Soccer in Spain: Politics, Literature, and Film, by Timothy J
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Scarecrow Soccer Series Series Editor: Tom Dunmore That soccer is the world’s game is a cliché, but one that the breadth and depth of soccer literature—including that in the Scarecrow Soccer Series—shows very much to be true. It is the world’s game not only because it is a wildly popular form of popular entertainment, with competitions such as the World Cup attracting billions of viewers and generating billions of dollars in advertising fees and broadcasting rights, but because of the depth of engagement that the sport generates. It is as much a part of the social fabric in dozens of countries as any cultural form, and this series explores how that is manifested across the world. Titles in the Series Soccer in Spain: Politics, Literature, and Film, by Timothy J. Ashton, 2013 Encyclopedia of the FIFA World Cup, by Tom Dunmore, 2013 Soccer in Spain Politics, Literature, and Film Timothy J. Ashton Scarecrow Soccer Series THE SCARECROW PRESS, INC. Lanham • Toronto • Plymouth, UK 2013 Published by Scarecrow Press, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 10 Thornbury Road, Plymouth PL6 7PP, United Kingdom Copyright © 2013 by Scarecrow Press All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ashton, Timothy J. Soccer in Spain : politics, literature, and film / Timothy J. Ashton. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8108-9173-9 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-8108-9174-6 (electronic) 1. Soccer—Spain. 2. Soccer—Social aspects—Spain. 3. Soccer—Political aspects—Spain. I. Title. GV944.S65A85 2013 796.3340946—dc23 22013019542 TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America Dedicated to all my kin. Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction xi I: Tackling Spain’s National Identity Crisis 1 1 Background to Spain’s State of Autonomies 3 2 Tensions Flair: Spanish Soccer during the Pre–Civil War Period (1900–1936) 9 3 The Struggle to Survive: Spanish Soccer during the Civil War (1936–1939) 21 4 The Opiate of the Masses: Spanish Soccer during the Franco Regime (1939–1975) 25 5 Hoping to Bury the Hatchet: Spanish Soccer during the Transition (1975–2000) 39 6 A New Day Dawns: Spanish Soccer Moves into the Twenty- First Century 53 II: The Phenomenon of Spanish “Kick-Lit” 61 7 The Ball Begins to Roll: The Early Years of Spain’s “Kick- Lit” Phenomenon 73 8 David Trueba’s Knowing How to Lose 85 9 Soccer Stories 95 10 Soccer Stories 2 123 III: The Phenomenon of Spanish “Kick-Flicks” 165 11 The Early Years: Blonde Dart 171 12 The Goalkeeper 183 13 Days of Soccer 189 14 The World’s Longest Penalty Kick 195 Conclusion 203 Index 209 About the Author 219 vii Acknowledgments I’d like to thank all those involved in seeing this project through and making it a reality. But most of all, I’d like to thank Cindy Phelps, Fran- cisco Cabanillas, Nathan Richardson, and Agustín Cuadrado from Bowl- ing Green State University; Samuel Amell, Dionisio Viscarri, Ignacio Co- rona, Stephen Summerhill, and all those from The Ohio State University; Víctor Durán, Deanna Gore, and other Pacers from the University of South Carolina Aiken; and all my friends from Alcalá, Bowling Green, Columbus, Madrid, Valladolid, Quito, Perrysburg, and Aiken. También muchas gracias a Mallory Warmans, who coined the terms “Kick-Lit” and “Kick-Flicks.” To my “collaborators,” Carlota Rey (alias Charcasso), Rob- by Hagen, and Darren Niles, who with me so graciously designed the image that illustrates the cover of this book, many thanks! I most assuredly offer sincere thanks to the pioneers of this field: Jorge Valdano, the “Philosopher of fútbol”; historians and scholars Liz Crolley, Vic Duke, and Duncan Shaw; and all other soccer writers for providing me with a framework from which to model this project and for docu- menting key historical facts. For without them, as well as my family, friends, and all those aforementioned, this book would not exist. This is a book about soccer in Spain as it pertains to politics, literature, and film. My only advice is that you try to enjoy it because many are those who’ve fallen hard and fast for taking such absurdities seriously. Mens sana in corpore sano ix Introduction Soccer is popular because stupidity is popular. —Jorge Luis Borges All of life’s philosophies can be learned within the confines of a soccer field. —Albert Camus Since its inception roughly 150 years ago, the sport of association football has proven to be one of the modern world’s most enigmatic cultural phenomena. This is easily recognizable through its unique ability to cap- tivate and capture the dreams of millions of people. This ability is closely linked with its capacity to represent and strengthen different cultural identities and ideologies throughout the planet. The sport has also played an enormous role in globalizing the world’s community and economy. However, its ability to captivate the masses has been exploited by the world’s most powerful institutions, and the sport itself has in turn ex- ploited its connection to these same institutions. This helped catapult association football into the globalizing community and establish it as one of the most important and prevalent cultural phenomena of our time. Association football is clearly one of the modern world’s fastest-growing and most well-developed representations of globalization. Since so many languages are spoken throughout the world, this sport, commonly called “the world’s game,” has a variety of different names. It is referred to as football, association football, and footy in England and other countries; calcio (meaning “kick”) in Italy; soccer (a derivative of associa- tion football) in the United States; and either fútbol or balompié in Spanish- speaking countries.1 Since this book is aimed toward an American audi- ence, I will use the popular American term, “soccer,” throughout the work to avoid confusion when referring to “the world’s game.” Ever since the sport began being embraced on a global level, there has been an ongoing clash of ideals between the intellectual classes and the soccer community. Soccer’s enormous popularity with the masses has caused many prominent intellectuals, not only in Spain but also through- out the world, to proclaim it an activity for the common and uncultured individual. One of soccer’s earliest and most outspoken antagonists was the philosophically inclined Argentinean author, Jorge Luis Borges, who stated in an interview that soccer is “an English stupidity. An estheti- cally ugly sport: eleven players against eleven running after a ball isn’t xi xii Introduction especially beautiful.”2 This was like a knife to the chest of many soccer supporters, and for years it seemed that, as Miguel Alejo stated in his article “Soccer and Literature: Intellectual Romance with a Ball” (“Fútbol y Literatura: Romance intelectual con la pelota”), “writers scorned soccer and soccer players fled from literature.” Although this seemed to be the pop- ular school of thought, evidence shows that there has been a long-stand- ing tradition of literature and soccer. The negative stereotype of the sport has recently caused a great number of soccer supporters to either stand up and defend the sport’s legitimacy through literature or draw attention to the vast number of intellectuals that have done so throughout their careers. Many of the individuals to defend the sport’s legitimacy, inter- estingly, are associated with the intellectual classes as writers and philos- ophers or are prominent figures of the soccer community. These individ- uals broke the taboo by crossing into what had come to be considered the opposite field. By creating works that encompass the two, they shed light on the fact that they are also captivated by both the sport and literature. In another capacity, many have addressed the dispute head-on and dem- onstrated that soccer can be dealt with on an intellectual level, just like any other social or cultural phenomenon. One of the first intellectuals to embrace soccer as a topic for a novel was the famous Argentinean/Uruguayan writer Horacio Quiroga, who in the early 1900s published the tragic true story Suicide on the Pitch (Suicidio en la cancha), which was an account of a Latin American soccer player who committed suicide on the center spot of a soccer field. Quiroga’s tale now appears in Omar Prego’s compilation of short stories about soccer titled Tales to Kick About (Cuentos para patear). Another intellectual to write about the sport was a Frenchman of noble descent named Henry de Montherlant, who, prior to becoming a notable essayist, novelist, and playwright, was a goalkeeper in France. Montherlant wrote one of the first fictional tales dealing with soccer titled Eleven in Front of the Golden Door (Los once ante la puerta dorada). Years later, the famous French philos- opher Albert Camus, who had also spent time as a goalkeeper in France, recognized the role that soccer had played on his intellectual formation as a philosopher. Camus made reference to the sport throughout his career as a philosopher, and in one article in particular titled “What I Owe to Soccer” (“Lo que debo al fútbol”), he wrote, “Quickly I learned the ball never arrives the way one expects it to.