The history of football, like anything that hinges on so many disparate variables converging in one place, plays host to innumerable ‘what if’ moments. For all the relentless analysis, the rigorous preparation, the…
Month: May 2015
FOOTBALL IS A SPORT FOR THE PEOPLE, and supporters have organically provided its never-ending heartbeat for well over a century. Over the years, fan culture has, in its own right, become a…
FROM TODAY’S STANDPOINT where the media is becoming over-sensationalised and saturated with flashy headlines, vines and stories, it can be hard to take the time to fully appreciate a feel-good story. Although…
Whether embellished, exaggerated or entirely fabricated, the tale of Carlos Raposo, much like a misheard Chinese whisper, is simply too grand not to pass on
Jeremy Clarkson, the former presenter of Top Gear, was, in 2014, reportedly chased out of Argentina by an angry mob, having incited the local population with a number plate that read H982 FKL.…
BRAZIL CAME TO SWEDEN IN 1958 with a great deal of expectation behind them. It was the sixth incarnation of the World Cup; the Seleção had played in every previous tournament, but…
In 1989, Pablo Escobar was ranked seventh by Forbes Magazine on the World’s Billionaires List. A man with immense power, wealth and a notoriously violent streak, Escobar ran the Medellín drug cartel in…
“We are a nation of 200 million Germans,” wrote Brazilian journalist Fernando Duarte, days before the 2014 World Cup final. ‘Brasil, decime que se siente, tener en casa a tu papá’ (Brazil, tell me…
Cast your minds back, if you will, to the summer of 2006. Fresh off the back of the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany two members of the Argentina squad that were knocked…
THE BAGS AROUND HIS EYES droop like a weary basset hound. Liver spots creep steadily across his brow and cheeks. Although there are still some wispy strands of silver atop his head,…
FOOTBALL IS A GIFT to each culture that embraces the sport. Separated by thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean, South America and Europe have a symbiotic relationship in football so much…
While the fallout and anger at Qatar being awarded the World Cup in 2022 continues unabated, this year marks the 27th anniversary of the altogether more romantic story of another Gulf Sheikdom’s epic…
THERE IS AN EVOCATIVE PHOTOGRAPH of Terry McDermott which was caught on camera in the aftermath of the 1974 FA Cup final. In this photograph McDermott is stood on the Wembley turf,…
A phrase like “Hernán Crespo may just have won the Champions League for AC Milan … Liverpool were all over the place there”, or “They don’t come much simpler than that … Crespo’s…
In what was one of football’s greatest games, France took on West Germany in 1982 in a game that featured legends, assaults and unforgettable football
This feature is part of A Tale of One City The balding man with whisps of thinning grey-speckled hair looked oddly familiar. His assuredness and graceful movement seemed at odds with his companions…
Cast your mind back to the turn of the millennium. A time when we first came to grips with Big Brother, a time when the Millennium Dome was revealed to a semi-astonished English…
A rare breed in the modern game, the one-club star is something of an endangered species. Battling week in, week out to help their club get over the humps and bumps of season…