ISSUE SIX FAIR

1 THE SQUALL Matt Thacker

It’s six and out for The Squall. This sort code 40-05-17 and account number will be our final issue although if 71515942, or you can pay via PayPal to circumstances demand that it returns paypal.me/thesquall. Any money paid into at some point, we will be back if we can either of these accounts will be used for make it work. We set up The Squall six the sole purpose of paying writers who long lockdown months ago as a digital have written for The Squall. football magazine to give freelance writers a forum for their work. Not just October 2020 so they could get paid to write, but so they had something to aim for, a sense of job satisfaction at a time when such We are very grateful to all of the people satisfaction was in short supply. The who have waived fees and donated to return of football, however fragile, has The Squall since we announced the meant more work for freelancers. project. Special thanks go to: Nick Ames, Philippe Auclair, John Brewin, Kieran We hope that The Squall has managed Canning, James Corbett, John Cross, to showcase great football writing on Martin da Cruz, Miguel Delaney, Andrew subjects you are unlikely to read about Downie, Peter Drury, Ken Early, Emmet anywhere else, and that you enjoy our Gates, Sasha Goryunov, John Harding, final offering, the “Fair” issue. Simon Hart, Gary Hartley, Ian Hawkey, Frank Heinen, Tom Holland, Adam Hurrey, Initially The Squall was supported by Elis James, Neil Jensen, Samindra Kunti, Blizzard writers waiving fees as well as Jonathan Liew, Simon Mills, James by generous contributions from readers, Montague, David Owen, MM Owen, supporters and quizzers. Over the last two Simone Pierotti, Jack Pitt-Brooke, Gavin months this revenue has understandably Ramjuan, Callum Rice-Coates, Philip dried up and we are no longer in a Ross, Paul Simpson, Marcus Speller, Jon position to produce The Squall. Spurling, Seb Stafford-Bloor, Ed Sugden, Jonathan Wilson, Suzy Wrack, and We would love it if you would give Shinobu Yamanaka. And huge thanks to one final push, to enable us to pay the Getty Images, for use of the photos. writers of this issue without jeopardising other ventures. If you are happy to do so, please pay into our bank account with

2 EDITOR'S NOTE Jonathan Wilson

For now at least, this will be the final Issue Thirty-Eight is out now, with issue of The Squall. We set up at the features on BeoutQ, South Africa, Carlos beginning of lockdown to try to provide Tévez, Néstor Ortigoza, Carlo Carcano, work and revenue for freelances in Fulham and Birmingham City [https:// unprecedented and confusing times www.theblizzard.co.uk/shop/product/ and, thanks to the generosity and hard issue-thirty-eight] and Issue Thirty-Nine work of a lot of people, we were able will be out in December. Never forget that to help at least some journalists and a subscription makes a perfect Christmas photographers. So a huge thank you gift. The Greatest Games podcast will to those who waived fees and worked return soon, and we’re hoping to expand for free to give us the liquidity to our audio offerings. keep going. And thank you as well to everybody who donated and paid for So, once again, many thanks for your their copies or joined in the weekly quiz. support. The sense of community, of writers and readers pulling together in Life has not returned to normal and, the early weeks of the crisis, was both certainly in the UK, it seems more likely touching and encouraging. Please that in the next few months restrictions continue to support The Blizzard and our will be tightened rather than loosened. sadly rather uncommercial sense of what Football, though, is back – sort of – and journalism can be, and enjoy this final while nobody could say the immediate issue of The Squall. future looks anything other than bleak for football writers, there is at least a level of October 2020 certainty about where we’re going.

We said when we launched that The Squall was a temporary initiative, and we also said that ultimately it would have to be money-making. It’s just about held its own, but no magazine, not even one with a charitable function, can exist forever on goodwill and favours. So we’re closing down for now. It may be that as the virus develops, if there is another lockdown, that it makes sense to return, but currently it makes more sense for us to focus energies and resources on The Blizzard.

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 Six – Fair

8. John Irving, What is Fair Play? 44. Ewan Flynn, The Inside Man Is football fair, can it be fair, and what do How Alan Sugar benefited from the birth we even mean by ‘fair’? of the Premier League

14. Luke Alfred, The World’s Fair 50. Dave Bowler, A Fair Crack of How a small team from Canada took the Whip? gold in the football at the 1904 Olympics A history of Alf Ramsey’s England reign in one-cap wonders 20. Samuel Cox, The Deliberate Miss 56. Jon Arnold, More Equal than Morten Wieghorst and how putting a Others penalty wide became the right thing to do Grenada v Barbados 1993, the game in which own-goals made sense 26. Tony Richardson, Equality How a Spurs fan found joy and 58. Vadim Furmanov, Nothing Left competitiveness in Belarus To Live By The scourge of match-fixing in the USSR 32. Tom Clements, Farewell to the and attempts to eradicate it Fairs’ Cup Barcelona v Leeds and a 64. Richard Jolly, Derby, Leeds and commemorative friendly in 1971 the European Curse The European Cup and the controversial 38. Martin da Cruz, Viveza Criolla exits of two English champion How the art of deception became central to Uruguay’s football identity 70. Contributors

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6 About The Blizzard

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 WHAT IS FAIR PLAY?

Is football fair, can it be fair, and what do we even mean by ‘fair’?

BY JOHN IRVING

Paolo Di Canio receives an award from Paul Gerrard for his show of sportsmanship earlier in the season, 2001

“Winning isn’t important, it’s the only game’ is its fairness.” The English is dodgy thing that counts.” Attributed to the but the message is clear. former Juventus captain and president Giampiero Boniperti, the tag has been Fifa promotes fair play to prevent off-the- adopted as the club’s unofficial motto. field issues such as corruption, doping It conveys a conception of sport at odds and match manipulation through Article 2, with the De Coubertian credo “The paragraph g) of the General Provisions of most important thing … is not winning its Statutes and Uefa has its own Financial but taking part,” but it dovetails with Fair Play Regulations. But it’s fair play on the Machiavellian “The end justifies the the field that I wish to explore here. means.” Boniperti’s words may well be rhetorical bluster, but they do raise the The only body to attempt a definition of issue of what methods are legitimate in fair play is Uefa, at point 7 of its statutes: the pursuit of sporting success. “‘Fair play’ means acting according to ethical principles which, in particular, What is fair and what isn’t? In many oppose the concept of sporting success European languages, the English term at any price, promote integrity and equal ‘fair play’ is left untranslated. Sepp opportunities for all competitors, and Herberger wrote of Paul Janes, captain emphasise respect of the personality and of Germany in the 1930s, that his every worth of everyone involved in a sporting match was “ein Sieg des fair play”, a event.” Perhaps that goalkeeper Albert victory for fair play. In football fair play Camus meant something similar when he has always been associated with the wrote that he learned all he knew about British tradition of sportsmanship. As ethics from sport. Simon Kuper writes in Ajax, the Dutch, the War, “football had reached the A famous Monty Python sketch shows Continent late, and with its Victorian ‘The Philosophers’ Football Match’ wrapping intact.” As a result, he says, between teams from Greece and there was “an Anglophile school of Germany. Footballers, of course, don’t thought in Europe that regarded need to be philosophers, but philosophers sportsmanship as more important than have a lot to say about sport, hence winning matches.” In 1945, no less a football, and fair play. In his A Theory figure than Pope Pius XII said, “From of Justice, the US moral philosopher the birthplace of sport came also the John Rawls suggests that “a good play proverbial phrase ‘fair play’”, and Italians of the game is, so to speak, a collective speak explicitly of ‘fair play inglese’. achievement requiring the cooperation of all,” and that “a good and fair play of the References to fair play abound in the game must be regulative and effective if statutes of football’s national and everyone’s zest and pleasure are not to international governing bodies. In the languish.” A football match, therefore, is Introduction to the Laws of the Game at once a competitive and a cooperative 2020-21, the International Football activity in which each side seeks to prevail Association Board states that “a crucial over the other, while sharing the same foundation of the beauty of the ‘beautiful rules and ends.

10 In his essay “Sportsmanship as a moral allow Gerrard to have treatment; in 2012, category”, another American, James W Miroslav Klose was congratulated by his Keating, writes that fair play depends on opponents for admitting scoring a goal the commitment of all competitors not with his hand for Lazio against Napoli. to ignore the rules or consciously break More than playing to the codified rules them. Just as criminal law is designed of the game, the players involved were to prevent people from committing obeying the ethical principles invoked crimes, so football involves a set of rules by Uefa in its definition of fair play. As of conduct that fix sanctions against yet another US philosopher, William JJ players to prevent unfair behaviour on Morgan, puts it in his Ethics in Sport, fair the field. If the ideal society is a society play is more than “an aggregate of moral without crime, the fair football match is a qualities comprising a code of specialised match without fouls. But fair play means behaviour: it is also an attitude, a posture, more than just sticking to the rulebook. a manner of interpreting what would Insofar as they are neither morally just otherwise be only a legal code.” nor morally unjust but merely functional to the game, rules do not determine fair The Di Canio episode evokes a dilemma play. Fair play is, rather, a cooperative faced by footballers and their managers ethical principle that exists within the virtually every week. How to behave rules of the game. There are written rules when an opponent is down injured? An and there are unwritten rules. extreme case occurred in Leeds United against Aston Villa in April 2019, during So much for the theory, what about the which the Leeds manager Marcelo Bielsa practice? If, for whatever reason, players ordered his players to let Villa equalise fail to share the same rules and ends, after they had gone ahead through football becomes anarchy and fair play Mateusz Klich, with Villa’s Jonathan is conspicuous by its absence. Football’s Kodjia lying hurt in midfield. Bielsa duly proverbial ‘battles’ – Highbury in 1935, won that year’s Fifa fair play award. “What say, or Bern in 1954, or Santiago in 1962 happened, happened,” he said. “English – are cases in point. In Intercontinental football is known around the world for its Club Cup finals such as Racing v Celtic noble features.” It’s as if he was adapting in Montevideo in 1967 and Estudiantes to a culture. v. AC Milan in Buenos Aires in 1969 – also battles – competition so overrode Cultural factors certainly intervene in cooperativeness that the tournament had our interpretations of fair play. “It’s in the to be abandoned altogether. nature of football that things are done differently in different countries,” writes In universally acknowledged examples Gianluca Vialli (with Gabriele Marcotti) of fair play, it is cooperativeness that in The Italian Job, and fair play, like a prevails. To cite just two of the many: raw material or a commodity, can be in 2000, alone in front of goal and with exported or imported. Take the tactical the Everton goalkeeper Paul Gerrard foul, once known as the professional foul, down injured, West Ham’s Paolo Di which, according to Vialli, is “something Canio caught the ball to stop play and imported into the English game.”

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Stopping one’s opponent by intentionally according to time and place, and committing an act banned by the rules globalisation may have brought a degree to gain a strategic advantage is obviously of homogenisation. But it’s likely that fair not fair play. The practice used to be play will always mean different things to described as cynical, despicable even. different people. Today it’s arguably more Again according to James W Keating, talked about than practised. anyone who does not abide by the rules, hoping not to be found out, is not giving I began with Juventus and I’ll end with an example of fair play and their victory Juventus. Playing for them in a Turin is not be considered ‘honourable’. Today derby in 1957, John Charles clashed players are willing to ‘take a yellow card heads with the Torino defender Ivo for the team’. It’s a cost they pay to avoid Brancaleoni and sent him crashing to the paying the higher one of conceding a ground, together with the goalkeeper goal. Footballers may not need to be Vincenzo Rigamonti. Instead of scoring philosophers, but they do have to be the open goal, Charles kicked the ball cost-benefit analysts. out of play and went to the aid of his opponents. The gesture has gone down The tactical foul, a case of non- in Italian football folklore as the height cooperation that bends the rules to of fair play. Commenting on the episode slacken restrictions on the means two decades later, Michael Parkinson said, accepted and acceptable to achieve “Even in those days, it was a remarkable victory, is now part of the world game. act of sportsmanship. Nowadays he But another practice, simulation, also would be bollocked by his manager, 1 an intentional distortion of the rules, derided by his fans and lampooned in the hence not an example of fair play, has media for doing such a silly thing.” Maybe, yet to be universally accepted. In some but it’s likely that Charles’s captain, who cultures, divers are seen as playing just happened to be Boniperti, bollocked to win, in others they are branded as him even then. cheats. Conceptions have evolved 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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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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How a small team from Canada took gold in the football at the 1904 Olympics

BY LUKE ALFRED

The ferris wheel at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.

In early November 1904, a football team Galt’s round trip on the Grand Trunk from Galt in Ontario climbed aboard cost $10.70 and the train’s carriages a train bound for St Louis, Missouri. were festooned in banners, flags and Expectations within Galt FC contingent red and white bunting – the club were high, so high, in fact, that they colours. It promised to be a stupendous were joined for their 1100km journey adventure indeed. on the Grand Trunk Railway by the Galt town mayor, Mark Munday, and an The team from Galt were travelling to entourage of 50 or so fans. St Louis because St Louis was the third city after Athens (1896) and Paris (1900) Another Canadian team, from the to host an Olympic Games. The St Louis University of Toronto, might also have fathers had held off a bid by Chicago made the trip to St Louis, except that in to host the Games, with their hand early November they lost on aggregate strengthened by the fact that the Games to the men from Galt in a two-legged ran concurrently with the 1904 World’s friendly. They weighed up the options, Fair, sometimes called the Louisiana realised that Galt were probably the better Purchase Exhibition. team and reckoned that an expensive trip across the border wasn’t worth the In 1803, the United States had purchased trouble. They would be better advised to a thick swathe of formerly French apply themselves to their studies. territory, running from Montana in the north to Louisiana in the south. The Little did they know it then, but with a Americans’ maths wasn’t without its restricted field in St Louis they might idiosyncrasies but in 1904 it was decided well have done better than they thought. to celebrate the centenary of the Unwittingly, the University of Toronto’s purchase – and so the St Louis World’s football team had bumbled down one of Fair was born. history’s heavily wooded branch lines. Although the World’s Fair put on sporting Galt FC were less timid than the boys events of its own (some marginal, across in Toronto. They weren’t Canadian such as “Anthropology Days” in which champions that year, but had been in indigenous people recruited from the each of the the three years before that. Fair’s international villages went mud- By now they were widely acknowledged slinging and greased-pole climbing) as a pedigree side with a reputation they didn’t compare with the Olympics’ which extended well beyond Ontario’s more conventional roster. Here athletes borders. Their team contained stars of the sprinted, ran middle distance and Canadian game in skipper John Gourlay, jumped water traps in the steeplechase. a rousing motivator and something of a Swimmers swam in a hastily dug pond. tactical wizard at right-back, the keeper Baseball and basketball were both Albert Linton and barnstorming centre- featured as demonstration sports, the forward, Alexander Hall, whom Galt had category football had found itself in Paris recruited from the Toronto Scots. four years previously.

16 In St Louis, though, football was accorded first 20 minutes of their opening game status at the top Olympic table. Across against St Louis’ Christian Brothers the world, the sport was growing quicker College with the brothers John, Charles than you could say “Alphonso Davies”. To and Thomas January in their midst, neglect it was tantamount to burying your remained scoreless. head in the sand. At this point, reports of the game vary. The cost of trans-Atlantic travel proved Some say that a half at the 1904 Olympics to be prohibitive for the European and was 30 minutes long, while others insist British teams, however, and Galt found it was the full 45 minutes. This aside, themselves as one of only three sides in a Galt put their hesitancy and early nerves restricted Olympic field. Travel expenses behind them to rack up a 4-0 half-time weren’t an issue for the other two lead. With this healthy cushion behind competitors, because both were from St them, they scored three more in the Louis itself. St Rose Parish and Christian second half to gallop out 7-0 winners. Brothers College (CBC) were on their Hall, the barnstorming Scot, scored three home patch playing in front of their home of them, while his inside-left, Gordon fans. From their perspective, the jackpot McDonald, scored two. of a gold medal wasn’t inconceivable – although they would need to get past the Team photographs of the time show redoubtable Galt FC and their little army many of Galt’s players favoured external of travelling support first. shin-guards over their socks. Shorts (white) tended to be conservatively long Sometimes called the ‘Manchester and Galt’s jerseys were made of knitted of Canada’, Galt (now Cambridge) wool with the name “Galt” in white was a mill and manufacturing town lettering across the chest. Hall, who was on the Grand River. Over the years it to become the best-known player in had attracted thousands of Scottish Galt’s team after the Olympics, eschewed immigrants and the town’s football club shin guards and other such namby- reflected both the Canadian and Scottish pamby. The team photograph shows facets of the local population. Take him in the front row, arms folded. He is Linton, for example, a machinist born looking at the photographer with what in Scotland, or Hall, who was born in one fancies is the cold, deadly eye of the Aberdeen and raised in Peterhead in the born goalscorer. far east of Scotland in 1883. Returning to Britain after the Olympics, Football was the 1904 Games’ last event Hall turned professional, playing and took place in the second half of irregularly for Newcastle United, Dundee November. All four matches (more and Motherwell before finding his level on this in a minute) were played at St at Dunfermline Athletic in the Scottish Louis’s Francis Field, part of the city’s Second Division. In three seasons at Washington University campus. It was Athletic – 1912-13 to 1914-15 – he scored cold in November and clearly Galt took 33 goals in 68 matches, a handsome time to find their feet, because the return, as they finished second (to

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Ayr United), fourth (with the best goal November, a Champions League final it difference in the league) and sixth. was not.

A day after their victory against Christian Unfortunately, history does not tell us Brothers College, Galt played against St how, across the border in Canada, the Rose Parish, the second of the home- silver medal match was greeted by those town favourites. They made one change in the University of Toronto’s football from the line-up against CBC, Albert team, the very men who argued that a trip Henderson coming in for McDonald. Galt to St Louis wasn’t worth making. were unable to repeat their freewheeling pyrotechnics of the previous day in the It proved money well spent for Galt’s first half, and the teams went into the Mayor Munday because he was on hand break at 0-0. An inspirational team-talk by afterwards to present the gold medals skipper Gourlay changed all that, and Galt to members of the Galt team. They had stormed to four second-half goals to take scored 11 goals, beaten the best teams the match and the gold medal. St Louis had to offer and thereby wrote a small – but intriguing – item in football The silver medal match between St history. It was more than a footnote but Rose and CBC was initially inconclusive, less than a chapter, for a brief and dizzy ending in a 0-0 draw. In the replay, instant putting Canadian football at the however, CBC prevailed 2-0 (scorers summit of the world game, a position it unknown) to grab the silver medal from has struggled to reach again. their St Louis neighbours. Before a crowd 1 of unspecified number in the cold of

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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.

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Thank you in advance for helping out. THE DELIBERATE MISS

Morten Wieghorst and how putting a penalty wide became the right thing to do

BY SAMUEL COX

Morten Wieghorst celebrates a CIS Insurance Cup victory with Tom Boyd, 2000

In October 2000, the Denmark and Celtic credits the impact upon his football as midfielder Morten Wieghorst was struck the most defining: he had to become down by a virulent disease which left stronger and mentally and technically him on a ventilator and battling for his quicker in response to the frenetic pace. life in a Glasgow hospital. A professional However, it would only be after a move to athlete in his physical prime, he had Celtic in 1995 that the the richest dramas gone from throwing rabonas in front of of Wieghorst’s career would unfold. In packed Parkhead stands to staring up Wieghorst’s words the stage was simply at a hospital ceiling, trapped in a body grander: “We don’t have clubs like Celtic unable to breathe without assistance. in Scandinavia.”

Just two and a half years later, facing The midfielder spent much of his first pandemonium in a steamy Hong Kong two seasons at the club battling injuries. stadium, Wieghorst would be the calm Meanwhile, Rangers would continue rock amidst the breaking tempestuous winning, equalling Celtic’s record of nine storm of fans and opposition players. successive title victories by the 1997-8 Faced with a technically correct but season, ratcheting up the pressure on ethically wrong decision and a sporting their rivals to halt them. The arrival of event descending into chaos, the the Dutch manager Wim Jansen would Denmark captain would draw upon all spark the beginning of a new wave of the challenges he had overcome to rise Scandinavian recruits, Henrik Larsson above the win-at-all-costs mentality being the most prominent. sport so often demands and engage in a remarkable act of fairness which However, it was Wieghorst who would collapsed borders and boundaries. These arguably have the greatest impact that two moments embody the path – the year, as his teammate Craig Burley has trials, the tribulations and the triumphs – said. The Dane would play 31 of 36 games of Morten Wieghorst. as Celtic denied Rangers’ record attempt by claiming the title before crying and Wieghorst’s footballing journey began jubilant fans. At 6’3”, Wieghorst might have at Lyngby, a small club from northern been warrior-sized but he was no wild Copenhagen. The club’s second league berserker, rather combining long elegant triumph in 1992 would enable the strides with delightful technical ability and, precocious young midfielder to showcase behind it all, a cerebral disposition. himself on the continental stage in the first season of the newly rebranded Champions Ability and success secured Wieghorst League. Although Lygnby were ruthlessly a spot in a powerful Denmark side despatched by Rangers over two legs, a alongside Michael Laudrup at the 1998 young Wieghorst was so impressed by World Cup, making three appearances the fervent Scottish support he promptly as they reached the quarter-final. At 27, secured a move to Dundee United. he was at the peak of his powers. But returning to training after a short holiday Wieghorst still carries the imprint of his Wieghorst would suffer his worst setback time in Scotland in his accent but he yet, a severe ACL injury.

22 Just as Wieghorst was finding his feet Scotland at Glasgow’s Hampden Park in again, he would contract Guillain-Barré August 2002. syndrome. Afflicting perhaps 1 in 100,000 people, the rare disease causes the body Sustained form led to Wieghorst’s journey to attack its own nerves. Temporarily turning east, as he was selected to paralysed from the neck down and able captain a Danish national XI of Superliga to breathe only with the assistance of players to challenge for the Lunar New a ventilator, Wieghorst was confronted Year Cup in Hong Kong in February 2003, by the brutality and transience of life, part of that city’s New Year celebrations learning to be “very, very patient”. since 1908.

This patience was won not just in a On the doubly auspicious first day of hospital bed but during a lengthy physical the Chinese New Year, 1 February 2003, rehabilitation. Celtic produced a montage Denmark faced Iran. With the first half video of this process, which went viral in nearing its end and Denmark having the early days of the internet. It begins largely dominated, Iran’s Alireza Vahedi with Wieghorst starting his rehabilitation Nikbakht mistook a whistle from the in the gym, resembling an oversized crowd for half-time and handled the ball child learning to control those long legs in his own penalty area. The referee Chiu once again. The video concludes with Sin Chuen felt compelled to give the Wieghorst’s triumphant return to the field penalty kick. The Iranian fans and players on 6 July 2001, approximately a year after were furious, with their goalkeeper contracting the illness. Ebrahim Mirzapour on the verge of storming off the field. And yet it would be yet another six months before Wieghorst would make a Wieghorst’s head was clear in the bedlam, serious contribution, playing and scoring and he ran straight to his manager, Morten in a cup game in early 2002. The Dane’s Olsen, with whom he shared an animated experiences with major injuries had discussion before jogging back to take steeled him for the fight of his life and the spot kick. Wieghorst would casually the long road back. A video montage can walk up and purposely push the ball six only provide a glimpse from the outside yards wide of the right post, drawing of a journey which turned inward, the applause from onlooking Iranian fans and crystallising of a personal philosophy handshakes of solidarity from their players. shaped by intense highs and lows. The decision would ultimately cost Despite a contract offer from Celtic on Denmark the match, but the game the table, at 31 Wieghorst felt he had is now remembered for Wieghorst’s to seize his last opportunity to play remarkable actions. Many think Olsen football, wistfully leaving Celtic to join gave Wieghorst the instructions to miss a new Michael Laudrup-led project at but speaking after the game the Danish Brøndby. This move would bring about manager said, “It was fair play by our an unexpected return to the Denmark captain. He didn’t want to take that goal national team. His return was against and well done to him.”

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The moment transcended the tribal Wieghorst, who had privately thought his instincts and borders intrinsic to Denmark career over following injury and football and humanity. The Iran Football illness, would go onto win Danish Player Federation wrote to Fifa after the game to of the Year in 2003 before bowing out a declare, “the Danes did not win the match, year later. but they earned our admiration,” while the Olympic Committee would honour At club level, Wieghorst, true to his path, Wieghorst with an award for fair play. would fight back from one last knee injury to win the double with Brøndby in Just as both his injuries and on-field 2005, retiring in May, just a month after success had primed Wieghorst for the his return to the pitch. He has remained battle he faced fighting Guillain-Barré active in football as a first team and syndrome, so too had the disease and assistant manager, passing the wisdom his triumphant return shaped him to be of his remarkable journey onto the next the rugged yet calm figure in the middle generation. of the chaos at the Hong Kong Stadium.

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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.

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Thank you in advance for helping out. EQUALITY

How a Spurs fan found joy and competitiveness in Belarus

BY TONY RICHARDSON

BATE Goalkeeper Denis Scherbitski and defender Zakhar Volkov celebrate after victory against Arsenal, 2019

Fair and Belarus aren’t two words that sit and despite BGU’s keeper looking as if together very well. Sandwiched between he’d only had vague instructions on how Russia and Poland this unremarkable to play the game over a bad phone line, strip of central European plain is best somehow the hosts ran out 3-1 winners known in recent years for being ruled – helped in no small part by the Uzbek by Europe’s last dictator. Dig deeper and striker Jasurbek Yakhshiboev (a Jamie you find a region ravaged by the worst Vardy-esque whippet of an attacker) and of the Second World War with a cultural the creativity of the Liberian David Tweh. identity pushed to the peripheries by To help understand quite how big a shock Russian influence. I will add here that to this is, both of these players were picked Russian speakers written Belarusian does off by relatively bigger clubs during the look, and there’s no nice way of saying summer transfer window (Shakhtyor this, a bit ‘yokel’ – the spelling being Soligorsk – potential opponents for Spurs almost entirely phonetic, making it look in the Europa League qualifiers – and as if someone who doesn’t know Russian Dinamo Brest respectively). has just transcribed what they’ve heard. As a Rusophile facing the prospect of no However, during the Covid lockdown its football of months and with a seismic football league was thrust into the global “anyone can beat anyone on their day” spotlight as one of the few to carry on. shock to begin the campaign everything In fact, at no point have games even fell into place for me. The only thing been held behind closed doors; although left was to pick a team of my own. As many fans have taken it upon themselves a Spurs fan who still isn’t really used to to avoid games – even including some finishing in the top six I tried to find a dull of the ultra groups. With this being a mid-table team to fill the void left by my summer league the supreme decision beloved 90s Spurs. BATE were far too big, maker didn’t waver and the league kicked Dinamo Minsk were fallen giants (they off as planned in mid-March. were the only Belarusian team to win the Soviet Supreme League – at a time The league itself, on first glance, looks when it was one of the best leagues in like a perfect example of Champions Europe) but had a whiff of fascism. The League money ruining a smaller domestic two Brest teams were rejected for being championship. The first game pitted too successful (Dinamo won the league in BATE Borisov, recently regular group 2019) or too new (Rukh) while Slutsk were stage minnows, against some domestic attracting English-speaking fans, well, you small fry in Energetik-BGU – the team can guess why. nominally representing Minsk University. The setting was somewhat less than Most of the other teams in the league low-key – with the inadequate 4G pitch were relatively newcomers, seemingly dropped into an aptly post-Communist destined to disappear back down the urban dystopia. leagues as quickly as they had risen. One name did stand out – that of Belshina BATE, who beat Arsenal on Valentine’s Bobruisk who were frequently at the end Day in 2019, were by far the better team of the “parade of clubs” as you loaded a

28 new game on Championship Manager us into a title fight. Other highlights 97-98, but their halcyon days of European include a couple of games being played competition were far behind them and in downpours that make the ones in this was their first season in the top flight Bilbao look like light drizzle. However, for three years. abandoning games doesn’t seem to be the way things are done in this part of the Finally I found Neman Grodno, located world, much to the obvious annoyance of near the Polish border. Inoffensively the local goalkeepers’ union. During the mid-table with one championship play- strictest part of lockdown it was nice just off (lost, of course) in nearly 30 years of to have a semblance of normality. Trying post-independence football. Oh, and to explain the away goals rule to my boy one Belarusian cup final (won). Perfectly (again) during the cup semi-finals being Spursy. Also we have the best kit in the one example that stands out. league, yellow with green hoops, slightly off perpendicular, a manager who looks So, what have I learnt from watching like a gangster and a technically gifted but one of Europe’s minor league? Well, for inconsistent playmaker – the Armenian one, you can appreciate just how great Gegham Kadymyan. European football is for some of these teams. For BATE it’s their one chance to To begin with the matches weren’t easily fill their stadium and really be tested. For available although there were always the rest it’s a genuine shot at some sort of streams if you could find them. But glamour away from the half-open Soviet- soon the Belarusian Football Federation era multi-sports arenas that many of the decided to stream the games on their teams use. YouTube channel. This may have been influenced by other leagues coming I’ve also been struck by the number of back but having watched the Tajik and African players in the league. It’s worth Guatemalan leagues they didn’t have too noting that this is even more striking in the much to worry about. They did take a leaf women’s championship. I was expecting a out of the Spanish league’s book with all large cohort of players from the ex-Soviet the games being shown consecutively republics but the fact that so many players and kick-offs tinkered with at the last – mainly West African – are willing to minute but given the general standard of chance their arm in a country like Belarus football administration it was nothing too is quite a damning indictment of the glaringly incompetent. standard of domestic football in that part of the world at the moment. The level hovers around League 1 standard, with BATE probably in the Another key feature is accessibility. I’ll Championship and Smolevichi (rooted to admit my interested waned when the the bottom) somewhat out of their depth. Premier League was being played every day but with the European competitions My team, Neman, began slowly, unable to being unavailable to me (I have Sky but find the net but so found a Leicester-like not BT) I’ve found myself more interested formula to grind out 1-0 wins, propelling in the three-way title scrap rather than

29 ISSUE SIX FAIR which mega club comes out on top in is to have as little as possible between empty stadiums. the teams. As I write this, with 20 of 30 rounds completed, nothing in the league But the key factor is that for a football is even close to being resolved – even league to be entertaining and absorbing the relative might of BATE and Dinamo the main criteria is, of course, equality. Minsk has counted for nothing as they As American sports prove with their draft sit 2nd and 8th respectively. Long may it system the best way to sell the league continue.

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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.

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Thank you in advance for helping out. FAREWELL TO THE FAIRS’ CUP

Barcelona v Leeds and a commemorative friendly in 1971

BY TOM CLEMENTS

Billy Bremner celebrates winning the 1971 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup

Don Revie was nervous. The prospect of capital’s teams. The 60s, however, saw a midweek game always filled the Leeds the tournament mature into an elite United manager with dread. Memories of competition as clubs won qualification seasons past weighed heavy. 63 games through domestic performance rather in 1970 and no trophies. Only the Inter- than the vagaries of international trade. Cities Fairs Cup to show for the 59 games This set the stage for English domination, the following season. For Leeds United, led by Leeds United. it was always the same. Competing on every front, turning teams over every The success that Don Revie’s Whites had week until they came unstuck in the enjoyed in the Fairs Cup was double- final months of the season as the fixtures edged. Their two victories were less of piled up and the league secretary Alan a reason to celebrate than a temporary Hardaker, Revie’s bête noire, refused to relief from the pain of the trophies that amend the calendar. In any other year, they failed to win. A consolation prize Leeds United would have turned down for failing to reach the European Cup or the mid-September trip to Barcelona. Cup Winners’ Cup. The silver medals that Leeds United had accrued in the league, But this wasn’t any other year. Leeds four times, and the FA Cup, twice, by 1971 United kicked off the 1971-72 season were testaments to their destiny to always with the ignominy of an empty Elland be bridesmaids. A curse that couldn’t Road. The closure, a punishment for the even be lifted by a Blackpool fortune crowd protests against the referee Ray teller, Rose Lee, urinating in all four Tinkler the previous season, deprived corners of the Elland Road pitch. the perennially cash-strapped board of necessary income. The club needed the The side that Revie had built deserved 30% of the gate receipts that the match more success than the solitary league offered. And there was the prestige. For title, the two Fairs Cups and a single this wasn’t just a friendly. This was a League Cup that they had won by 1971. match to decide the final ownership of Players like John Giles, Peter Lorimer and a European trophy, a contest between Billy Bremner were the envy of Europe, the first and last winners of the Fairs Cup capable of completely eviscerating teams which was being retired to make way for as the Norwegian amateurs Lyn had found the Uefa Cup. out in Leeds’s first foray into the European Cup. But it was the defeats, more than the The Inter-Cities Fairs Cup was a quaint victories, that bound this band of brothers idea. When it was established in 1955, together. Goal average denying them the it wasn’t about football. It was about title in their first season after promotion, promoting international trade. Cities an extra-time loss to Chelsea in the 1970 that hosted international trade fairs FA Cup Final replay, Tinkler’s inexplicable were invited to enter teams regardless decision to allow Jeff Astle’s goal for West of league position. This led to the first Brom that handed Arsenal the 1971 First final being played between a Catalan XI, Division. The collective spirit tightened represented by Barcelona, and a London with each heartbreak; somehow finding XI, made up of players from across the the energy to go again.

34 But for all of the brilliance of the players relative lack of success”. Two Copa del that he had assembled, Don Revie Generalísimo victories were never going couldn’t bring himself to relinquish to make up for the league championship control. He was the patriarch, the head of remaining in Madrid for the decade. his Elland Road family in which rituals like Friday night carpet bowls and his lucky But it wasn’t all doom and gloom; indeed, blue suit were superstitiously clung to. But there were clear green shoots of recovery it was his infamous dossiers that had the as the 60s became the 70s. In opposition biggest impact. Painstakingly assembled to the obvious Madrid-bias of the Franco by his loyal lieutenant Syd Owen, each regime, Barcelona found its voice. dossier was a neurotic insight into every When Narcís de Carreras, on becoming aspect of the team that they were about president, announced for the first time to play. Favoured feet, strength in the that Barcelona was “more than a football tackle, dribbling traits; no stone was left club”, a popular chord was struck. When unturned in their desperation to win. Vic Buckingham, Michels’s predecessor as manager, insisted on a flamboyant and The game against Barcelona was no expressive approach to games, Carreras’s different, with Revie’s assistant Maurice words found an expression on the pitch. Lindley dispatched to watch them in Added to that, he established the link action against Northern Ireland’s Distillery between Catalonia and Ajax. One that not in the Cup Winners’ Cup the week before. only led to his replacement by Michels The dossier led the Leeds manager to but would eventually lead to the Cruyff declare Barcelona to be “a great side” revolution both on and off the pitch. acknowledging that Leeds would have “to produce something against the odds” in All of this meant, ultimately, that the order to win. But Revie had, not for the Barcelona team that took to the field first time, overestimated the strength of against Leeds was one in transition. his opponents. Trained in the Buckingham way and with players like Rexach, Rife and Asensi who The Barcelona that Leeds United were would form the backbone of the La Liga travelling to play were not the team that winning team, but missing players like history would remember. This was not Cruyff and Neeskens who would make it yet the team of Johan Cruyff and total immortal. A good side but not a great side. football nor was it famed for producing players as it would with La Masia and It was a much stronger side, however, Guardiola. Indeed, the club that Rinus than the one that Revie was able to put Michels walked into at the start of the out. An injury crisis and fixture congestion 1971-1972 season was still fighting to find – this game was one of ten that Leeds its identity. Despite the decade starting would play in September – meant that with defeat in the European Cup final, the first-choice players like Allan Clarke, 1960s had been forgettable for Barcelona. Eddie Gray and Terry Cooper were unable The only silver lining, according to to make the trip. Revie was forced to the official history, was that the club field a handful of reserves in a game that “increase[d] its membership despite the should have been a crowning moment for

35 ISSUE SIX FAIR the club that he had built. Stars like Giles The success afforded Michels the time and Lorimer lined up alongside perennial that he needed to build a team in his reserves Rod Belfitt, Nigel Davey and, image. As for Leeds, their heroic defeat making his only appearance for Leeds encapsulated much about the Revie era United, Chris Galvin. “It could have been at Elland Road. In trying to win it all, they a real classic if we had had our full side won the respect of their opponents but out,” said Revie before kick-off, waving missed out on the crowning glory. the white flag. When Leeds eventually returned to The makeshift Leeds side did their Leeds-Bradford Airport after the game, manager proud, however, matching their they were forced to comply with an hosts blow for blow in the early parts of early variant of track and trace due to a the game. Despite it being essentially cholera outbreak in Barcelona. Although an exhibition, challenges were fierce none of the travelling party developed and the referee was forced to speak to any symptoms, the effects of that one-off both sets of players before half-time. game would eventually bite on a Tuesday Barcelona were rewarded for their first- night in Wolverhampton. At the end of a half superiority soon after the restart with 56-game season, with the FA Cup finally a well-worked goal from Teófilo Dueñas. having been secured only three days Although a debutant Joe Jordan soon earlier, Leeds were denied the double by a equalised for Leeds, they were unable 90th-minute winner from Derek Dougan. decisively to shift the momentum of the The same old story for Don Revie and match away from their hosts and, in the Leeds United. 1 84th minute, Dueñas added his second to seal the title for Barcelona.

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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.

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Thank you in advance for helping out. VIVEZA CRIOLLA

How the art of deception became central to Uruguay’s football identity

BY MARTIN DA CRUZ

An illustration of the River Plate (of Uruguay) forward Pablo Ducal from the Montevideo magazine La Semanacaption

Viveza Criolla, that ‘native cunning’, that In true Galeano fashion, however, the cleverness used to gain any advantage story is romantic and beautiful, but not over an opponent whether through entirely true. a feint, a dribble or the more sinister act of the dive, holds a special place The reality is that football’s purity had in rioplatense footballing folklore. been diluted since its beginnings in the And perhaps nothing reveals football’s Río de la Plata. Indeed, the Montevideo plasticity as clearly as Viveza. The art of Cricket Club can be credited with deception, as perfected by Suárez and Uruguay’s first recorded acts of Viveza Maradona, can be seen as graceful or back in the 1890s, after not only sneaking cynical, its protagonists lifted as selfless a pair of expert, unaffiliated players national heroes by some and castigated into their side unannounced, but also as footballing deviants by the rest. secretly swapping balls mid-game to their advantage. Such behaviour from one of In the origin stories of Uruguayan and Montevideo’s oldest and most important Argentine football, Viveza plays a role English institutions caused a stir in the that is as convenient as it is necessary. British community, with the brazen acts They say the game began as a mere of trickery swiftly denounced by the pastime of the British elite. These were city’s English-language press. Whether serious men of the ‘sensible’ Anglo-Saxon we should thank or curse the English for race, gentlemen who upheld a morally bringing footballing Viveza to Uruguay pure sense of self and sport based upon is a dilemma for another time. But what respect for authority and the ‘right way to cannot be denied is that the Creole, as play’. For them, this was true football. they did with other facets of the game, took the art of deception and made it But the game’s amateur spirit was soon their own. threatened by Latin involvement. In an act of ignorance or rebellion, the children And it was through River Plate (the now- of Italian and Spanish immigrants extinct Uruguayan River Plate) where a imagined a game diametrically opposed truly national style came to the fore. In to that of the English gentleman. With the words of one Uruguayan journalist, the entrance of these new, local actors, the club was an oddly harmonious football, as Uruguayan thinker Eduardo grouping of “toffs, ruffians, intellectuals, Galeano put it, “had escaped its high gentlemen who exercised and others who window box, come to earth, and was had stopped, proletariats of various trades setting down roots”. And from those and idlers who did not want to hear about remarkably fertile potreros sprouted a that ordinary and fatiguing thing called home-grown style of play, a creative yet work.” Founded in Montevideo’s port area combative game practised by humble in 1902, River symbolised that masculine Creole rascals who, free from the firm archetype of turn of the century Buenos hand of a referee, privileged fantasy over Aires and Montevideo. “He is an elegant discipline and victory over fair play. For seducer whom no woman is able to the Creole, this was true football. And resist,” the Argentinian anthropologist here Viveza was born. Eduardo Archetti wrote of the

40 Compadrito. “He has been in prison and line with his clean reputation, Delgado is admired because of his courage, his possessed a more refined Viveza – the physical strength, and capacity to cheat art of talking – his jokes and comments where necessary.” So River, with their as much of an impediment to opposition own footballing compadritos, brought a attackers as his perfectly timed tackles. distinctively loud and combative game to Uruguayan football, overcoming And on that spring afternoon in 1915, the traditional powers of Nacional and Delgado’s expert play was again on show as CURCC (from 1914 Peñarol) to win the he frustrated Nacional’s attack with ease. So 1908, 1910, 1913 and 1914 league titles. with the game at 0-0 deep into the second half, Dacal, increasingly desperate and once And they did it with their own brand of again facing the impassable centre-half, Viveza, deployed most notably by Pablo took a tumble inside the area which was Dacal and Vicente Módena. Playing on ignored by the referee. This time, however, the right side of the front five, the two Delgado was in no joking mood. Clearly made deception an art-form, outwitting offended by such an audacious, foolish opponents with trickery on and off the attempt against his clean reputation, the ball. While the famous duo conquered normally cool Delgado stood over Dacal, the local game through their movement, still sitting on the ground. “Look, Gallego. If combination play and individual dribbling, you dive for a penalty again we’re going to it was Dacal’s extraordinary Viveza that stomp on your head. We will.” became a thing of legend. One could safely describe Pablo Dacal as the Yet Dacal’s most significant act of Viveza original Luis Suárez, and not just for his had taken place for Uruguay against beginnings at Nacional before an eventual Argentina a few years earlier. The Clásico move to River. A skilful but ruthless rioplatense was crucial to Uruguay’s competitor, the inside-right sought any footballing identity, with Argentina advantage he could with little regard representing that close Other from which for the game’s moral conventions, his they constantly sought to differentiate penchant for diving earning the scorn of themselves. The image of a powerful, opposition fans and players alike. imposing Buenos Aires stretched back to colonial times, consuming the A typical reaction to Dacal’s antics came Uruguayan psyche to the point where in October 1915 when he, now back at victory – no matter how improbable – Nacional, faced the tough Central FC. became a national obsession. Until the Born in the humble Montevideo barrio 1910s Argentina remained the dominant of Palermo, Central were led by Juan footballing force in the region. The Delgado, Uruguay’s black footballing country’s superiority was epitomised by pioneer and heir to John Harley in the the legendary Alumni of the Browns, two coveted position of centre-half. A truly of whom, cousins Jorge and Juan, were complete midfielder, Delgado was not only pillars of the Albiceleste defence, defensively solid, elegant and precise but also carried an aura of the ‘right way in the pass, rarely if ever deploying the to play’, a legacy of the Buenos Aires violence so prevalent in that era. In English High School.

41 ISSUE SIX FAIR

But Uruguay seemed to be closing the Dacal in search of his own summary gap on their neighbours, thanks largely justice. “I’m going to kill him!” he to the exciting wing play of Dacal screamed at Uruguay’s centre-forward and Módena. And this occasion was José Piendibene in clearly flustered no different. With the game at 0-0, a Anglo-Hispanic. “You see what he does Uruguayan forward – most likely Módena to us!” Dacal’s cheeky act had paid off. – went on a mazy run down the right- Sensing Argentina were rattled, the hand side before whipping in a cross. Uruguayans took charge and went on to Waiting in the area was Juan Brown secure a victory that would usher in an who, in a seemingly perfect position to era of unrivalled international dominance. intercept the ball, suddenly heard his cousin Jorge call out from behind: Despite their advanced ‘scientific’ combination game, Uruguay’s rise to ‘Dejala Juan!’ Leave it, Juan! the top of world football has remained a romantic story of a small, plucky nation Hearing that unmistakable, reassuring overcoming all odds to defeat more voice, Juan duly let the ball pass. But powerful opponents. Viveza remains when he turned his stomach dropped critical to not only that story, but also the when he realised it wasn’t Jorge, but subsequent decline of the Uruguayan little Pablo Dacal with the ball at his feet. game. With the passing of time, the art The horrified Argentinians scrambled to of deception became absorbed into reclaim the ball, but there was nothing the now-famous national trait of Garra they could do. Dacal, who could hardly Charrúa, that determination – or rather 1 believe his impersonation actually desperation – to live up to those famous worked, quickly slotted the ball past the successes of so long ago. Uruguayan goalkeeper Wilson before wheeling away Viveza is now less about freedom and in celebration. creativity than it is about the weight of expectation. Indeed, in a small country The Argentinians were livid. The first where football is everything, and The idea of The Squall is to help out freelance reaction came from Jorge Brown, who success is tied so intimately to national scolded his younger cousin for such a sentiment, victory must be sought by any writers during the Covid-19 crisis. For it to survive ridiculous error. Juan himself went after means necessary. and thrive, we are asking readers to pay what they can and we suggest a minimum donation of £3.

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42 ISSUE SIX FAIR

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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.

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How Alan Sugar benefited from the birth of the Premier League

BY EWAN FLYNN

Alan Sugar announces his intention to buy Tottenham Hotspur, 1991

The opulent foyer of the Royal Lancaster to become the UK’s first satellite Hotel by London’s Hyde Park is broadcaster. BSB had committed to thronging with people. Above the noise, meeting the UK government’s high- a gruff, East End-accented voice barks quality D-MAC transmission standards into a telephone: “Get your fucking arse in its successful bid, which would round here and blow them out of the require time to develop expensive water.” The phone is slammed down. new technology and the launch of a new satellite into orbit. Sky could It is 18 May 1992 and Alan Sugar, the get to market first by transmitting its chairman of Tottenham Hotspur and channels using lower quality existing the electronics company Amstrad (Alan PAL technology via the Luxembourg- Michael Sugar Trading), has a lot riding on based satellite company, Astra. Murdoch the vote about to take place in one of the figured correctly that demand for satellite hotel’s conference rooms. Sugar, along television in British households would not with his counterparts from England’s 21 be sufficient to support two broadcasters. other top-flight football clubs, is here to If Sky was on the air with subscribers decide whether the television contract already signed up, BSB would be fighting for the new Premier League will go to a losing battle. the terrestrial channel ITV or the satellite broadcaster BSkyB. If BSkyB wins the day, Murdoch needed someone with a Amstrad will have millions of new orders track record for producing home for their set-top boxes and dishes ahead electronics quickly and at low cost. In of the inaugural Premier League season his autobiography What You See Is What which kicks off in less than three months. You Get Alan Sugar recalls receiving a call from Murdoch at Amstrad’s office. His excitement grew by the second as Murdoch laid out his plans for Sky to start On the receiving end of Sugar’s call was broadcasting in early 1989. This came at BSkyB’s chief executive Sam Chisholm, an auspicious time for Sugar. During the who knew full well that the stakes were 1980s, Amstrad had established itself as win or bust. In 1990 Rupert Murdoch the UK’s leading manufacturer of home had brought Chisholm to England from computers. But by the end of the decade, Australia to save his failing satellite things had gone awry. Faults with a new project. So desperate was the situation – model and increased competition had Sky TV, as it was then called, was losing seen Amstrad’s share price plunge. Sugar £14million per week – Chisholm jetted needed something new to sell. in before the necessary work permits had been granted. When you’re part of “I knew immediately it [satellite TV] the Murdoch empire, such wrinkles get would be a great consumer product - smoothed out in double-quick time. the punters would go bananas for an extra sixteen channels if it could be Murdoch had launched Sky in a hurry in done cheaply ... I told Rupert I was so 1988, having seen rival British Satellite confident about this that he didn’t need Broadcasting (BSB) awarded the licence to underwrite any orders.”

46 But soon after Sky went live both men Channel 9, owned by the media mogul realised they had a sizeable problem – Kerry Packer. Channel 9 had established Sky’s programming gave viewers little to itself as Australia’s most popular station go bananas about. With viewing numbers by luring some of the world’s greatest low, advertisers held back. The only cricketers to World Series Cricket, a subscription Sky could look to for revenue breakaway competition. Chisholm was its movie channel, but securing film knew only top-flight English football rights was costly. Worse still, in spring would move the needle when it came to 1990 their rival BSB, also offering movie securing subscribers for BSkyB. Football subscriptions, hit viewers’ screens via their alone offered Murdoch salvation. non-Amstrad ‘Squariel’ receiver. With both broadcasters haemorrhaging money, a Summer 1991 proved pivotal in the history merger soon became inevitable. Although of the English game. The ‘Big Five’ – the new name BSkyB was agreed on, Arsenal, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester Sky, using Murdoch’s deep pockets, had United and Tottenham Hotspur – had bought the competition. long been discontented with the Football League’s policy of sharing TV revenue Murdoch had gambled that Margaret between all 92 member clubs. After all, Thatcher’s government would turn a according to the Big Five, it was only their blind eye to his latest acquisition, which matches that viewers were interested appeared to flout monopolies and in. Talk of a breakaway super league, mergers regulations. Murdoch had form; which would negotiate its own TV deal, less than a decade earlier he’d been had been rumbling since the mid- allowed to add the Times and Sunday 1980s. It was about to become a reality. Times to his News International stable ITV’s current contract with the Football alongside the Sun and News of the World. League ran until the end of the 1991- These papers had championed Thatcher 92 season. This was the time to strike ever since. Murdoch recalls broaching out for freedom (and loads of money). the satellite merger with Thatcher. She Having entered into secret negotiations congratulated him on providing the with the ITV Sports chairman Greg Dyke, UK with Sky News, “the only unbiased the Big Five approached the Football [television] news in the UK”. Association to sound out the governing body over sanctioning a secessionist Having inherited the vast losses accrued ‘Premier League’ formed of the existing by both Sky and BSB, the new BSkyB, over first division clubs. The FA, believing a £2billion in the red, needed something streamlined 18 team top-flight would more than the government’s ideological benefit the England national team, gave its well wishes. Whispers circulated that blessing, making this public in its ‘Blueprint the sinking BSkyB could even take News for Football’ published early in 1991. International down. But the Football League was not willing Sam Chisholm had a plan to save Sky: a to lose its star attractions without a fight. sports subscription channel. Chisholm’s In June the FA was forced to go to the reputation was forged at Australia’s High Court to establish the Premier

47 League’s right to depart with only six Sugar made no secret that his friends months’ notice, rather than the three at BSkyB had a keen interest in him years enshrined in the Football League’s investing in one of the football clubs statutes. The FA Premier League was on whose vote would determine the its way (although the FA prefix in the title destination of the Premier League would later be dropped, as would the television contract. He later told the commitment to reducing the league to 18 Times how “Rupert rang me up one teams). Sam Chisholm and BSkyB watched day and said, ‘What’s going on with this on with interest. So did Alan Sugar. football club you are thinking of buying?”

Meanwhile, one of the Big Five had The 22 clubs who assembled at the Royal fallen on hard times. Midland Bank was Lancaster were already in possession threatening to call in the £11million it was of both BSkyB and ITV’s bids for the owed by Tottenham Hotspur. Only a loan, Premier League contract. The Premier secured with the help of Robert Maxwell, League chief executive Rick Parry had prevented Barcelona repossessing Gary requested they be submitted the night Lineker after the second instalment of before. As club officials entered the his transfer fee had gone unpaid. Spurs hotel, Trevor East from ITV Sport handed desperately needed a sugar daddy. them envelopes containing an improved £262million offer. BSkyB was in danger of Alan Sugar claims in his autobiography losing this must-win contest. Alan Sugar that he has “no idea” what prompted made a beeline for the telephone to him to buy Tottenham Hotspur in June warn Chisholm of this potential disaster. 1991, for an initial investment of around Chisholm called New York, where it £3million. Sugar does explain that his was 4am, to wake Rupert Murdoch. He affinity for Tottenham dates back to needed consent to bid whatever it took. childhood when his father and uncle Murdoch agreed, £304million ought to would regularly take him to White Hart get the job done. Under Premier League Lane. Although this sits rather awkwardly rules the winning bid would need the with the recollection of Irving Scholar, support of at least three-quarters of the Sugar’s predecessor as Spurs chairman, 22 clubs. BSkyB’s strategy had been to that when asked a question about lobby those outside the Big Five. The Tottenham’s glorious double-winning very term needled the other clubs. ITV season of 1960-61, Sugar replied promised the Big Five that they would “Double? What Double? Is that something show more of their matches throughout from the 1950s?” the five-year contract and assumed that where they went enough of the other Perhaps Sugar’s motivation was more clubs’ votes would follow. apparent to those visitors to Sam Chisholm’s office at BSkyB who heard When wargaming how the vote would Sugar’s hectoring voice down the line play out, ITV had not counted on complaining about the number of Alan Sugar. Before the ballot, Sugar unsold satellite dishes piling up in the explained Amstrad’s partnership with Amstrad warehouse. BSkyB represented a potential conflict

48 of interests and therefore suggested the Tottenham board. Sugar has since Tottenham abstain. When overwhelmingly described his tenure as Tottenham those clubs outside the Big Five decided chairman as his life’s ‘wasted’ decade. It’s that Spurs should be allowed to vote, worth noting, however, that thanks to the doubtless in the knowledge that Sugar success of the Premier League he was would go for BSkyB – the more lucrative able to cash out his shares in the club for offer for them, Sugar withdrew his offer a reported £47million. Not a bad return of abstention. If that was his strategy on his initial investment. By 2007 Alan all along, it played out beautifully. Two Sugar was ready to sell Amstrad. BSkyB clubs, Chelsea and Crystal Palace, was accounting for three-quarters of did abstain. Of the remaining 20, 14 Amstrad’s revenue. Sugar asked James including Tottenham went for BSkyB, Murdoch – by then in charge of BSkyB six for ITV. BSkyB had received precisely – whether he might be interested. “Then the number of votes it needed to secure I pulled out what I considered my final the ‘democratic majority’ required under trump card … he [James] just might Premier League rules. There had been no want to run the idea past his dad.” A deal margin for error. It was Alan Sugar’s vote of £125million was agreed. As Sugar wot won it. explains: “It was Rupert’s final gesture, as payback for the effort I’d contributed to So began what Sam Chisholm called BSkyB’s fantastic success story.” the “greatest corporate romance of all time” between BSkyB and the Premier Was it such a result for football fans? On 5 League. Those football fans who could July 2020, Southampton beat Manchester afford a subscription scrambled for an City 1-0 in a low stakes Premier League Amstrad dish to watch Sky’s much- fixture. City had already relinquished heralded “whole new ball game”. Sky’s their league title to Liverpool and fortunes quickly turned. By 1994 BSkyB Southampton were enjoying mid-table announced profits of £93million; later comfort. The game, screened on the that year the company was floated with a BBC under the arrangements permitting valuation of £4.4billion. football’s restart during the coronavirus pandemic, attracted 5.7million viewers. When in 1996 it was time to vote for It was a larger audience than Sky had the next TV contract, Alan Sugar again ever achieved in the three decades since went into bat for Sky. His relationship Murdoch, Chisholm and Sugar snatched with Chisholm flourished to the extent the ball from free-to-air television’s that when Chisholm eventually left Sky playing field. in 1997, Sugar offered him a place on

49 A FAIR CRACK OF THE WHIP?

A history of Alf Ramsey’s England reign in one- cap wonders

BY DAVE BOWLER

John Richards, centre, has a shot at goal watched by John Hollins, left, Peter Storey, Kevin Keegan and Colin Bell.

If one element of Sir Alf Ramsey’s and Ken Shellito were used and discarded managerial style stands out, it’s the in the first months. Others were the victim ferocious loyalty he showed towards of circumstance – Gerry Young suffered his players. Mick Channon, who came long-term injury immediately after getting onto the scene late in Ramsey’s England his cap, Tony Kay might have been an career, noted that, “Alf stuck by his England regular but for his part in the players, so it was fucking hard to get into betting scandal that engulfed the game in the England team. Once you were in, it 1964, Derek Temple had the misfortune was even harder to get left out!” of being a winger in 1965 just as Ramsey was phasing them out. His loyalty could be misplaced – a few careers perhaps went on too long, to Gordon Harris was very much a squad the detriment of results – but it was the man, elevated by circumstances as a bedrock of England’s greatest ever period late replacement for the injured Bobby on the international scene. Players knew Charlton in early ’66. John Hollins got Ramsey had their back, that he would a cap a year later in the similar absence treat them fairly, that one bad game of Martin Peters. The injury-prone Ian would not mean the end. Storey-Moore came and went in 1970, the goalkeeper Alex Stepney was given That was certainly true once you were one taster as perennial deputy to Gordon established, but 14 footballers might Banks and Peter Bonetti. In seven years argue that Ramsey’s famed “fair crack of to the Mexico World Cup, Ramsey had the whip” did not extend to everyone. just nine one-cap wonders to his name, These were the 14 one-cap wonders he underlining the way he was going to run created – ignoring the slew of new caps his team. England were, to all intents and named in his final game – and they stand purposes, a club side. out so vividly because their existence flies in the face of all he had wanted to wash Comparative failure in Mexico in 1970 and away on succeeding Walter Winterbottom the departure of hardy perennials such as England boss. as the Charlton brothers, Keith Newton and Brian Labone gave Ramsey pause for Under Winterbottom, the dread selection a rethink. Some new regulars emerged committee held sway, amateurs quickly – Roy McFarland, Martin Chivers, picking the England team based Emlyn Hughes – but there were shades of on favourites, on boosting the gate 1963 as he looked to find a new side. when an international was held in the provinces, as reward for good careers. The 1970-71 season saw him give solitary Ramsey swept that away in the hunt caps to three cornerstones of First for professionalism and for continuity, Division football, Colin Harvey, Tommy picking on merit and persevering with Smith and Tony Brown, all of whom identified talent until it flourished. had come through the various Under- 23s and Football League representative Early on, you could understand the odd games. Smith was sufficiently displeased misstep in finding that blend – Ron Henry at his treatment to ignore his England

52 cap in his autobiography Anfield Iron, Brown was closest in style to Martin understandable perhaps given that the Peters, against Wales he was asked to be role for which he had been screen-tested Francis Lee. ultimately went to Peter Storey. Ironically, John Richards, a player who Sir Alf was renowned throughout the would have been better suited to that game for picking players and telling job a couple of years later given that he them, “I want you to do exactly the played off Derek Dougan at Wolves, came same job that you do for your club.” Roy into the England side when Ramsey was McFarland explained, “People ask me caught between his faithful 4-4-2 and about the coaching with England, did the clarion calls from around the country I learn anything, did we try new things, to unleash a more expansive England but the answer’s no, not really. That was and play 4-3-3. But here was another very striking. Just do what you did for conflict that Ramsey had to wrestle with your club. Alf wasn’t one to tell you how – the majority of English sides tended to to play.” Yet cracks in that methodology play with two central strikers. You had were beginning to appear, evident in the Keegan and Toshack at Liverpool, Jones treatment of Tony Brown in 1971 and then and Clarke at Leeds, Davies and Hector at John Richards two years later, illustrating Derby, augmented with wingers such as how much damage Mexico had done to Heighway, Gray and Hinton. In trying to Ramsey’s psyche. use three up front for England, rather than playing a natural wide man, his solution “For the Home Internationals, you were to preventing them all trying to occupy away with England for a whole week,” the same space was to shunt Richards or recalled Brown. “I was on the bench Keegan out wide, something that didn’t against Northern Ireland, played against suit them, particularly as young men Wales, and then in the stands watching trying to make an impression and getting the Scotland game – I’d had the elbow! frustrated at being asked to do something It was a transitional phase after the World alien to them. Cup in Mexico, which didn’t help any of us and my debut was a game that I never It was evidence of just how compromised really got into. Ramsey was feeling after Mexico and then England’s subsequent dismissal “I wasn’t able to play my own game, I’d from the 1972 European Championship played an attacking midfield role for [West by West Germany that he started to Bromwich] Albion but was asked to play pay some heed to his critics. Times had as an out-and-out striker for England, as changed, the “white heat of industry” was a target man. It didn’t suit me. I needed not enough for modern appetites that to have things laid out in front of me, I demanded flair and imagination, not least was never a great player with my back as an antidote to the grisly economic to goal, it wasn’t my game to hold the times that were enveloping the nation. ball up. For some reason, he asked me On 15 May 1973, Prime Minister Edward to do something I wasn’t suited to, and Heath spoke of the “unacceptable face your heart does sink a bit.” In short, while of capitalism” but for his arch-critic

53 Brian Clough, Ramsey was now the Warrington originally, so my family were “unacceptable face of football”. all able to get to the game very easily and see me make my debut, May 12 it was. Even as he tried to adapt, Ramsey’s instincts prevented him from going the “It whizzed past, like a cup final. I whole hog and embracing the flamboyant remember feeling proud to get the and, to him, fundamentally untrustworthy shirt and then pleased to win. I was a likes of Malcolm Macdonald or Stan bit disappointed in my performance, Bowles that the press were baying for. but I was stuck out on the left of Richards, while extremely talented, was Chivers and Channon which wasn’t my also a quieter, sounder figure. Looking natural position, so I don’t think I did back at his one cap Richards is sanguine myself justice. I was being asked to be about it, which says much about his a different player and I only had one rather more stable personality: “There chance to do it having been called up were a lot of good players about, so it late. I’m proud I played but I’d have liked was an achievement to get in. England a fairer crack at it.” played very few games then, so although you really need four or five games to Seven years earlier perhaps, Richards, settle, you’re very aware you might not and others, would have been given the get them. same treatment as Jimmy Greaves had when Ramsey made the biggest call “I got my cap at Goodison against of all: “A fine player, but he doesn’t suit Northern Ireland, which was a bit of my team.” But by ’73 Sir Alf was second an oddity because it was their home guessing himself, unsure what his team game, but because of the Troubles, they should look like. Certainty had given couldn’t play in Belfast. I’d got called in way to confusion. It would give way to late because of injury to Allan Clarke – I a calamitous defeat in Katowice just 25 was in the main squad of 22 for the Home days after Richards’s debut. Internationals but for that first game Alf had only called in 16, with the rest of us to join up later. So I went into the 16 and straight into the team. I’m from

54 MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

Grenada v Barbados 1993, the game in which own- goals made sense

BY JON ARNOLD Football is a simple game. No, no, this That’s exactly what Barbados were able isn’t the bit about the Germans. It’s just to do early, taking a two-goal lead and the truth. One team attacks the other’s sitting the driver’s seat until a goal by goal while it defends its own. The other Grenada in the last 10 minutes to make does the same. Don’t use your hands, the score 2-1, a win for Barbados but a don’t be overly physical and that’s pretty result that would send Grenada through. much it. For a few moments, Barbados proceeded in search of the goal, but then came the But what if you subvert those codes. What passage of play that sets this game apart if instead of a goal being worth one, you and secured its place in history. made it worth two at certain points of a match? And what if instead of defending Rather than scramble for the final few your goal, you needed to defend both? minutes in search of one goal to go through, why not gain some more time The idea of the Caribbean Football Union and make sure the goal counts for two? in January of 1994 wasn’t to test out Terry Sealey and the goalkeeper Horace heady ideas posited by situationists like Stoute passed the ball back and forth and three-sided football, rather it was simply Sealey then thumped it past Stoute into to spice things up in qualification for its his own net. regional championship. Yet for Barbados and Grenada, the tweak of having the first This is one of the few moments of the goal in extra-time count double would match we actually can see. result in one of the strangest international matches ever played. The match is one of the handful of sporting events included in the Lost Media Wiki, a project looking to track down video clips that have been lost to The teams went into the final day of time. Someone must have the tape, but qualification knowing only the winner no one I spoke to in Barbados knew who would go through to the Caribbean Cup, a that person might be. now defunct tournament used not only to determine the regional champion but as Missing from the tape we do have is the qualification for the Gold Cup, Concacaf’s chaotic finish that followed. It didn’t take continental championship, in years when Grenada long to realise that they now that tournament was taking place. could score a goal to advance with a victory or score in their own goal to lose Grenada already had taken advantage in regular time but advance thanks to the of the rule counting the first extra-time goal difference. goal as two goals, scoring in extra time to beat Puerto Rico and gain a two-goal But Barbados had the situation scouted. goal difference boost. Barbados fell to Reports indicate that for the last three Puerto Rico in regular time, meaning they minutes, half the Barbados squad needed a win by at least two goals to defended their own net, while the other move into the Caribbean Cup. half defended Grenada’s. They forced

56 extra-time, when Trevor Thorne found The answer may be lost to history. the winner, putting Barbados through. Barbados players contacted for this He ran behind the goal to celebrate and story would not speak without payment was joined near the running track by fans, to a retired players fund and a former some waving flags. Clearly getting to the federation official who also worked with tournament proper meant something to the CFU insisted he could not speak to the at least a few in Barbados. author nor provide any information about who might be able to provide answers. Was it enough to make putting the ball into their own net worth it? That’s tough The why of that day remains like the to say. footage of the game. We know someone has the complete picture, but we only can On the one hand, we all can agree this guess at what it is and hope that one day wasn’t football, at least not the way we all the pieces are put together. have understood it being played. On the other, Barbados’s players weren’t asked to come up with the tournament guidelines, which saw five teams including Grenada and Barbados score a now-mythical goal worth two.

So, the question remains: Who thought this was a good idea? What official put the ‘double bonus’ extra time rule into place and how did they not see a scenario like the one that eventually took place coming?

57 NOTHING LEFT TO LIVE BY

The scourge of match- fixing in the USSR and attempts to eradicate it

BY VADIM FURMANOV

The Dynamo Kyiv coach Valeriy Lobanovskyi

“There is nothing worse than a fixed audience was more the intelligentsia match. You can lose everything in the than match-going supporters. world, and it’s not a tragedy, if it’s fair: the Earth will continue to rotate on its Galinsky wrote an account of a match axis, and the day of victory will come. he attended at the end of the 1967 That’s what you live by. If it’s unfair, season between Dynamo Kyiv and everything stops. There’s nothing left to Dinamo Minsk. The Kyiv side had already live by.” clinched the title, while the visitors from Minsk were still in contention The legendary Soviet sports journalist for a top-three finish, a prestigious Lev Filatov, longtime editor of the weekly accomplishment in Soviet football. He Football-Hockey, penned these powerful described the winning goal scored by words in his memoirs. Filatov was the the Minsk striker Mikhail Mustygin as country’s foremost crusader against comical, with the Kyiv players offering match-fixing in an era in which it was zero resistance from a corner, letting rampant. With influential figures in Soviet the ball drop in the middle of the box football turning a blind eye to or even uncontested and giving Mustygin as willingly participating in the epidemic, it much time as he needed to find the net. was up to members of the press to take a There was no attempt at a comeback, stand. Filatov and others did so, often at and the Minsk side won 1-0. great risk to career and reputation. The title of Galinsky’s piece, “Strange Match-fixing began spreading through Games”, entered the Soviet footballing the Soviet football scene in earnest in lexicon as a euphemism for a fixed the 1960s. The first acknowledgment match. The article clashed with the in the press came in a 1967 edition official line that Soviet sport was of Pravda, the official daily of the perfectly clean and fair, and for his Communist Party. An article accused efforts he was effectively kicked out of the goalkeeper of SKA-Kyiv of accepting the journalism profession for decades. 600 rubles to throw a match against The editors of Sovetskaya Kultura were Shakhter Karagandy in a promotion also reprimanded. playoff. This incident was presented as an isolated occurrence. This “see no evil” approach became untenable in the 1970s, when the A year later came a bombshell report. situation could no longer be ignored. The source was the journalist Arkadiy The directors of Pakhtakor Tashkent, Galinsky, the self-styled Solzhenitsyn for example, were accused of offering of Soviet football, after the dissident their counterparts at Spartak Moscow a who revealed the inner workings of hefty sum to throw a match during the the country’s forced labour system. His former’s battle against relegation. investigation was published not in one of the country’s established sporting The first official publicly to acknowledge newspapers but in Sovetskaya Kultura, and condemn match-fixing was Valentin an arts and culture weekly whose target Granatkin, head of the Soviet football

60 federation. He stated in 1972: “In other the rule was quietly scrapped. Penalties sports (boxing, wrestling), the cessation did not prove a solution. of the sporting battle is seen as cowardice and unsporting behaviour. In The scandalous ending of the autumn football these phenomena are becoming half of the 1976 Soviet Top League practically a technique. And this must be season – in which all four of Spartak’s fought with determination.” rivals in the relegation dogfight won on the last match day and sent the Moscow Match-fixing was also on the agenda side out of the top flight – combined of the Central Committee of the with an ever-increasing number of Communist Party in 1972. It referred draws provided the impetus for further to the practice as in meeting notes as attempts at reform. “a shameful affair, because instead of a fair sporting fight, the spectators are In 1977 Sergey Pavlov, the head of witnesses to a farce.” the Sporting Committee of the Soviet Union, announced the creation of a Since so many of the ‘strange games’ specific body to deal with match-fixing ended in draws, the solution was to and forcefully wrote in Pravda that “in eliminate draws altogether. For the the event of a violation by teams of the 1973 season, any match ending in a moral norms, the jury [of the new body] draw would be decided via a penalty will be able to take serious measures shootout. The rule encouraged dour, against footballers and their superiors, defensive football. One in four matches up to and including disqualification, ended 1-0; having taken the lead, teams annulment of the match result, and even tended to sit back, lest they risk giving banning the squad from competition.” up an equaliser and losing everything in the post-match lottery. Players, The following season a draw limit coaches, and journalists were all critical was introduced – after a maximum of the rule change. of eight draws, a team would start being deducted points. Two years later In 1974 the experiment was altered: only this was raised to ten in 1980, which 0-0 draws would be decided by penalty remained the limit until it was eliminated shootouts and shootouts themselves altogether in 1989. could end in a draw if they were all square after five kicks each. Which is Filatov was cautiously optimistic, but exactly what happened. In the first five ended up disappointed. “Not a single matches that ended in 0-0 draws, no result was annulled, no teams or players winner could be determined even after were disqualified, even though fixed a shootout. During a match between matches flourished,” he wrote later. Spartak Moscow and Dinamo Tbilisi the fix was so obvious – the penalty of A key figure behind the flourishing of Spartak’s Yevgeny Lovchev was nearer match-fixing was the legendary Valeriy the corner flag than the goal – that the Lobanovskyi, who took over at Dynamo match was ordered to be replayed. But Kyiv in 1973. His pragmatic mantra when

61 it came to league football was “win at the leaders Dynamo Kyiv host CSKA home, draw away” and this would be Moscow, one point behind them enough to secure the championship. It in second place. Normally such an was an effective approach – Dynamo encounter would not be a suspected won eight titles under his tutelage – but fix. CSKA were a Russian side, not a his craft had a dark side. Ukrainian one, and the match was taking place in Kyiv where Dynamo were In matches between Dynamo and other unlikely to show their opponents mercy. Ukrainian clubs of the Soviet top flight, it was basically a foregone conclusion But in 1981 CSKA were managed by that Lobanovskyi’s side would earn Oleh Bazylevych, a fellow Ukrainian and three points. Dynamo would take it Lobanovskyi’s former teammate and easy in away trips and settle for a draw, co-manager at Dynamo. There were and when they came to Kyiv the other rumours that the fix was in and the Ukrainian visitors would not offer much game, which was broadcast nationally, resistance. This left Dynamo fresh and ended in a drab 0-0 draw. Despite rested to take on their rivals from the the potential title implications, neither title from Moscow. side sought victory. Sergey Salnikov, a journalist from Filatov’s Football- Filatov, a fierce Lobanovskyi critic, Hockey, wrote “and so the match, that described a match in the late 70s could have been an example of an between Dynamo and fellow Ukrainian interesting battle, instead became an side Karpaty in Lviv, in which the hosts example of a completely different sort: had an unexpected and undesirable 2-1 how to spend one and a half hours on lead. This led the Karpaty defenders to the field, without playing.” “escort Dynamo striker Oleh Blokhin to their goal and do not prevent him from Supporters flooded the newspapers sending the ball into the net.” Minutes with angry letters. The authorities were later, when Dynamo were awarded an rattled enough to hold a hearing about equally unexpected and undesirable the match in front of the presidium of penalty, Leonid Buryak missed on purpose the football federation. Lobanovskyi to ensure the agreed-upon draw. flatly denied any illicit dealings, stating “agreeing on a draw is criminal, The Lobanovskyi system was denounced Comrade Bazylevych and I did not by some members of the press and has agree on anything.” But then he made since been discussed by a number of the point that chess players often players. Volodymyr Munteaun, a Dynamo purposefully ended games in draws, so veteran, later complained about feeling what really was the big deal if footballers awful about participating in these matches did it – which sounded like a cryptic and claimed to have been punished for admission of guilt. scoring goals contrary to instructions. Nevertheless, Lobanovskyi and The situation came to a head in 1981. Bazylevych escaped any punishment An early top-of-the-table clash saw and were only issued light reprimands.

62 Not for match-fixing, but for excessive Soviet football was never cleaned up. pragmatism that led to poor football. The authorities never showed much Lobanovskyi was simply too powerful political will to confront the issue. It was to touch. people like Filatov who kept the fight as long as they could. As he wrote in his Filatov left Football-Hockey two years memoirs: “Journalists did far more in later. Ostensibly to retire, but the the battle against false football than the ex-referee Mark Rafalov later claimed sporting organisations that God himself Filatov was forced out for his activism. ordered to fight this battle.”

63 DERBY, LEEDS AND THE EUROPEAN CURSE

The European Cup and the controversial exits of two English champion

BY RICHARD JOLLY

Brian Clough in the dugout as manager of Derby County, 1969

In his dotage, when his legend was were banned from Europe for four years, sufficiently established that Brian even if Armfield’s diplomacy got the Clough had no need to boast, he still punishment downgraded to two seasons. did. ‘Old Big ‘ead,’ as he had christened A rather blunter Clough reacted to a 3-1 himself, surveyed the managerial scene, defeat in Turin by telling the local press: looked at his profession’s resident “No cheating bastards will I talk to. I will godfather and decided to put him in his not talk to any cheating bastards.” Lest place. “For all his horses, knighthoods there be any confusion, he instructed and championships, he hasn’t got two of the bilingual journalist Brian Glanville to what I’ve got,” he said. “And I don’t mean translate it into Italian. balls!” Sir Alex Ferguson had a solitary European Cup then, and Clough would But either could have emulated not live long enough to see him get a Manchester United, the first English second in 2008. club to win the European Cup and, until 1977, the only one. Derby could have Clough’s feat of taking a provincial been Forest, but sooner. Or perhaps, if second-tier club and making them his career had still taken him along the champions of Europe twice will probably A52, Clough, and not Bob Paisley, could remain unrivalled. Before Nottingham have been the first triple European Cup Forest’s triumphs in 1979 and 1980, winning-manager. Certainly there were however, there were his two great lost similarities with the job Clough did at European Cups, one with his team, one local rivals, taking over a second-division with his arch-enemy’s, one with him at club, getting them promoted and making the helm, the other in uncharted territory them champions. He then led Derby past after his explosive exit. Eusébio’s Benfica en route to a semi-final with a star-studded Juventus; win and it The context was dramatically different, would have been Clough against Cruyff in but the common denominator was a battle of the iconoclasts in the final. the bitter sense of injustice. History was altered, many felt, by the actions The majority of Juventus’s side went on of referees. Almost half a century later, to be in Italy’s 1974 World Cup squad. Derby County and Leeds United have They also had José Altafini and Helmut never won the European Cup; in all Haller, past World Cup finalists. But they probability, they never will. Each felt had other influential individuals on their cheated, that fairness deserted them in side. The general manager Italo Allodi the biggest game in their history. had a relationship with the infamous Hungarian fixer Dezső Solti that dated For Clough’s Derby, it was the 1973 back to his days at Inter. Fast forward semi-final against Juventus. For Leeds, to 1973, when Allodi was at Juventus, then under the amiable antidote to and the Portuguese referee Francisco Clough, Jimmy Armfield, it was the 1975 Marques Lobo said Solti offered him final versus Bayern Munich. Acrimony £5,000 and a car to influence the followed each game: rioting Leeds fans second leg; Lobo refused and Uefa caused so much damage that United subsequently cleared Juventus of

66 wrongdoing. The first game in Turin was butting Francisco Morini, but he had instead the more contentious. already awarded Derby a penalty. Alan Hinton missed it. Clough nevertheless Clough, who had not calmed down by the remembered it as the day his beloved time his autobiography was published 21 mother had died; in fact, he was years later, wrote: “The lousy stench still conflating traumatic occasions and that fills my nostrils when I think of the attempts had happened a month earlier, on his at corruption. It stank to high heaven.” birthday, the day of the quarter-final victory over Spartak Trnava. The substitute Haller was seen going into room of the referee, his fellow German But arguably the disappointment of Gerhard Schulenburg, before kick-off and Juventus drove Clough to Leeds. So, again at half-time. Clough’s assistant Peter of course, did the chance to outdo his Taylor tried to follow them the second old foe Don Revie and, as he put it, time. Haller jabbed him in the ribs, leading “win it better.” As it transpired, he got a Taylor to gasp for breath and, as he told it, solitary victory as Leeds manager but the watching John Charles to tell him to the incentive to end his surprise spell at hold on to his passport as “some heavies Brighton was obvious. “The rotten way grabbed hold of me.” He ended the we were eliminated wouldn’t allow me evening apparently being arrested. to forget the European Cup,” he wrote. “I wanted another crack at it. Leeds offered In his defence, Schulenburg had a me that chance on a plate. It was too distinguished career that included good an opportunity to miss.” Miss it he refereeing the 1968 Fairs Cup final and did, though, his 44-day spell ending six at the 1974 World Cup. This, however, days before the caretaker Maurice Lindley was one of his more infamous evenings. began Leeds’s continental campaign with Archie Gemmill and Roy McFarland were a 4-1 win over FC Zürich. both cautioned before the break. “Their only crime was to stand somewhere Armfield oversaw an emphatic adjacent to an opponent who flung progression to the semi-finals and then himself to the floor.” Coincidentally, a 3-2 aggregate win over the Barcelona Gemmill and McFarland were both a of Cruyff and Johan Neeskens. It was booking away from a ban. “I’d heard lurid marred by Gordon McQueen’s dismissal tales of bribery, corruption, the bending for punching Manuel Clares. It should of match officials in Italy, call it what you not have been Leeds’s last red card of will, but I’d never seen before what struck the competition. me as clear evidence,” wrote Clough. “I went barmy.” The hard-luck story of the final has to be framed in the context of an early assault And yet Glanville argued Juventus and a fortunate reprieve. “It saddens me merited their 3-1 lead; their goals were that I may always be remembered for the uncontentious and Lobo’s refereeing of dreadful tackle I made against Bayern the second leg brought fewer complaints. Munich,” wrote Terry Yorath in Hard Man, He did send off Roger Davies for head- Hard Knocks. “It’s not very pleasant to

67 know I helped end a fellow professional’s ‘scorer’, others noted the goal had been career.” Björn Andersson suffered a ruled out. Billy Bremner was adjudged fourth-minute cruciate ligament injury offside. Sepp Maier had to stop the Scot in what Uli Hoeness termed, “the most from confronting Kitabdjian. He may brutal foul I think I have ever seen.” have listened to one captain, but not the Leeds leader. Lorimer felt Beckenbauer Yorath was not even booked. Thereafter, proved persuasive on both occasions. referee the Michel Kitabdjian’s decisions “He was held in such stature that he acquired greater infamy in Leeds than could dominate officials,” United’s record Bavaria; the Frenchman remained goalscorer said. “It was a goal,” the Bayern sufficiently reviled that the Yorkshire midfielder Rainer Zobel admitted decades Evening Post revisited his evening in Paris later. “It wasn’t offside.” when he died in 2020. But the only strikes that stood were the Leeds were already scarred by the 1973 late strikes by Franz Roth and Gerd Müller. Cup Winners’ Cup final, when they were Leeds would not be European champions, beaten by AC Milan. The referee Christos nor Armfield the Elland Road version of Michas was subsequently banned for life Tony Barton and Roberto Di Matteo, the for match-fixing and, 36 years later, the conciliator parachuted in mid-season to Yorkshire MEP Richard Corbett called for secure European glory. Uefa to strip the Italian club of their title. The subsequent violence brought Leeds Unsurprisingly, they refused. But Leeds a ban that was irrelevant in one sense: had a second tale of official injustice. Two they only qualified for Europe once in decisions at 0-0 cost them an opener the next 17 years. The eventual winners against the European champions. First in 1973 and 1975, Ajax and Bayern, were Franz Beckenbauer fouled Allan Clarke. “It era-defining teams on the continental looks a definite penalty to me,” said Revie, stage, still two of only four to have won the England manager acting as the co- the European Cup in three successive commentator. Clarke recalled meeting seasons. Leeds and Derby were probably Beckenbauer 15 years later when the less likely ever to become serial German confessed it was a penalty. champions. Rather it was the rarity of the opportunity – Leeds had two other semi- Then Peter Lorimer’s typically well-struck finals, Derby none – that exacerbated the volley nestled in the Bayern net. It was anguish of defeats inflicted in dubious a stunning way to break the deadlock. manner. Clubs managed and divided by Or so it seemed until, with some of Clough remain united in a sense of what the Leeds players celebrating with the might have been.

68 SERIOUS NONSENSE

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69 ISSUE SIX FAIR CONTRIBUTORS

Luke Alfred is a Cape Town-based author Martin da Cruz is a PhD student and journalist. He has written six books researching and writing Uruguayan on a variety of sporting themes. His latest football history. His project looks at book, co-written with fellow contributor the game’s amateur era and its links to Ian Hawkey is Vuvuzela Dawn (2019), the nation-building. @martindacruz_ story of South African sport in the first 25 years of democracy. Ewan Flynn is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in the Independent, Jon Arnold covers soccer in Mexico and When Saturday Comes, FourFourTwo and the Concacaf region for Goal and also on BBC Radio 4. His first book, We Are appears as the Concacaf expert on the Sunday League, is a bittersweet real-life BBC’s World Football Phone-In. story from football’s grassroots. @ArnoldcommaJon @flynn_ewan

Dave Bowler is the biographer of Vadim Furmanov is a football writer Alf Ramsey, Bill Shankly and Danny originally from Ukraine, currently living in Blanchflower among others and the North Carolina, USA. @vfurmanov founder of the England Women’s Football 1 Archive. He is currently writing a series of John Irving is a football and food writer limited-edition books on the FA Cup. based in Piedmont, Italy. He is the author @MagicOfFACup of Pane e football (Slow Food Editore, 2012). @irving_john Tom Clements is a history teacher and long-suffering Leeds United fan. Richard Jolly is a football journalist for The idea of The Squall is to help out freelance @tom_clem1990 the National, the Guardian, the Observer, the Straits Times, the Sunday Express, the writers during the Covid-19 crisis. For it to survive Samuel Cox is a PhD candidate at the Daily Telegraph and FourFourTwo. He University of Adelaide who is currently has written for 16 British national daily or and thrive, we are asking readers to pay what they exploring the confluence of land, Sunday newspapers. @RichJolly language and storyteller in Australia. As can and we suggest a minimum donation of £3. a freelance football writer, he regularly Tony Richardson is an ex-military linguist writes for This Is Anfield and The Roar currently working in government IT. Sports. Primarily concerned with the @thetfattesttony You can pay into The Squall's bank account round ball game, he also writes about Australian rules. @samueljessecox (sort code 40-05-17 and account number 71515942) or via PayPal to paypal.me/thesquall.

Thank you in advance for helping out.

70 ISSUE SIX FAIR

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 6, October 2020, Fair

Featuring:

John Irving, What is Fair Play?

Luke Alfred, The World’s Fair

Samuel Cox, The Deliberate Miss

Tony Richardson, Equality

Tom Clements, Farewell to the Fairs’ Cup

Martin da Cruz, Viveza Criolla

Ewan Flynn, The Inside Man

Dave Bowler, A Fair Crack of the Whip?

Jon Arnold, More Equal than Others

Vadim Furmanov, Nothing Left To Live By

Richard Jolly, Derby, Leeds and the European Curse