbers had slipped away from that early The idea of The Squall is to help out freelance scored at the new ground. It came from peak, it was clear that the switch to the a Derby player, the legendary England Hawthorns had been a huge success. writers during the Covid-19 crisis. For it to survive striker Steve Bloomer – at least Bloomer was a Black Country lad, born in Cradley Shame they got relegated at the end of and thrive, we are asking readers to pay what they Heath, five miles from the Hawthorns. the season. can and we suggest a minimum donation of £3.

You can pay into The Squall's bank account (sort code 40-05-17 and account number 71515942) or via PayPal to paypal.me/thesquall.

Thank you in advance for helping out.

12 ISSUE FIVE GROUND

1

The idea of The Squall is to help out freelance writers during the Covid-19 crisis. For it to survive and thrive, we are asking readers to pay what they can and we suggest a minimum donation of £3.

You can pay into The Squall's bank account (sort code 40-05-17 and account number 71515942) or via PayPal to paypal.me/thesquall.

Thank you in advance for helping out. DIPLOMATIC MANOEUVRES

What Russia’s World Cup stadiums say about Vladimir Putin’s government

BY LUKE CONNELLY

Kylian Mbappe holds the World Cup trophy at the Luzhniki Stadium

There is no question that the 2014 the vast sums of public money required to World Cup was both a financial and host the event and even economists in the PR disaster for Brazil. In a country in wealthiest nations would argue that such which an enormous proportion of sums would be better spent elsewhere. people live in abject property, public spending to host the tournament was In Russia, however, Fifa could be fairly double initial forecasts and what did confident that such protests would be they have to show for it? The protests quickly suppressed, should they even were plentiful and in many ways take place. They certainly wouldn’t justified. The hosting of the tournament protest against the government in the coincided with the onset of recession same way that Brazilians did. Russia has in Brazil and two years later they were taken a very different political route to due to host the 2016 Olympics. Political most major states. From the Tsars, to the dissatisfaction grew as quickly as the Soviet era, to the premierships of Yeltsin, escalating construction costs and the Putin, Putin’s puppet Medvedev and Brazilian economy is yet to recover from then Putin again, there has never been a the fallout of the ongoing recession. voter-led democracy. The political transformation was also unprecedented. Out went the left- Russia’s hosting of the 2018 World wing Workers’ Party, following Dilma Cup is a classic example of a state Rousseff’s impeachment, and in came exerting soft power via the medium the reactionary, right-wing government of an international sports tournament. of Jair Bolsonaro. And there are plenty of examples. In Soccernomics, Simon Kuper and Stefan Fast forward four years and the greatest Szymanski argue that “if playing in a show on earth swapped Copacabana tournament creates social cohesion, for the Kremlin. All in all, Russia was a hosting one creates even more.” In fairly obvious choice. Under Soviet rule, Putin’s Russia, this is social cohesion Moscow had hosted the 1980 Olympics crafted entirely in the state’s image. and more recently Sochi had hosted the 2016 Winter Olympics yet, despite an The stadiums constructed for the World extensive footballing history, Russia had Cup are enormous concrete reminders never staged the World Cup. of the government’s involvement in funding and developing cities across the In many ways a Russian World Cup was Federation. The reality is that this funding just what the doctor ordered for Fifa’s comes straight from public coffers for public image. This may sound bizarre, little obvious financial benefit. The notion given the country’s highly questionable that a football ground increases the human rights record and attitudes towards number of tourists to a city in the long homosexuality and ethnic minorities, but term is spurious. the damage to the prestige of hosting a World Cup, following the protests Take FC Sochi for instance. The club was in Brazil, has been long-lasting and founded in 2018 following the 2,000- significant. Attention had been drawn to mile relocation of Dinamo St Petersburg

16 under the ownership of the oligarch though it represents a looming structural Boris Rotenberg, a long-term friend and personification of Putinist domestic policy close confidant of Vladimir Putin. Are FC and the inherent cronyism present in Sochi’s attendances likely to increase as Russian politics. a result of a new ground? Sochi’s average attendance for the 2019-20 Premier Above all, being close to the regime Division season was just over 9,000. It’s pays dividends. a notable increase on the previous year, prior to their promotion, but still leaves Rotenberg, through his friendship some 35,000-plus empty seats. with Putin, has been able to secure construction projects in Sochi that were Similarly, in the second tier, FC Nizhny worth in the region of €5 billion in the Novgorod averaged just under 7,000 in build up to the 2016 Winter Olympics. their 45,000 all-seater stadium and Baltika Following the World Cup, his FC Sochi Kaliningrad’s average attendance of just side now have a brand new, state-of-the- over 6,000 was under 20% of capacity. art stadium. The increased rent could make operations economically impossible. You only have In many ways, this sort of infrastructure to look at Kaiserslautern’s recent financial development is a microcosm of Putin’s demise for that. Trapped in a stadium that ongoing aim of dissipating economic they struggle to fill and struggle to pay centralisation from Moscow and across for, they have struggled to make ends his vast trans-continental empire. meet and are staring into the black hole Previously, Putin’s reach into provincial of financial oblivion. football came through his political alliances with club presidents, with The reality is that the spectacle drives Rotenberg being just one example. attendances, not necessarily the venue. Kerimov has represented the Republic Under Suleiman Kerimov’s ownership, of Dagestan in the Federal Assembly Anzhi Makhachkala drew new crowds by for over a decade and did so prior to assembling a successful and incredibly his ownership of Anzhi Makhachkala. expensive playing squad, though Ramzan Kadyrov, head of the Chechen this naturally had its own financial Republic and a key political ally of Putin complications. in the region, has found himself owner of Akhmat Grozny. There’s no denying that Sochi’s Fisht Stadium is very impressive from an Furthermore, since the fall of the architectural point of view. It’s designed Iron Curtain, emerging sides with no to replicate the Caucasus mountains and, connection to the Soviet past have been courtesy of its open bowl shape, offers encouraged by the regime and, though views of the mountains to the north and FC Moscow were formed and quickly Black Sea to the south. The work done fell away, this has continued in recent in designing and constructing a structure years. In this respect, the former Supreme that both matches and enhances the League heavyweights of Lokomotiv, Sochi skyline, is exemplary. Fundamentally Spartak, CSKA or Dinamo hark back

17 ISSUE FIVE GROUND to the Soviet era and the now ailing or difficulties for Russia given their separatist defunct Kuban Krasnodar and Anzhi associations. As regards Sevastopol, Makhachkala were always problematic Russia courted enough bad press from for the league’s image (in the eyes of the Europe for building a bridge to the RFU) given their separatist associations. Crimea: imagine the backlash of hosting a Hence, the emergence of FC Sochi, game there. Baltika Kaliningrad, Ural Yekaterinburg and FC Nizhny Novgorod are encouraged Ultimately, governmental involvement in as they symbolise an evolving, albeit football is nothing new, particularly where somewhat manufactured, footballing dictatorships are concerned, but Putin’s scene in Russia. approach is markedly different. While Recep Erdoğan’s affiliation with Istanbul Hosting the World Cup has provided the Başakşehir is well documented and FC perfect cover for public money to be Astana have backing from the Nazarbayev spent on improving infrastructure without regime in Kazakhstan, Putin has spread scrutiny. The aim was to not only provide his backing, via associates, across a huge a stimulus of growth for cities across geographical area and a number of cities. Russia, and for their respective teams, but to also extend approval for the Putin’s The scale of this project is phenomenal. regime as far beyond Moscow as possible. Dictators have used football clubs to promote an image or adherence to a It’s a bizarre transition for the dynamic regime for decades. They’ve hosted World of Russian football from the Moscow- Cups and international tournaments to 1 centric attitude of the Soviet era. The justify economic projects and political aim is to encourage a distinct split from rhetoric for just as long. The difference the past but a continuation of the state’s here is the scale. interests being represented and furthered by the national game. The legacy of Putin’s World Cup is one with long lasting, ideological and national The idea of The Squall is to help out freelance The state hopes that the stadiums identity-focused consequences. You will represent a modernising and can forget the architectural details, the writers during the Covid-19 crisis. For it to survive burgeoning economic power to the games they hosted and the clubs that world. It’s interesting that none of Grozny, now call them home, these stadiums and thrive, we are asking readers to pay what they Krasnodar, Makhachkala nor Sevastopol represent one thing: Putin’s Russia. By were host cities at the 2018 World Cup merely existing they justify an increasingly can and we suggest a minimum donation of £3. despite their footballing tradition and, in megalomaniacal and democratically the case of Grozny and Krasnodar, the deficient Russian state. They’re stationary, existence of modern stadiums. The state concrete State-sentinels, perforating You can pay into The Squall's bank account continues to grapple for control in these skylines across the Caucasus and Volga. regions, all of which have presented (sort code 40-05-17 and account number 71515942) or via PayPal to paypal.me/thesquall.

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18 ISSUE FIVE GROUND

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The idea of The Squall is to help out freelance writers during the Covid-19 crisis. For it to survive and thrive, we are asking readers to pay what they can and we suggest a minimum donation of £3.

You can pay into The Squall's bank account (sort code 40-05-17 and account number 71515942) or via PayPal to paypal.me/thesquall.

Thank you in advance for helping out. THE BOYCOTT

How Blackpool fans forced out the Oyston ownership

BY EWAN FLYNN

A portrait of former Blackpool owner Owen Oyston

Saturday, 9 March 2019. retirement age, he was convicted of sexually assaulting and raping a 16-year-old girl. He Two hours before kick-off 10,000 was sentenced to six years for offences the tangerine-clad fans congregate joyously judge described as “horrendous”. below Blackpool’s iconic Tower. It is the first time in four years that this number While Oyston was in prison, responsibility of Seasiders have gathered together on for Blackpool passed first to his wife, a match day. Their self-imposed exile then later his son Karl, who became from Bloomfield Road will finally end at Chair. Blackpool continued to bounce 3pm when their team kick off against around the third and fourth tiers of Southend. It is an all too rare example in English football. English football of fan power triumphing. The Blackpool fans, with a helping hand from the High Court, have finally ousted the reviled Oyston family, who owned Rise and fall and fleeced the club over three decades. Things changed in 2006, however, with the investment of the Latvian financier Valeri Belokon. Blackpool quickly The Oystons won promotion to the Championship. Then, remarkably, in 2010 the The Oyston saga began in 1987 when Seasiders booked their place at English Owen Oyston – now in his mid-80s and football’s top table for the first time known for his sartorial flair (cowboy hat, since 1971. The estimated £90million sunglasses and long peroxide hair) – Premier League windfall should have bought Blackpool for £1. guaranteed a lasting legacy. Instead, the Oystons diverted the money into Despite an illustrious history, including their own bulging pockets. A payment the most celebrated FA Cup final victory of £11million from Blackpool to another of them all in 1953, Blackpool had fallen Oyston-owned company prompted one on hard times. Throughout the 1980s the astute fan to comment, “At least Dick club teetered on the brink of bankruptcy. Turpin wore a mask.”

Oyston stepped in, casting himself in the Relegated after just one season, the club role of saviour of his boyhood favourites. returned to the Championship. Using a fortune accrued from his property and media empires, he wiped out the In an interview with the Guardian’s club’s debts and promised better times. David Conn, Karl Oyston defended But questions soon arose about whether the payment to his father claiming, for he was a suitable leader for the town’s opaque tax reasons, they somehow beloved institution. safeguarded the club.

In 1996 Owen Oyston’s seedy reputation Fans’ wellbeing was of less concern. Wonga caught up with him when, close to sponsored Blackpool between 2010 and

22 2015. The ethics of promoting loans with A club at war sky-high interest to supporters in a town battered by the dual tides of government As the team tanked, fans raged. Karl cutbacks and declining seaside tourism Oyston’s mobile number appeared online, never troubled the Oystons. prompting some Seasiders to send him abusive messages. Karl Oyston responded Austerity was in full swing at Blackpool’s in kind. He also antagonistically fitted his Squires Gate training ground. The Land Rover with an OY5I OUT number manager Ian Holloway succinctly plate. Not satisfied with publicly taunting described it as a “hellhole” that “every the club’s fans, the Oystons brought libel player this club has ever had hates.” The cases against several supporters. misspelling of ‘Centre of Excellance’ [sic] at its entrance was symptomatic of much Publication of the club’s accounts in deeper neglect. 2015, showing loans totalling £27.7 million from Blackpool to its Oyston- Sensing Blackpool’s downwardly mobile owned parent company, confirmed what trajectory, Holloway departed in 2012. fans already knew – their club was being Subsequently, the Bloomfield Road asset-stripped. managerial hot seat became more like an electric chair. Marooned at the bottom of the table, Blackpool were relegated from the Supporter unrest intensified as Blackpool Championship with six games to play. narrowly avoided a further demotion in 2013-14. The Oystons did not It was at the final match of that grim seek to build bridges. First Karl was campaign, shortly after half-time, that photographed, smiling provocatively, hundreds of Seasiders invaded the next to a sign that read. “BLACKPOOL Bloomfield Road pitch. After an hour FC OYSTON CASH COW ENOUGH IS of “Oyston Out” chants, and a conga ENOUGH PUT FOOTBALL FIRST.” Then, line, the game was abandoned. One responding to a fan protest that had fan, Bobby Mack, provided an enduring showered the pitch with tennis balls, Karl image of individual protest. Amid apparently choreographed a picture of his choruses of “Let him on!” stewards young son clutching a tennis racket in the eventually cleared a path. Mack slowly directors’ box piloted his mobility scooter, left fist defiantly raised, from the north-west Ahead of the 2014-15 campaign, corner of the ground to his comrades in newspapers reported Blackpool had only the centre circle. eight contracted players. For the season’s opener against Nottingham Forest the This levity proved fleeting. Five Seasiders were unable to name a full supporters were arrested for their part in complement of substitutes. the pitch invasion.

23 Boycott Blackpool from extinction – again and again, and again. Psychologists talk of Extending the Oystons an “ethical exit moral licensing, “that past good deeds strategy”, the Blackpool Supporters Trust can liberate individuals to engage in offered to buy the club. The proposed deal unethical behaviours that they would would see the Oystons trouser around otherwise avoid for fear of feeling or £16million for their initial £1 investment. appearing immoral.” Listening to Owen Karl dismissed the bid as “laughable”. Oyston that night, it was apparent not only had he granted himself this licence, The Blackpool fans were not amused. he’d also photocopied it for Karl. The Trust under the slogan “Not A Penny More” began a boycott of Bloomfield The boycott continued to gain Road. While a minority of fans found this momentum. Average attendance shrank to unbearable, thousands answered the call. 3,461. Nevertheless, ahead of a 4th round FA Cup tie, Karl Oyston dismissed the Civil war soon engulfed the Blackpool protest “a hopeless cause” with “dwindling boardroom. The estranged club President, numbers”, engineered by a “handful Valeri Belokon, filed proceedings at the of people who have no alternatives High Court. He claimed the Oystons whatsoever” and “nothing to offer”. owed him millions in unpaid investment and missed profit returns. Even as the team produced football’s equivalent of a dead cat bounce, reaching As the team picked up where it had left the League Two play-off final at Wembley, off – racing to the bottom of League supporters stayed away. Previous play-off One and ultimately another relegation – finals had seen 40,000 Seasiders descend some Seasiders argued the boycott was on Wembley. This time, fewer than 6,000 damaging the club. Despite the occasional saw their team defeat Exeter. exchange of harsh words, those picketing Bloomfield Road stood firm. As the boycott entered its third punishing season, Blackpool’s fans asked why Blackpool started 2016-17 in English football’s authorities had not intervened. football’s fourth tier, a division below The Chair of the Blackpool Supporters where they had been when Owen Oyston Trust, Christine Seddon, explained that ‘saved’ the club in 1987. upon top-flight promotion in 2010, the Premier League declined to enforce Remarkably, Owen accepted an one of its own statutes. Owen Oyston’s invitation to meet hundreds of rape conviction meant he failed the Supporters’ Trust members in a League’s Owners and Directors Test. He downtown hotel. In an atmosphere should, therefore, have divested himself more Galatasaray away than tea at the of his majority shareholding. By the time Ritz, Oyston demonstrated the solidity of Premier League Chief Executive Richard his brass neck, regurgitating his narrative Scudamore realised Oyston was non- – that he always acted in the club’s best compliant, Blackpool had been relegated interest and had, 30 years ago, saved back to the Football League’s jurisdiction.

24 The EFL, in turn, refused to apply its rules Having survived a season in League One, retrospectively, noting that Oyston had the draw for the 2018-19 FA Cup 3rd owned Blackpool for nearly two decades round brought Arsenal to Bloomfield when their regulations on the suitability of Road. This glamour tie allowed Blackpool owners were drafted. supporters to remind the wider world of their plight. One fan scaled the Gunners’ team bus, where he remained unmoved for 40 minutes, forcing Arsenal to make High Court drama alternative travel arrangements.

A more significant result than the play- off final victory came in November 2017. The High Court Judge Marcus Smith Ousted found that the Oystons had “unfairly prejudiced” Valeri Belokon, having Finally, on 13 February 2019, the High overseen an “illegitimate stripping” Court placed Blackpool Football Club into of Blackpool involving “fundamental receivership. The club was to be sold to breaches of their duties as directors.” pay off the money owed to Belokon. The Oystons were ordered to pay £31.27million to Belokon. Effectively Owen Oyston, after 32 years, had lost control. Having missed the court’s deadline for a £10million instalment, a rift between The boycott was over. The manufacture father and son ensued. In February 2018, of “OYSTON OUT” scarves ceased, the Owen suddenly announced that Karl production of “BLACKPOOL ARE BACK” had stepped down as Chair. Banishment ones began. extended beyond football. Karl was also removed from “any other Oyston Group In the week preceding the ‘homecoming’ company”. Owen vowed to cling on to game, the Trust called on volunteers to the club. Keeping it in the family, Natalie report to Bloomfield Road for ‘the big Christopher – his 32-year-old daughter – clean-up’. It was on the first morning, as was installed as Chair. 50 or so supporters entered the famous ground, armed with buckets, rubber Perhaps not yet fully apprised as to the gloves and industrial-strength cleaning extent of the Blackpool disaster, or the products, that the true legacy of the conviction of the club’s supporters, Oyston era was exposed. A stadium left Christopher told the Blackpool Gazette: squalid, coated with four years’ worth of “It’s an honour to be in this position. The bird shit. Several fans were visibly moved club is 133 years old, or something like as lovingly, row by row, they scraped that.” She went on to say she hoped to and scrubbed every seat in the stadium. convince a few fans to return, before One volunteer, David, who first attended laying out ambitious plans for the training a match in 1959, vacillated between joy ground. “I think we can get some showers at the prospect of at last bringing his and a few basic things in there.” grandchildren to their first game and

25 ISSUE FIVE GROUND despair at the years of neglect inflicted on Inside, the programme lists the names of his hometown club. the 189 Seasiders who died during the exodus. Legendary right-back Jimmy Later that afternoon, a ladder is propped Armfield is among them. So too is up high in the West Stand. A man climbs Christine’s mother, Joan. Before kick-off, to the top and begins dismantling a a minute’s silence remembers them. giant Oyston Estates sign. For those in the stadium cleaning, this is their There are no recriminations between moment – akin to toppling the statue of those who kept going and those who a hated dictator. stayed away.

Match day finally arrives. Just before The day is about being together again 1.30pm, the crowd sets off in a parade at last. The day is about going off your to the stadium. The sun even shines. nut celebrating Blackpool’s injury-time Blackpool songs are sung. No one has equaliser. The day is about singing over forgotten the words, although some are and over: learning them for the first time. In the queue for a programme one fan tells “Woke up this morning feeling fine, another, “Being honest, I haven’t got Got Blackpool FC on my mind. a clue who half our players are.” Only We got the Oystons out like we said we three of the first-team squad were at the would, oh yeah. club before the boycott. Something tells me I’m into something good.” 1

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26 ISSUE FIVE GROUND

1

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Six of the greatest sliding tackles of all time

BY GREGORY WAKEMAN

Ledley King against Chelsea in 2006

Bobby Moore With good reason, too. Arguably, it’s the https://www.youtube.com/ most sumptuous and elegant piece of watch?v=72z5H9hkYGM football, let alone defending, that anyone can ever hope to see. Brazil 1 England 0, World Cup group stage, Estadio Jalisco, Guadalajara, 7 Like a predator going after their prey, June 1970 Moore is calm, composed and completely in control, even as the rampaging When Xabi Alonso was reflecting on his Jairzinho enters the England penalty area. five years in the Premier League back in Moore waits and waits to pounce, and 2011, he admitted one prevalent part of when he does his tackle is so smooth and the English game had always left him a precise that it could have been used as little bemused. evidence he did actually take the Bogota bracelet. Then Moore glides back to his “Tackling is not really a quality,” the World feet in one fell swoop, while Jairzinho Cup, European Championship, Champions seemingly continues to bounce and spin League, La Liga and Bundesliga winner told like an errant sock in a dryer. the Daily Mail. “You would come across an interview with a lad from the youth team A hero is only as good as his villain, and they’ve asked him his age, his heroes as though, and the fact that Jairzinho was a kid and his strong points. And he would say the most dynamic player in the most things like shooting and tackling. I can’t get complete World Cup team of all time into my head that footballing development makes Moore’s dispossession of him all would teach tackling as a quality.” the more impressive.

Anyone who has ever been to a match in England will know just how visceral and galvanising a ferocious tackle can be to Alessandro Nesta those in the stands and those on the pitch. https://www.youtube.com/ Fans can’t dream of replicating the skills watch?v=yMdq9WPz4YY&t=555s and talents of the supreme athletes they’re watching, but they can imagine knocking France 2 Italy 1, Euro 2000 final, De Kuip, them off the ball with their bulk. While for Rotterdam, 2 July 2000 players, a hard tackle is the easiest way to prove that it means just as much to them In another reality, Alessandro Nesta’s as it does to the paying punters. tackle on Sylvain Wiltord would be remembered as the defining moment of Despite Alonso’s objections, a tackle Italy’s catenaccio-inspired victory over can still be beautiful, though. The best France in the Euro 2000 final. example of this just so happens to be the most obvious. Bobby Moore’s There’s a contagious confidence to pickpocketing of Jairzinho is so iconic that the way that Nesta razes Wiltord for every English fan alive since 7 June 1970 possession. Not only does he stop him has the image imprinted in their minds. dead in his tracks, but Nesta emerges

30 with the ball firmly under his control and primarily remembered for being United’s leaves the Bordeaux forward seemingly most diminutive and follically challenged timid, deflated and all out of ideas. attempt to replace Peter Schmeichel. Someone who failed to outwit Paolo Di If Italy had won, it’s easy to imagine Nesta’s Canio in a fourth round FA Cup stand-off feat of strength becoming so symbolic that at Old Trafford and was twice embarrassed he would have risen from his fifth-place by Thierry Henry in a crucial Premier finish in that year’s Ballon d’Or to first. League head-to-head at Highbury. Especially since, in the season leading up to the Euros, he’d been at the cornerstone of But a modern context looks much more Lazio’s first Serie A victory since 1974, too. kindly on Barthez’s ability with his feet and bravery to race out of his goal, Unfortunately for Nesta, history is written by during which time he turned into a de- the victors. So Wiltord’s revenge, otherwise facto central defender. Just look at how known as France’s 93rd-minute equaliser, Ederson, Alisson and Manuel Neuer are and David Trezeguet’s Golden Goal winner lauded for playing outside their boxes. just 10 minutes later, means that, alongside Franco Baresi’s heroics against Brazil in When United hosted Spurs in September the World Final of 1994 and Oliver Kahn’s 2002, a Ferdinand slip suddenly let brilliance throughout the 2002 World Cup Robbie Keane clean through with just up until the final, Nesta’s fine tackle is now Barthez to beat. Since he was still 40 just another footballing footnote. yards from goal, the Irishman can be forgiven for concentrating on his control rather than checking Barthez’s position. If he had looked up, he would have Fabien Barthez seen that the World Cup and European Manchester United 1 Tottenham Hotspur Championship winner was already on 0, Premier League, Old Trafford, 21 the charge. Barthez usually positioned September 2002 himself on the edge of his box when United’s defence was high up the pitch. Twenty years ago Premier League But, unlike his peers at the time, he was goalkeepers were there to stop shots and always ready and willing to confront an shout at their defenders. Nothing less, oncoming attacker, rather than retreating certainly nothing more. That was it. to his goal. So before Keane had even had a chance to get his bearings Barthez Even though it had been a decade since was in his face and soon in possession. the back-pass was outlawed, fans were still wary whenever a keeper had the ball Rather than being celebrated for his at their feet and were instantly outraged impromptu defensive duties, though, the if they even considered coming out of Old Trafford faithful groaned in disbelief their boxes. at his audacity. Their minds had been thrown back to a year earlier, when So in many ways Fabien Barthez was Barthez had taken a similar approach in a ahead of his time. Nowadays, Barthez is Champions League group game against

31 Deportivo, only to slip, slide and allow being played onside by the loitering Diego Tristan to score the winning goal. Pascal Chimbonda, it seemed a formality that he would break the deadlock. But, in less than 10 seconds, King showed the mentality, drive and physical Ledley King adroitness that made him so beloved. https://www.youtube.com/ As the other defenders stood back and watch?v=SjxmyjLp9tg waited for the inevitable, King made up 10 yards on Robben and, just as he was Tottenham 2 Chelsea 1, Premier League, seemingly about to poke the ball beyond White Hart Lane, 5 November 2006 a dawdling Paul Robinson, he curved his leg around the Dutchman to poke the It’s easy to assume people are being ball out for a corner. hyperbolic when they talk about the heights Ledley King could have reached for Tottenham Hotspur and England if it wasn’t for his dastardly knees, particularly Philipp Lahm when his positioning and innate ability to https://www.youtube.com/ sniff out an attacking threat meant King watch?v=QHfy0G1VOTI and https://www. was being compared to Bobby Moore youtube.com/watch?v=MSJo3ojpX94 when he was just 16 years old. Bayern Munich 2 Schalke 04 0, Even if he had stayed fit and played to Bundesliga, Allianz Arena, Munich, 7 40, King was never going to threaten August 2010 the England and West Ham legend’s legacy. But the numerous examples of The importance of instantly transitioning King’s limitless ability have bolstered his from defence into attack in the current myth and even though he never finished football climate means that Jürgen above fourth for Spurs and received just Klopp’s Liverpool and Pep Guardiola’s 21 England caps, his place amongst the Manchester City are most effective in the Premier League defensive greats is still seconds after they win back possession. debated to this day. So it’s not hard to imagine that both of these managers and their coaches have Those who feel he isn’t worthy only told their players to tackle in such a need to see his knee-defying tackle on manner that it speeds up this process. Arjen Robben back in November 2006 to reconsider. This was at a time when José Luckily for them, they can just point Mourinho’s Chelsea were the pinnacle of at Philipp Lahm’s incredibly effective English football and Robben was the most manner of sliding, winning the ball with formidable element of the back-to-back his heel and then immediately starting an Premier League champions. attack for Bayern Munich. Despite being coached by him for three years, Lahm So when the 22-year-old speedster was didn’t actually learn this technique under put through at White Hart Lane, after Guardiola. He had been doing it for years

32 before the Spaniard’s arrival, deploying it lambert/status/1061958796350767104) at twice on Ivan Rakitić during Bayern’s 2-0 such speed that he fell into his net like a victory over Schalke 04 in the 2010 DFL collapsing drunk. Supercup. Guardiola clearly encouraged Lahm’s to repeat this trick. Under his But this merging of tackle and shot isn’t leadership, in October, 2013, Lahm just an English phenomenon. In fact, managed to tackle Manchester City’s over in Germany, Sebastian Langkamp’s Jesus Navas (https://www.youtube.com/ shellacking in Karlsruhe’s 1-0 victory watch?v=xQ-ZSmGNPCA) in the exact at Bayern Leverkusen back in May same fashion. 2009 (https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=upC-GTwoYTQ) is superior to The benefits to this slide tackle are Cundy’s effort in almost every way. Not so obvious that surely either Klopp or only is his initial challenge so picture- Guardiola have an expert on their roster perfect it deserves to be hung in a teaching their players how to perfect it, museum, but the trajectory of the ball especially after Liverpool’s acquisition and the way it loops into the net over of throw-in coach Thomas Grønnemark the perplexed and stranded Rene Adler and his immediate improvements to such is just as pleasing on the eye, too. If it a tiny part of the game recently inspired had managed to kiss the bar on its way in their Champions League and Premier Langkamp would now be known as the League triumphs. 2000s Yeboah.

Both pale in comparison to Domenico Zampaglione’s ungodly clobbering to Domenico Zampaglione defeat Tuttocuoio 1957, though (https:// https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_ www.youtube.com/watch?time_ continue=2&v=NUJMrzowCQM continue=35&v=NUJMrzowCQM). The midfielder got such ferocity on his tackle Tuttocuoio 1957 0 Vigor Lamezia 1, 2a that the velocity of his shot somehow Divisione Girone B, Stadio Libero Masini, leaves the keeper motionless, even Santa Croce sull’Arno, 9 February 2014 though it left the Italian’s foot some 75 yards up the pitch. Watching a slide tackle turn into a shot and then a goal, all within the space of a Of course, all three of these examples few seconds, is such a rare and explosive would have been eclipsed by Kevin anomaly that even Xabi Alonso can Ball’s virtuoso attempt at an own-goal probably appreciate its beauty. in the Tyne-Wear derby of August 1999. It’s probably for the best that his tackle Arguably the most famous incarnation of on Duncan Ferguson didn’t actually this footballing unicorn came at Portman beat Thomas Sorensen (https://www. Road in the first month of the Premier youtube.com/watch?v=cgRTMm- League, when Jason Cundy’s attempt to RgCw), though. If it had, a 17-year-old reduce Jason Dozzell to rubble flashed Xabi Alonso would almost certainly have by Craig Forrest (https://twitter.com/sid_ retired on the spot.

33 RIZOUPOLI

How a temporary ground on the outskirts of Athens became a byword for thuggery

BY THEMIS KARAPANAGIOTIS

An Olympiacos player kneels on a Panathinaikos player during their 3-0 win in 2003

The Georgios Kamaras Stadium is the In the week before the match the home ground of Apollon Smyrnis, tension between the two sides reached located in a refugee community (from unprecedented levels. It wasn’t just about the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-22) called the championship. It was much more than Rizoupoli, which eventually became the that. Srečko Katanec had already been name by which the stadium is commonly fired by Olympiakos for “not understanding known. On 11 May 2003, this 16,000 the obsession everyone had with winning capacity arena in Athens played host the seventh consecutive championship”. to the most notorious match the Greek Panathinaikos, meanwhile, had gone Super League has ever witnessed, as out of the Uefa Cup in the quarter-final Olympiacos and Panathinaikos, the to Porto at least in part because of the country’s two biggest rivals, took the board’s decision to focus on the league. field with the 2002-03 championship on the line. What followed would shape Olympiacos’s owner Sokratis Kokkalis Greek football for the years to come, gave a press conference before the match contributing to its decline and becoming calling for the fans not to cross any line the reference point for every future case with their behaviour but he used the word of hooliganism in the country. “clients” to refer to Panathinaikos, which was considered deliberately demeaning. A year before the 2004 Olympic Games and because of the re-construction of Rizoupoli is located in a crowded their own stadium in Piraeus, Olympiacos urban area surrounded by houses and had been using Rizoupoli as the club’s industrial areas. The city train runs nearby, home for a few seasons. Their new home making the approach by road far from would be up and running as soon as the straightforward. Panathinaikos’s problems Olympics began. Despite playing their began long before they got to the home games in an old and small ground, stadium. An operational error by police Olympiacos had already won a joint forced the driver to make his way through record six consecutive league titles and the crowd and park just outside the were aiming for a record seventh. With dressing room, directly below the main two rounds remaining, they were three stand. The players and coaching staff were points behind their eternal rivals. They greeted by ultras with flares, rocks, coins had lost the first derby that season 3-2 and bottles as they ran from the bus to the and with head-to-head record used to stadium entrance. “That day we should separate teams finishing level on points not have got off the bus,” said Seitaridis. needed to overturn that deficit. “We should have turned around and left.”

Panathinaikos, coached by the Uruguayan 16,000 fans, 2,500 of them Panathinaikos Sergio Markarián, had a squad based supporters, created a heated atmosphere. around a brilliant generation such as For a while the chaos around the tunnel Giorgos Karagounis, Giourkas Seitaridis, was such that Markarián’s players could Antonis Nikopolidis and Angelos Basinas, not take to the field to warm up. Only all of them key members of the Greece when riot police with shields offered side that would go on to Euro 2004. protection could they get to the pitch,

36 but they were still pelted with missiles and smashed the seats in the stands and flares. “I remember entering the pitch and I started fires and the next day stormed was trying to put out Seitaridis’s shirt which the club’s training ground accusing had caught fire,” said the captain Angelos the players of a lack of passion and Basinas. “That game had nothing to do intensity. They destroyed property and with football. It was a war.” When security cars, and one of them even slapped guards began abusing them, he said, a lot Warzycha. Along with the angry fans of the foreign players wanted to leave. came Filippidis, the club chairman, who also attacked the players, calling them No board member went to try to help “chickens”. The team was dismantled: them. Even club chairman at the time, a group of players who contributed Angelos Filippidis, stayed at home. to many astonishing European nights The players and the staff were left and played modern and aesthetically unprotected by their own administration. pleasing football was used as scape- goats for the title loss. Even though Giorgos Mporovilos, the referee, could Panathinaikos would go on to win the have postponed the game but after 2004 championship, they would never consulting the football federation they again reach the level or the potential of decided it could go ahead. Markarián’s team. Rizoupoli was a key moment in the decline of the club. Olympiacos started strongly and took a third-minute lead as Giovanni headed Mporovilos, the referee, insists he was right past Nikopolidis. Stelios Giannakopoulos to start the game, claiming that during doubled their lead in the 15th minute. 2-0 the match everything went smoothly. He was enough to give them the advantage later became president of the Greek Super in the table. “The players were scared,” League. Giannis Tsironis, the police general said the Panathinaikos forward Krzysztof and head of the operations, who failed to Warzycha. “I saw [Joonas] Kolkka, [Jan] ensure the safety of the players and fans, Michaelsen and [René] Henriksen not was later appointed as Olympiacos’s head knowing where to run or what to do.” of security.

“Kolkka and Michaelsen were in shock,” Some Olympiacos players played down said the forward Emmanuel Olisadebe. the events by claiming that they faced “They couldn’t even speak. This game the same situation at away matches. should never had begun, it was my worst “Nobody liked what happened,” said experience in Greece.” Giannakopoulos. “It is what it is. We experience the same hostile atmosphere Giannakopoulos made it 3-0 just after when we visit Toumba [PAOK’s ground].” half-time. Olympiacos went top of the table and wrapped up the title with a 5-1 “There was nothing different that took win over Xanthi. place at Rizoupoli that wouldn’t have happened at any other stadium,” said Panathinaikos’s fans, devastated Alexis Alexandris. “It’s a massive derby. You by the result and the atmosphere, have to expect the rocks and the bottles.”

37 ISSUE FIVE GROUND

For Panathinaikos fans that day remains incompetently run as it habitually is, a moment of shame, perhaps even an has suffered many further outbreaks of organised attack against the club. For violence. But it is Rizoupoli that stands Olympiacos it brought the crowning always as the reference point. glory of a seventh title. Greek football,

1

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38 ISSUE FIVE GROUND

1

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The rugged beauty of Iceland’s abandoned stadiums

BY JOSEPH FOX & MATT MCGINN

These are the grounds that lie abandoned as Icelandic football migrates to artificial turf and cavernous indoor pitches. Neglected in favour of the new toy, the passage of time has faded these pitches into the landscape. Saplings perform zonal marking in a six-yard box. The base of a mottled post blends with crusty snow. It reminds us of the fragile temporality of the football ground. One moment it is a bustling hub of childhood community. Then all that remains are overgrown memories of sweet volleys and pretending to be Eiður Guðjohnsen.

42 43 44 45 46 47 STRANGERS IN A STRANGE LAND

The role of football in Jewish displaced person camps after World War II

BY FINN RANSON

A portrait of a football pitch within the prison camp at Landsberg

Between 1945 and 1950, a quarter of a US zone, with a two-tier league system million Jews lived in West Germany as split into regional groups and a host of “Displaced Persons”. An organisation informal competitions occupying around of Jews living as DPs became known 15,000 active DPs. Landsberg, a former as She’erith ha-Pletah, the Surviving Wehrmacht barracks in the Munich Remnant, drawn from a quote in the District, set up a team in July 1945 and book of Kings: “And the surviving became one of the best. Four days after remnant of the house of Judah shall the camp established a dedicated sports again take root downward and bear department on October 24, the first fruit upward.” match report in the Landsberger Lager- Cajtung announced that Ichud Landsberg Instead of exodus, these survivors had thrashed Maccabi Turkheim 7-0 in endured purgatory at the mouth of front of 2,000 spectators. A week later, hell. Many Polish Jews like Mundek attendance was up to 3,000 for their 1-0 Schulsinger could not return east because defeat of Maccabi Feldafing. of pogroms, and more refugees fled the Soviet curtain in 1947. For some, returning Kits, boots, balls and heavy machinery to the scenes of atrocity was unbearable. to landscape pitches arrived and were As the political situation in Palestine distributed by the Centre for Physical stagnated and the United States kept its Education, part of the system of Jewish doors firmly shut, there was little choice self-governance. By April 1946, there was but to remain in the DP camps – behind enough competition for Landsberg to the barbed wire that had imprisoned organise a Passover tournament featuring them, on the German soil which was, as the 12 finest Jewish teams of the US zone. the Yiddish-language Bamberg weekly Amidst the pre-tournament pageantry paper Undzer Wort put it, “soaked with that would become common before DP our blood”. matches, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration director for But the DPs made this ground their own. Landsberg AC Glassgold issued a simple For the less acculturated Jews in eastern message: “My wish for you, dear athletes, Europe especially, the past decade had is that the next time you compete with destroyed a whole way of life. Now, in each other it may be next year in Eretz the almost exclusively Jewish refugee Israel!” (It is a customary greeting of the camps of the US zone in occupied diaspora at Passover to say “next year in Germany, there were schools teaching Jeruslaem”.) Yiddish, theatre groups, libraries, historical committees, a whole autonomous Jewish The Zionist foundations of Jewish football culture and social network risen from in Europe were fortified in the DP camps. the ashes. And there was football. Lots There had been notable exceptions: of football. The pitch became a nexus of Poland’s most successful Jewish team, refugees’ longings, mourning and anger. Gwiazda Warsaw, who won the Warsaw A Klasa in 1932 and 1934, were socialist and At its peak in 1947, there were more great rivals of Zionist Maccabi Warsaw. than 100 Jewish DP football clubs in the Schulsinger, Landsberg’s veteran star

50 winger, was instrumental in both title- are people in mourning. Sport and winning campaigns for Gwiazda, while football represent a way to fight back.” their talismanic midfielder, Goldberg, was formerly a professional with Maccabi. With inexperienced referees and vengeful Now, for Landsberg, they played under match reports penned by players, perhaps the name of the Polish Zionist party – it is unsurprising then that emotion often Ichud, ‘unity’ in Hebrew – invariably overtook ideology. The Passover final facing teams named after Jewish heroes between Landsberg and Feldafing with from antiquity like Bar Kochba (which had 5,000 in attendance was halted “owing to been a student organization in inter-War the unsporting behaviour of the Feldafing Europe), and participating in competitions players toward the referee”. According to in which fielding non-Jewish players the Landsberger, after a brief resumption was deemed “an offence against national the next day, the match was finally pride”. After the Holocaust, Zionism was cancelled because the referee was often the only programme that seemed “unable to control the game”, leaving the to make sense. tournament unfinished. Poor discipline and crowd trouble only increased with “Sport is seen as a preparation for the introduction of a zone-wide league inhabiting Israel, the promised land,” championships in July. As the journalist explained Kevin Simpson, author Philipp Grammes described, one heated of Soccer under the Swastika and a encounter between Regensburg and psychology professor at John Brown Straubing came to a head when a University. “You build identity but you also Regensburger ran around with a knife build up the body.” After the physical and in his hand threatening opposition mental degradation of the concentration supporters. The game was belatedly camps, the DP officials increasingly saw abandoned after “physical attacks by the sport and football teams in particular as Regensburg side”. a powerful means of moulding the “new man”: courageous, strong, armed with a The papers were scathing. “Would it not proud sense of civic duty and, if it came be better to disband the sports clubs, to it, able to take up arms in the fight given that they cause us more damage for Israel. This was an extension of the than they benefit us?” one asked. “It is ideals of Muscular Judaism that had been simply a huge disgrace to make enemies promulgated since the late 19th century. of each other just because one side did not win a game.” Such scepticism And it was always men. “The masculinity speaks to the moral grey area football of the young players was emphasised,” still occupied for Jews. During the Simpson added. “They were heralded for war, a good right foot could in some surviving the Nazi onslaught. Football instances save you from starvation. But was a way for community to rally around it also enmeshed some prisoners in a youth and virility. It was a way also to twisted reward scheme and an abusive repudiate the notion of the effeminate, spectacle where they competed against weak Jewish body.” Boxing boomed in their impoverished comrades for the the camps for the same reason. “These entertainment of the SS. Primo Levi later

51 ISSUE FIVE GROUND thought of football as a metaphor of our bodies on the sports fields must now survivors’ guilt: You too, like us and Cain, burgeon with the strength our people have killed your brother. Come on, let’s need, with stamina, ambition, and the will play together… to fight.”

And yet to celebrate his freedom in Yet football was so much more than Katowice, Levi played football with a recruitment drive. It was a source of Poles and Italians until he was sick. Even optimism, sometimes anger – “the best in the most desperate circumstances, and the worst of us,” as Simpson puts football had given hope: now for the it – and affirmed a new collective Jewish DPs it cultivated a new, desperate unity. identity amongst the survivors, even “So many of these young survivors when they spoke different languages or are without family, especially if they subscribed to different beliefs. It was a come from the east,” Simpson said. way of forgetting, but these people must “These teams provide a surrogate have also felt forgotten. Through football family.” Grammes ponts out that in the – particularly international fixtures against interminable drift of camp life, training Swiss, Polish and American teams – they and fixtures also gave some kind of could make their mark and reclaim the self- invigorating structure, some semblance worth which had been stripped away by of life as it had once been – even if some the Nazis, often on the football pitches of camps, notably under Heymont, were Auschwitz, Mauthausen or Theresienstadt. run on overtly military lines. “There is a renewal of self-confidence. They find that Football had extraordinary appeal. Every 1 they can renew a talent they had.” DP newspaper had a sports section and a biweekly sports magazine was With a team made up exclusively of even established in 1947, Jidisze Sport former professionals, Landsberg eased to Cajtung. Football dominated their pages. successive league titles in 1946 and 1947. Landsberg attracted up to 5,000 supporters By its second year, the top-flight had 22 throughout both league campaigns. The idea of The Squall is to help out freelance teams split into a northern and southern Perhaps it proved so popular there because division. In 1948, a cup competition was morale was so poor. “The people of the writers during the Covid-19 crisis. For it to survive introduced for all 52 league sides with camp themselves appear to be beaten both fixtures to be played every fifth weekend. spiritually and physically,” Irving Heymont, and thrive, we are asking readers to pay what they But when the first match day arrived in commander of the camp, wrote, “with no April, there was little thought for football. hopes or incentives for the future.” can and we suggest a minimum donation of £3. The state of Israel finally came into being in May and entire football teams Football gave hopes and incentives, volunteered for the army to defend it however minor. It was part of the future You can pay into The Squall's bank account against invasion. More or less explicitly, you could find on dozens of DP camp this had always been the end game camp publications: the small image of a felled (sort code 40-05-17 and account number governors intended for their players’ short tree with its stump still firmly rooted in the careers. On the eve of war, DP officials soil. The trunk lies flat, bare and lifeless. But 71515942) or via PayPal to paypal.me/thesquall. were clear: “Today the time has come beneath the stump new shoots flourish and for Jewish athletes: what we planted in weave into a map of Palestine. Thank you in advance for helping out.

52 ISSUE FIVE GROUND

1

The idea of The Squall is to help out freelance writers during the Covid-19 crisis. For it to survive and thrive, we are asking readers to pay what they can and we suggest a minimum donation of £3.

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Thank you in advance for helping out. WHY IS IT SO HARD TO BUILD A GROUND IN ITALY?

The struggle to update Italy’s increasingly decrepit stadiums

BY ALASDAIR MACKENZIE

A portrait of the San Siro

There is a certain romance to Italian around €1 billion in today’s money. The football. Come for the stylish players, overspending left a legacy of debt and storied clubs and iconic grounds, stay local councils who owned the stadiums for the evening aperitivo under a blood consequently demanded high rents orange sunset. from clubs.

But in 2020, second-rate facilities, To make matters worse, the Italian crumbling brickwork and poor views Olympic Committee (Coni) provided remain as big a part of the matchday funds for some projects on the condition experience as a post-match Peroni. that athletics tracks were inserted, leaving Only four Serie A clubs currently have match-going fans squinting at the action privately-owned stadiums: Juventus, from a distance and armchair fans with an Udinese, Sassuolo and Atalanta. Attempts ugly television spectacle. by other clubs to modernise grounds, or build their own, have been thwarted by a But perhaps the most unfortunate combination of maddening bureaucracy, element of the Italia 90 construction was political resistance and snail-paced the timing. Italy’s new grounds weren’t decision making. A report this year the glossy, state-of-the-art spaceships showed that 93% of stadiums in Italy’s top we’re now used to, but vast concrete three divisions are publicly owned. Their bowls designed predominantly to host average age is 63 years, while 42% of massive crowds. seats aren’t covered with a roof. The stadium-building boom was yet to To understand how we got here, we must begin and by the time it did in the late travel back 30 years to Italia 90. 90s, with the creation of impressive grounds like the Amsterdam Arena Italy’s first World Cup since 1934 sparked and Stade de France, Italy had already a nationwide stadium-building project. overspent hugely on its collection of Only two new grounds were built, the soon-outdated venues. Many stadiums Stadio delle Alpi in Turin and Bari’s Stadio were far too big for their clubs. The San San Nicola, but many others underwent Nicola has a 58,000 capacity, but Bari, major renovations. now in Serie C, get an average crowd of around 12,000. Lazio and Roma’s average Milan’s San Siro was the most notable attendance is just under 40,000, but that example: an extra tier was added, a roof still leaves more than 33,000 empty seats put on and the iconic cylindrical rings at the gigantic Olimpico. Maintenance added, but Rome’s Stadio Olimpico, the costs are high to keep these crumbling Luigi Ferraris in Genoa, the San Paolo grounds up to standard, while clubs in Naples and the Artemio Franchi in struggle to make any meaningful revenue Florence were among others to earn from match days without ownership of big upgrades. their venues.

But the construction project went 84% The Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis over budget, at an estimated cost of was particularly outspoken about this in

56 2018, branding the San Paolo stadium hugely unpopular; the 70,000 capacity a “toilet” and threatening to move their far exceeded attendances and sight Champions League games to the San lines were restricted by a Coni-imposed Nicola, as he also owns Bari. “When I running track. discover that PSG pay €1m a year to rent the Parc des Princes, I realise how far A deal was struck with the local council behind we are,” he said. “With 47,000 in 2002. Juventus bought the Delle Alpi seats, they produce revenue of €100m a for €25m and tore it down six years year. Napoli can’t get beyond €17-18m later, with the athletics track barely used. because we can’t do anything inside Efforts to build a new stadium took longer the San Paolo — we can’t do any other than expected due to the impact of the activities. The city has done nothing for Calciopoli match-fixing scandal of 2006, the San Paolo since 1990.” which saw the club relegated to Serie B. From 2006 until the opening of the He did finally get some help, as the San Juventus Stadium in 2011, they shared Paolo had its seats replaced, media the Stadio Olimpico di Torino with their facilities upgraded, dressing rooms rebuilt city rivals Torino, a ground that had been and some other improvements made for newly renovated for the Winter Olympics. the Summer Universiade hosted in the city last year. But the opening of the state-of-the- art new venue was a game changer. A handful of clubs have managed to avoid The commercial opportunities were these issues by taking ownership of their immediately evident through the creation own ground. Udinese rebuilt the Stadio of stadium tours, premium hospitality Friuli in 2016, and Serie B side Frosinone packages, a shopping centre, a museum spent €20m on the Stadio Benito Stirpe a and a medical centre. Within one year year later, completing a building project of the stadium opening, Juventus home that had begun 30 years earlier. Sassuolo attendances increased from 21,966 to and their ground are owned by chemical 37,545, while match day revenue went up manufacturing company Mapei, although from €11.6m to €31.8m. By 2018-19, that the stadium is actually 28km away in figure had grown to €70.7m – an increase nearby Reggio Emilia. Atalanta agreed of 512% since 2011. a deal with the council for the Gewiss Stadium in 2017 and within two years the Frosinone also enjoyed an immediate new first phase of major renovation work was stadium boost, seeing their attendances completed with the inauguration of the go up 73.9% and match day revenue new Curva Nord section. increase 150% within the first year of opening. However, Udinese didn’t enjoy But Juventus has been the greatest as dramatic an upturn, with attendances success story by a distance. The Old up 10% and revenue rising of 8.5% in the Lady suffered more than most from first year. Italia 90, with the brand-new but ugly Delle Alpi coming at a cost of around Juventus’s success is an anomaly in €200m to the Turin city council. It was Italy, and the lack of more club-owned

57 stadiums has left Serie A behind other hopes of progress for some clubs, with Europe’s other major leagues: in 2018, planning permission difficult to come Italy’s top-flight clubs averaged €13.4m in by and the cultural or architectural match day revenue, compared to €36.2m value of some older grounds preventing in England, €28.4m in Germany and changes. The Lazio owner Claudio Lotito €27.8m in Spain. purchased land in the north of Rome in 2005 on which he hoped to erect a new The scarcity of big-name clubs with their stadium, only to be told that he couldn’t own grounds hasn’t been for a lack of build there without an existing sporting trying, though. Roma’s protracted efforts structure to demolish or reconstruct, a to build a stadium are perhaps the most hurdle Roma had jumped by constructing indicative of the mind-boggling array of on the site of a racecourse. problems clubs can face. The club, who currently share the Coni-owned Stadio The mayor of Rome, Virginia Raggi, Olimpico with Lazio, have been trying to encouraged the club to consider get their plans for the Stadio della Roma renovating the Stadio Flaminio, former off the ground since 2012. The project home of the national rugby team, which has been beset by delays, bureaucratic has lain derelict and forgotten since 2011. red tape and corruption allegations, and But Lotito, who is paying €4m per year ground is yet to be broken. to rent the Olimpico, said it would be impossible to turn the crumbling stadium Roma’s US owner James Pallotta hoped into the modern, 24-hour complex he the construction of the flashy new wanted, citing “insurmountable logistical Colosseum-inspired stadium would be his and security reasons”. They are at an greatest legacy and initially aimed for it impasse and no progress has been made to open doors by the start of the 2016-17 for 15 years. season. But after spending eight years and over €70m trying to get the ball rolling, he Fiorentina fans are particularly fed up. bowed out altogether by agreeing to sell In June, thousands of them gathered the club to the Friedkin Group for €591m to protest against the bureaucracy that in July, with little to show for his efforts. is stopping a new ground being built or the current one reconstructed, due “Maybe we are getting closer again – to the Stadio Artemio Franchi’s status and how many times have I said that, or as a monument of cultural value. Inter heard that? – but maybe, with recent and AC Milan managed to dodge this developments, we are close to the final issue. In May, Italy’s heritage authority ‘final’ approval,” Pallotta told the club permitted the demolition of San Siro, as website in June. “I certainly know that, little of its original architecture remained right now, Italy and Rome need this following the Italia 90 renovations. new stadium and need this investment However, it’s set to remain standing as in the country.” the clubs have agreed to preserve at least some of the old structure as part of Strict regulations around stadium a new sports and entertainment district construction or renovation have crippled beside the new ground.

58 There are now two competing Euro 2012 and Euro 2016. Last year, proposals on the table for a brand new Italian football glimpsed the benefits of 60,000-seater arena in Milan, with hosting when the European Under-21 plans to have it ready by 2024. The Championship saw €17m of investment former Italian Prime Minister Matteo go into stadium improvements in Renzi recently called for new laws to be Cesena, Bologna, Trieste, Udine and introduced to aid the development of and Reggio Emilia. investment in new stadiums, believing it will help boost an Italian economy that The competition in eight years’ time has been hammered by the Covid-19 currently has two confirmed bids, one crisis. “Football is economy and a stadium from Turkey and the other a joint bid creates revenue,” he said. “It’s essential from Romania, Greece, Serbia and we remove the urban development Bulgaria. Italy is yet to commit. Another limitations. It’s unthinkable that San Siro tantalising prospect is the reported can be renovated, but not the Artemio €2.2bn investment proposal from the Franchi in Florence.” private equity firm CVC Capital Partners for Serie A. Despite the apparent success of the Milan project, the complexity of stadium- In addition to acquiring 20 per cent of a building in Italy remains a topic of fierce new company that would manage the debate. Giovanni Malagò, president of league’s broadcasting rights, the offer is Coni, is adamant that hosting another said to include a new infrastructure fund major tournament is the obvious answer. partly financed by CVC for the construction “To redo all the stadiums in a country and maintenance of stadiums. there are only three possibilities: organise a World Cup, European Championship League bosses now have some thinking or Summer Olympics,” he told Gazzetta to do after receiving offers from six dello Sport. “At the moment all the different investment funds this summer. clubs are proceeding separately and While both options are intriguing, everywhere it’s a state of purgatory Renzi’s idea of relaxing draconian between permits, authorisations and traps regulations appears the likeliest route of every kind.” to increasing the number of club- owned stadiums across the country and In another interview in March, he through the divisions. was more specific. “There is only one answer: Euro 2028,” he said. “This One-off major tournaments and massive is the only way, because moving cash injections could help to move independently, from Verona to Naples, things along, but until a system built on Bari to Cagliari, San Siro to the Marassi, exasperating bureaucracy changes, it is or in Rome, it won’t happen.” hard to see slick new venues popping up around the peninsula. Italy has tried this route before, finishing second in the bidding process for At least there will always be the romance.

59 FREEHOLDING TIGHT

How the Stamford Bridge pitch has been kept safe from the developers

BY JESSY PARKER HUMPHREYS

Dennis Wise is congratulated by Ken Bates at Stamford Bridge

The London Athletic Club in south- The issue began after the death of Gus west London was a familiar spot for city Mears – the founder of Chelsea – in 1912. dwellers at the turn of the 20th century. As part of his estate, the freehold passed From athletics events to balloon races, to his sister, Beatrice. Chelsea were ready the ground fulfilled the booming interest to purchase it from her until it suddenly in sport. turned out it had already been sold. Setting a familiar precedent for rapacious The popularity of football was ever- owners wanting to make money out of increasing, and so to were the their own club, their brother JT Mears had commercial opportunities associated with bought it. He immediately offered it back it. Therefore, as reported by John Tait to Chelsea for £42,000 – £7,000 more Robertson, the first secretary manager than he had just paid for it. of Chelsea, “[Gus Mears] and his brother, Mr JT Mears, being as fond of sport as Unsure of this dubious increase in they are wealthy, determined to buy the valuation, the club decided to continue to piece of ground that seemed to them lease the ground off him – an arrangement so eminently suited for their purpose.” that continued until his death in 1935. At Soon an announcement followed in the that point, the freehold passed into a trust. Times on 11 March 1905: “It has been decided to form a professional football club, called the Chelsea Football Club, for Stamford-bridge”. Over the following 30 years, Stamford Bridge began to fall into disrepair. The It is a foundation that has lasted for more North Stand was forced to close for safety than 100 years, and which took Chelsea reasons whilst the East Stand’s licence to the brink of extinction. was expected to be denied by the Greater London Council. As the ground crumbled, the beneficiaries of Mears’s trust wanted to sell the freehold of the club to allow all The land Stamford Bridge sits on is the beneficiaries to receive remuneration. undoubtedly some of the most valuable in the whole of England. Situated It was Chelsea’s chairman Brian Mears, in Fulham, it is unsurprising that for grandson of JT and a beneficiary of the the entire of Chelsea’s existence trust, who suggested that Chelsea could it has been eyed by businessmen buy the freehold to the club alongside and property developers – all intent a redevelopment of the ground. The on turning a football ground into original cost of this was optimistically something more profitable. pitched at £1million, with about half of that being spent on the freehold. The The freehold to the site has played cat reality was much higher. and mouse with the club for the past century, regularly changing hands, leading As building work was delayed, the costs of to protracted legal battles to establish its the rebuild continued to rise and Chelsea’s value and ownership. debts spiralled out of control. In match-

62 day programmes, the club requested that Stamford Bridge site. It was immediately supporters donate match balls. By 1976, clear that retaining a football ground a year after Chelsea’s relegation to the in the area would only minimise the Second Division, the Times was reporting fiscal potential of a residential and that the club’s creditors had given them a commercial complex expected to be year to “put their house in order”. worth £32 million.

To do this, the business split in two. SB Their interest in football stadiums did not Properties took on the ownership of the stop at Stamford Bridge as they bought ground alongside the debts as a holding up Craven Cottage and Loftus Road, as company, with Chelsea’s directors well as putting in an offer for Selhurst controlling the majority of the shares. Park. All were considered as options to move Chelsea into. A particularly bizarre When Ken Bates bought the club in 1982, option involved turning Fulham and as Brian Mears was forced out in part Queens Park Rangers into one team and due to his failure to oversee the Stamford giving Chelsea the other ground: the Bridge rebuild, it was assumed that the proposal for Fulham Park Rangers was existing arrangement would continue. rejected by the league. Bates described Chelsea as a “stately home run down” and supposedly arrived at an Meanwhile, Bates was desperately agreement with David Mears, half-brother of trying to retain any remaining influence Brian and a member of the Chelsea board, Chelsea had in SB Properties. Marler had to take ownership of SB Properties. Bates a 70% stake, but until they held 75% of even threw in a Volvo to sweeten the deal. shares they were forced under company law to consult minority shareholders Yet Mears instead sold SB Properties, and before disposing of their largest asset the freehold to Stamford Bridge, to a – in this case, the freehold to Stamford property developer called Marler Estates. Bridge. Bates took out an injunction to Instead of taking a cash offer, Mears prevent any other shareholders selling took shares in the company. Like his out to Marler. This kind of stalling would grandfather fifty years earlier, he wanted be of immense importance to Chelsea. to make sure that he profited from any future development of the site. Marler was unable to do much about Stamford Bridge until the seven-year For almost 80 years, the Mears family lease that had been agreed with Chelsea had tied the ownership of the club and ran out, which it was due to in August ground together. Now, for the first time 1989. The club did hold an option to in Chelsea’s history, their claim over buy, but unsurprisingly there was a large Stamford Bridge was gone. difference between Marler’s valuation of the grounds and Bates’s. “In just three years, Marler has said the value of the ground has gone up from £4 Marler Estates wasted no time in million to £12, £18, £25 and now £40,” identifying the commercial worth of the complained Bates in 1987.

63 ISSUE FIVE GROUND

Meanwhile, the two sides presented and Second Divisions, even coming within their rival visions for a new Stamford two points of relegation to the Third in Bridge to the council. In the past, 1983. Adrift from Stamford Bridge, it was as Chelsea had struggled to convince the if the club was unable to hold a consistent Conservative-dominated local council of identity. How could a club built to fill a the importance of the club remaining in stadium thrive when that link was severed? the area. Bates was fatalistic about what would happen if Marler was successful The Royal Bank of Scotland took over in gaining planning permission: “The Cabra’s assets and leased Stamford Bridge bulldozers will be in by August 1989.” back to Chelsea with an option to buy Despite a surprise Labour majority initially for £16.5 million. When the freehold was giving Chelsea the upper-hand, a letter- eventually bought, Bates immediately writing campaign from the Fulham passed it on to the Chelsea Pitch Owners. Conservatives Association prompted Intent on ensuring that Chelsea never a government inquiry into Chelsea’s faced losing the ground again, Bates had redevelopment plans. created the shareholder scheme to dilute any potential control of both the freehold Another delay left the clock ticking ever and naming rights. The CPO only license closer to the end of Chelsea’s lease. the use of the name Chelsea Football Club on the condition they play their Yet in the background, a much bigger home games at Stamford Bridge. crisis was starting to take place. It is a set-up that Bruce Buck and Roman 1 In April 1989, Marler were bought by Abramovich have tried to undo in more a different set of property developers recent times with little success. While called Cabra Estates. As Bates continued sites like Battersea Power Station have to throw every legal method at Cabra in been explored, the CPO has done its an attempt to retain Chelsea’s place at job and has never voted to return the Stamford Bridge, they began to suffer freehold or move the club. The idea of The Squall is to help out freelance from the fallout of ‘Black Friday’. After posting a loss of £11 million, their shares But Chelsea’s experience should be a writers during the Covid-19 crisis. For it to survive plummeted. With the property market cautionary tale for other clubs. In recent in Britain crashing, Bates invested £3 years, it has become increasingly popular and thrive, we are asking readers to pay what they million himself in Cabra, becoming a for clubs to sell their grounds to owners. minority shareholder to try to influence It gives teams greater cash flow and the can and we suggest a minimum donation of £3. proceedings from the inside. In the end, it opportunity to circumvent Financial Fair did not matter, as within six months Cabra Play rules. That might seem like a useful Estates had gone bust. trade at the time, but football owners You can pay into The Squall's bank account are fickle and it only takes one generous developer to turn their heads. After all, the (sort code 40-05-17 and account number Mears family founded Chelsea and ran it Ken Bates had spent over a decade trying for eight decades. When they thought the 71515942) or via PayPal to paypal.me/thesquall. to regain control over the freehold. In that money was elsewhere, they followed it. time, Chelsea bounced between the First Thank you in advance for helping out.

64 ISSUE FIVE GROUND

1

The idea of The Squall is to help out freelance writers during the Covid-19 crisis. For it to survive and thrive, we are asking readers to pay what they can and we suggest a minimum donation of £3.

You can pay into The Squall's bank account (sort code 40-05-17 and account number 71515942) or via PayPal to paypal.me/thesquall.

Thank you in advance for helping out. THE HIGHEST DERBY IN THE WORLD

Bolivar, The Strongest and how altitude influences La Paz’s great rivalry

BY HARRY ROBINSON

A shot of the Libertador Simon Bolivar stadium in La Paz

The soundtrack to Bolivia’s capital, La he has every right to make such a claim Paz, which sits 3,600m above sea level, about that of La Paz. is unique. Vans choke up the city’s endless hills and cholitas natter and It’s Bolivian football’s biggest game, bargain with their latest customer. Once contested between two clubs with long a derogatory term for a castigated and and successful histories. With 29 national discriminated section of society, cholita titles, Club Bolivar are the dominant force. is now an affectionate name for the Named after Simon Bolivar, they are the Aymara indigenous women. Deliberately only Bolivian club to have reached the undersized bowler hats perch on their semi-finals of the Copa Libertadores. heads, a tradition encouraged by British railway workers who ordered hats from Their rivals are The Strongest, whose Italy and, upon realising they were too English name is a nod to the pasty brown and too small, convinced these travellers who brought the game to women to buy them. The exact position the Andes. El Tigre have fewer trophies of the hat now shows whether the than their rivals but a proud history. woman is married or not. Many of them They are Bolivia’s oldest club. It was sit street-side, surrounded by bulging they who inaugurated the Estadio sacks of potatoes and fruit. Others spend Hernando Siles where both teams now their Thursdays and Sundays wrestling play. It is neither side’s home stadium atop one of La Paz’s vast hillsides. but its 42,000-person capacity indulges ticketing demands. But the soundtrack to La Paz is one heavily accented by the heavy breathing La Vieja Escuela, the barra brava of of the foreign tourist. There is less oxygen Bolivar, sit in the stadium’s Curva in the air and even those who feel no Norte. Decked out fully in light blue altitude sickness must occasionally pause on match days, they’ve been the main on the side of the road and pant. While ultra group since 2012. It’s been a they do so, a cholita strides by with a relatively smooth transition from three 20kg sack of potatoes over each of her rival barras to one and their philosophy shawled shoulders. is now to support the team rather than scrap with the opposition. Overhead, a cable-car system carries thousands to El Alto, a sprawling red- That’s an ideal taken up by both sets bricked hilltop city. And in these two of barras. “Yes, it’s more of a party,” overlapping cities where the air is so thin explained Rodrigo Parra Salinas, a Bolivar exists a passionate football culture. fan who has collected more than 300 of his team’s shirts. “It is different. La Paz is a city known for being Bolivia’s economic and political centre. There are people “The clásico paceño is different to all from all areas of the country. We live in others,” insisted a fan of Club Bolivar. peace. There’s a lot of tolerance because Every derby has its own intricacies but in everyone knows that the fan base of both the context of Latin American football, clubs isn’t necessarily born in La Paz.”

68 But when either team faces Chilean Bolivia has many neighbours, but not opposition, for example, “then it becomes many friends. They have been landlocked dangerous,” Rodrigo said. since defeat to Chile in the 1884 War of the Pacific. The recently deposed 10,000 Bolivar fans went to la Bombonera President Evo Morales made the issue a in Buenos Aires for the 2004 Copa priority during his 13-year presidency but Sudamericana final. It’s an eight-hour the International Court of Justice ruled journey by air but the 38-hour coach against Bolivia, a country which still has journey was an equally popular choice for a navy despite a distinct lack of water on fans. Boca Juniors, though, were too good. which to sail.

Rodrigo sits in the Curva Norte of the In 1932, Bolivia fought Paraguay in the stadium. At the end of the 1980s, Bolivar’s bloodiest Latin American military conflict barras invaded the Curva Sur, fighting of the century, contesting the oil-rich with The Strongest’s fans and trying to Gran Chaco region. Bolivia won just a establish themselves in their rivals’ section. single battle, named La Batalla de Cañada The state had to get involved, insisting Strongest – thought to be the only battle the two barras separate. Between them, in history named after a football team. the leaders decided that whoever’s team It was The Strongest who steered their won the next clásico would earn the right country to victory in a division filled by to stay. The Strongest won 3-0 and have players, coaches, directors and fans. remained in the Curva Sur since 1993. Renato Sainz, who played in the 1930 World Cup, fought while the club captain The Strongest have a colourful support. Victor Hugo Estrada Cárdenas was taken They’ve played in yellow and black prisoner by the Paraguayans. Another since the early 20th century and their player, José Rosendo Bullaín, was killed as barra, La Gloriosa Ultra Sur 34, predates he and teammates searched for cannons. their Bolivar equivalent by more than 600 fans had signed up alongside them. two decades. They recovered to win titles again in 1935 LGUS34 meet on the corner of Diaz and 1938, but 25 years after the battle all Romero, just below the stadium’s Curva 20 members of their team were killed. Sur, making their way to the sound of Invited to an exhibition game in Santa drum beats, trumpets, cymbals and a Cruz in September 1969, their plane ‘Tigre’ war chant. disappeared on the return journey. It had crashed near the rural town of Viloco. All In 1930, The Strongest won the league 69 passengers and five crew members championship without conceding a died in a tragedy attributed to pilot error. single goal and inaugurated the Estadio Hernando Siles. A couple of years later, The Strongest managed to fight on the players who achieved that great feat through the direction of their great took on a very different battle. President, Don Rafael Mendoza, who built the Achumani Sports Complex and organised games against Pelé’s Santos

69 and Boca Juniors. Bolivian football was I made my way into the Curva Sur and still finding its feet. Some would say that from the steps watched two hundred remains the case today. bouncing members of LGUS34 hop towards the entrance. Many of them The first league started in 1914 but it was bought thin polystyrene sheets on only in the mid-1950s that teams outside their way in to provide some additional of La Paz joined. The country’s meek comfort on concrete seats. showing in 1978 World Cup qualification forced change. Top clubs broke away and I stood above LGUS34 for a half. An old formed a new league which survived until man decked out in a clean white coat 2017 when the Bolivian Football Federation and hat wandered along the front of the wrestled back control and in doing so stand with a tray and what seemed to organised three league seasons within a be a petrol canister. He made his way year. The Strongest won one and Bolivar towards me, creaking knees struggling two. It was the country’s fifth restructuring on the concrete steps, and after using of the leagues in 50 years, the strangest his canister to propel himself upwards he of which involved some teams being poured a sweet hot chocolate out of its relegated mid-season in 2005. lid. I joined LGUS34 in the lower tier to celebrate four second-half goals and a 5-2 win.

Kettle drums, firecrackers and confetti Very occasionally, the clásico is played make for an incredible atmosphere at away from the Hernando Siles. For the Hernando Siles. The Siles is tucked paceños, these are the most memorable in between a scattering of high-rise flats. games. Bolivar were crowned champions The night before I’d stood at a viewpoint in 1997 after a two-legged tie which about a kilometre away. The pitch looked involved games at both clubs’ real home good but the terraces perfect, against grounds. Repairs to the Hernando Siles an extraordinary background of a million in 2011 forced the clásico to go to twinkling paceño lights and snow-capped Achumani, the home of The Strongest mountains, a reminder that although the whose fans insisted that no Bolivar sun shines during the day you are in fact supporters would be welcome. two and a half times higher than the peak of Ben Nevis. “We organised ourselves in a caravan with flags, got out about four blocks away and Cholita stalls were spread out along the began walking up,” Rodrigo remembers. pavement. Meat sizzled on a hot plate, “They were shocked. We went into the to the left of which was a child’s stool stadium and practically filled it. We still for the next customer: me. I chatted and sing about it now. These games are special ate sandwich de Chola – a roll stuffed because fewer people are allowed in.” with pulled pork, pickled veg and salsa – and drank refresco de mocochinchi, Payback came in 2016 when The a refreshing sugary drink made from a Strongest won the league on Christmas dehydrated peeled peach. Eve with a derby victory at the Siles.

70 have a long history of defeats in La Paz. Messi threw up in 2013 and four years Up the hill and accessible by cable car is later la Albiceleste’s players took a pre- El Alto. A sprawling flea market, one of match cocktail of viagra and caffeine to the world’s largest, threatens to tumble arrest the effects of the altitude. They still off the hill’s edge. Everything is for sale: lost 2-0. designer clothes, barber’s chairs, front doors, old chicken-shop fryers, a table- Perhaps Bolivia will soon play in El Alto. football table with ‘Qatar 2022’ stamped Their home advantage will grow to even on its side. Delve further into the El Alto greater levels. Hopefully their football grids – La Paz moving out of sight – and will too. Always Ready, who wear kits you’ll find a new stadium which perhaps similar to those of River Plate, have offers a fresh dawn for Bolivian football. ambitious owners, a father and son who have outlined their intentions of winning This residential mass is a world away the Copa Libertadores. No Bolivian from La Paz, the governmental hub, and team has ever bettered Bolivar’s semi- it has long sought its own identity. The final appearances. Always Ready were arrival of Club Always Ready, based in promoted in 2018 and now compete in La Paz until 2018, may provide some the Sudamericana, the continent’s second- civic pride. Their name derives from the tier club competition. Perhaps a future in Scouts’ motto, ‘Be Prepared’. Translated the Libertadores awaits them. Perhaps they into the Spanish ‘Siempre Listo’, it seems will be a part of a great clásico. to have been re-translated into a more literal ‘Always Ready’. But the clásico paceño will always be Bolivar and Tigre where, in the wrong In 2018, they moved into Estadio de areas of town, “they can hit and kick you”, Villa Ingenio, a government-funded according to Rodrigo, but the real “trophy 25,000-seater ground. It supposedly of war” is a flag from the opposing barra meets the standards for international brava, stolen and turned upside down to tournaments but sits at a breath-taking show victory. It may be tame compared 4,150m above sea level. That football to other clásicos in the continent but is played in these conditions is quite when a short walk leaves you panting, incredible. Few can manage it. Argentina maybe that’s not a surprise.

71 TERROIR

How vacant lots overcame the playing fields

BY JONATHAN WILSON

A portrait of Ferenc Puskás before Hungary's 6-3 win over England at Wembley

“Show me how you play,” the Uruguayan ground) symbolising the fertilisation of poet and theorist Eduardo Galeano once the earth by the sun, had existed in Britain wrote, “and I will tell you who you are.” for centuries. It was often violent and It’s an easy truth, one that chimes with anarchic and was frequently outlawed. Albert Camus’s point that sport, better But it was fun, and variants of it were than anything else, reveals our morality. adopted by various schools as they Within this restricted space, within these sought ways to allow their pupils to laws, how will we conduct ourselves, burn off excess energy. Sitting around what will we try to get away with? But in isolation, it was feared, would lead Galeano isn’t just talking about how far to introspection and masturbation, we push the boundaries of the rules: he two practices that were greatly feared. is talking about the approach we take: Clattering about after a ball, meanwhile, direct or subtle, artistic or pragmatic, seemed a way of physically toughening self-indulgent or driven by the demands boys – and perhaps even breeding some of the team? And to a large extent, that is semblance of tactical awareness and governed by conditions. Show me where leadership – for the rigours of running you play, and I will tell you how you play. the Empire. Those two theories came What is true of wine, perhaps, is true of together in the doctrine of Muscular football: the terroir matters. You will be Christianity and the sense that physical conditioned by the environmental and exertion was a virtue in and of itself. cultural circumstances in which you learned the game, and those cultural But different schools played on different circumstances themselves will be at least surfaces. Cheltenham and Rugby, for partly shaped by the environment. instance, had wide open grassy fields. A player could fall on the ground, others Football as we know it today was could jump on him and he could emerge created by a meeting between from the mud relatively unscathed. representatives of various schools and There the game differed little from the London and suburban clubs held at mob game. But at Charterhouse and the Freemason’s Arms in Lincoln’s Inn Westminster, the game was played on Fields on 8 December 1863. It was the cloisters. More discretion was needed culmination of a series of discussions if there were not to be regular broken that had begun six weeks earlier and bones. It was there that handling of the brought to an end a process that had ball was outlawed and the dribbling game been going on for around half a century developed. Prefects or older pupils would to try to draw up a standardised set of run with the ball, their teammates lined laws so that games could be arranged up behind them in case the ball bounced without the need for protracted haggling loose in a table, and their opponents – over regulations in advance. or, at certain schools, their fags (that is, younger pupils who were effectively their The mob game, which at least in certain servants) would try to stop them. areas appears to have been born of ancient fertility rites, the placing of That codification of the game meant the ball in the goal (often a hole in the grassy fields became the standard, but

74 the key decision of that final meeting in was to be found mainly in vacant lots. It December 1863 was to outlaw carrying was there that children gathered to play, the ball, leading to the resignation of kicking around a rag ball on a surface that Blackheath from the Football Association was often hard, uneven and crowded. and, ultimately, the creation of rugby as a Technique was prioritised and, with distinct game. no teacher to maintain order, so too, particularly in South America, was the Soon the muddy pitch became regarded, capacity to look after yourself. In Buenos by the English mind at least, as the only Aires, these spaces became celebrated legitimate surface, so much so that when as ‘potreros’, in Budapest as ‘grunds’, the England lost 4-3 to Spain in Madrid in well-springs of a distinctive style of play. 1929, their first defeat to continental opposition, it was widely dismissed as an Argentina was a young country in search irrelevance because it had been played of an identity. It initially found it in the in summer on a hard and dusty pitch on gauchos, the solitary horsemen of the which the ball bounced high. And that pampas, one of whom, Martín Fierro, was was also why the 6-3 defeat to Hungary the hero of the country’s national epic. at Wembley in 1953 hit so hard. It was Gaucho clubs sprang up in Buenos Aires played on a misty November day on a to celebrate the culture, but they were damp pitch of Cumberland turf: there essentially fancy-dress barbecues, not were no excuses. a way to live. In the pibe, the urchin kid of the potreros, though, could be found The challenge to British football in an updated urban alternative. That was the early twentieth century came why in 1928, Borocotó, the editor of El simultaneously from two seemingly Gráfico, proposed raising a statue to the very different places: the Danube and inventor of dribbling, saying it should the River Plate. Both began to prioritise depict “a pibe with a dirty face, a mane technical accomplishment as opposed of hair rebelling against the comb; with to the hard running and physicality of intelligent, roving, trickster and persuasive the British game, both enjoyed success eyes and a sparkling gaze that seem to in international competition between the hint at a picaresque laugh that does not Wars and, although England was happy quite manage to form on his mouth, full to ignore that, both went on to achieve of small teeth that might be worn down notable successes against British sides through eating yesterday’s bread. His in the fifties. And both shared certain trousers are a few roughly sewn patches; environmental factors. his vest with Argentinian stripes, with a very low neck and with many holes eaten Buenos Aires and Montevideo, Budapest out by the invisible mice of use. A strip and Vienna – all underwent rapid of material tied to his waist and crossing industrialisation and urbanisation over his chest like a sash serves as braces. in the early twentieth century. The His knees covered with the scabs of cities expanded to accommodate wounds disinfected by fate; barefoot immigrants from rural areas and, amid or with shoes whose holes in the toes the construction, space for recreation suggest they have been made through

75 too much shooting. His stance must be father and his mates with a fantastic basis characteristic; it must seem as if he is for football,” said Attila Mándi, Gyula’s dribbling with a rag ball. That is important: son. “Since the occasional teams only the ball cannot be any other. A rag ball had a goalkeeper as an emergency player, and preferably bound by an old sock. If almost everybody had to defend and this monument is raised one day, there attack, too. This also meant that nobody will be many of us who will take off our on the square could act like a star.” hat to it, as we do in church.” And so the environment shaped players In doing so, of course, he was describing, just as surely in South America and 32 years before his birth, the figure of Central Europe as it had in Britain. Diego Maradona, whose footballing Conditions are more homogenised education came on the rough alleys of now. Players from all over the world find Villa Fiorito. themselves whisked off to academies at a very young age. The street footballers The grunds of Budapest fulfilled a similar of old are disappearing and with them function. They developed technique, some of the rough edges, some of the Ferenc Török wrote in his biography of individualism. But Arsène Wenger always the full-back Gyula Mándi, “because the argued English football developed as it cloth ball couldn’t bounce and they had did because of the wind. There are those to guide it, dribble with it or shoot in a who blame the dearth of West African way that it would not or just hardly touch wingers on the narrow street games of the sandy, uneven ground with grassy Accra or Lagos, bounded by drainage patches, otherwise it would have got ditches. Concrete still produces different stuck immediately.” footballers to sand or mud or grass.

But they also taught character. “Matches The terroir still leaves its mark. played at Tisza Kálmán tér provided my

76 SERIOUS NONSENSE

Man the Footballer: Homo Passiens is the latest addition to our online bookshop. Author Mike McInnes provides a explores a radical hypothesis, grounded by principles drawn from the evolutionary and cultural history of mankind, that humans evolved bipedalism for the purpose of playing football.

As entertaining as it is enlightening, this unique work – beautifully accompanied by the illustrations of satirical artist Matt Kenyon – is a must-have for any football fan.

Buy now at theblizzard.co.uk/shop

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77 ISSUE FIVE GROUND CONTRIBUTORS

Dave Bowler is the biographer of Alasdair Mackenzie is a freelance Alf Ramsey, Bill Shankly and Danny journalist based in Rome, where he covers Blanchflower among others and the Italian football for Reuters, the Times and founder of the England Women’s Football the i among others. @aksmackenzie Archive. He is currently writing a series of limited-edition books on the FA Cup. Matt McGinn is a PhD researcher at the @MagicOfFACup University of Nottingham who specialises in the relationship between sport, identity Luke Connelly is a freelance writer, and memory in contemporary Spain. Matt who writes predominantly for Libero, @ has written about football for ESPN, the MagLibero, the publication he founded Guardian, and Howler. earlier this year. He writes on topics ranging from football in the former Soviet Jessy Parker Humphreys is a freelance Union to the Copa Libertadores, and his writer who mainly writes on women’s work has recently been found in the UK- football for The Offside Rule. @jessyjph based German football fanzine Halb Vier. @LukeDConnelly Finn Ranson is a podcaster and writer focusing mainly on football and tennis, 1 Ewan Flynn is a freelance writer whose work who has worked for the Guardian, Varsity, has appeared in the Independent, When The Offside Rule and Tennis TV. He Saturday Comes, FourFourTwo and on has been a Holocaust Educational BBC Radio 4. His first book, We Are Sunday Trust Regional Ambassador for the East League, is a bittersweet real-life story from Midlands since 2016. @finnbrranson football’s grassroots. @flynn_ewan The idea of The Squall is to help out freelance Harry Robinson is a freelance writer and Joseph Fox is a photographer and film host of the football history podcast United writers during the Covid-19 crisis. For it to survive maker based in Madrid. His work has Through Time. His work has appeared in been published in the New York Times, the Independent, FourFourTwo, Mundial, and thrive, we are asking readers to pay what they The Sunday Times and El País, amongst United We Stand and Tifo Football. @ others. Joseph also produces long-term HarryRobinson64 can and we suggest a minimum donation of £3. personal projects such as ‘Gracias Por Su Visita,’ a photographic book exploring Gregory Wakeman has written for the Madrid’s bar culture through repetitive New York Times, Metro US, Yahoo, the You can pay into The Squall's bank account photographs of pinchos de tortilla. National, and Vice. @WakemanGregory (sort code 40-05-17 and account number Themis Karapanagiotis is a freelance Jonathan Wilson writes for the Guardian football writer from Greece. He has and Sports Illustrated. He is the author of 71515942) or via PayPal to paypal.me/thesquall. written for the thefalsenine and 11 books. @jonawils contributed various blogs. @ThemisKarap Thank you in advance for helping out.

78 ISSUE FIVE GROUND

1

The idea of The Squall is to help out freelance writers during the Covid-19 crisis. For it to survive and thrive, we are asking readers to pay what they can and we suggest a minimum donation of £3.

You can pay into The Squall's bank account (sort code 40-05-17 and account number 71515942) or via PayPal to paypal.me/thesquall.

Thank you in advance for helping out. Issue 5, September 2020, Ground

Featuring:

Dave Bowler, The Summit

Luke Connelly, Diplomatic Manoeuvres

Ewan Flynn, The Boycott

Gregory Wakeman, Going to Ground

Themis Karapanagiotis, Rizoupoli

Joseph Fox & Matt McGinn, Returned to the Elves

Finn Ranson, Strangers in a Strange Land

Alasdair Mackenzie, Why is it so hard to build a ground in Italy?

Jessy Parker Humphreys, Freeholding Tight

Harry Robinson, The Highest Derby in the World

Jonathan Wilson, Terroir