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| 4 May 1974: Two Newcastle fans having some tea outside Wembley before the Cup FInal |
In the Picture...
Talking about Football...
Gary Lineker on penalties:
I always practiced penalties, loads of them every day, even during the World Cup. But I only practiced one penalty, so come a match I wouldn't change my mind.
Source: Hunt, World Cup Stories, 254
In the Picture
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| Euro 1984: A towering header by Michel Platini against Portugal |
Unflattering footballer nicknames
Footballer nicknames are all fine and well, until you find yourself stuck with an unflattering one like 'psycho', 'ape', 'calamity' or 'sicknote'. Luckily you're not necessarily stuck with a nasty nickname. Gerd Müller is proof of that. The height challenged German striker was in danger of having to spend his career being known as 'Kleines Dickes'. That was after his first coach at Bayern Munich famously asked 'what am I meant to do with this little fat one', when Muller first entered the club's training ground. Stick him up front and let him shoot at goal, as it turned out. So outstanding was Müller at hammering in the goals, he ended up earning himself the much more flattering nickname 'Der Bomber'.
The opposite happened to William Henry Foulke, the legendary Sheffield United goalkeeper who was active around the turn of the twentieth century. At the start of his career, Foulke was noted mainly for his impressive height. At six foot four he was extremely tall for the period that he lived in. His extraordinary ability to stop even the best placed balls soon earned him the nickname 'the octopus' and a well deserved call up for the English national team.
In the Picture...
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| Spain 1982: Diego Maradona is brought down against Belgium. |
Talking about Football...
Piet Keizer on Rinus Michels at Ajax:
When Michels took over, he changed the playing staff considerably, and he changed the training even more. His was the hardest physical preparation I ever had. We sometimes had four sessions a day. He also introduced the Italian system of taking the players away for a period of concentrated training before a big match. We would start work in the morning and carry on until the evening.
Source: The Guardian, 4 March 2005
Playing on with a broken neck
There are plenty of examples of footballers playing on with injuries. No self respecting football hard man is going to let a head wound get the better of him, no matter how enthusiastically the blood may be flowing out of it. The urge to play on no matter what has produced iconic images of Giorgio Chellini, Paul Ince, and off course Terry Butcher, playing with a blood stained shirt and a turban of bandages. But playing on with an broken neck? That’s taking things to a whole other level. Still, that’s exactly what happend at Wembley on the 5th of May 1956, when Manchester City and Birmingham City met in the final of the FA-Cup
In goal for Manchester City that day was the German goalkeeper Bert Trautmann. He had come to England as a prisoner of war during the Second World War. Trautmann had decided to stick around after the war and had stumbled onto a career as a goalkeeper, even though he had only started playing during his time as a POW. After having initially encountered a lot of resistance, he had earned the esteem of crowds and colleagues alike. Trautmann was living up to his reputation, when in the 75th minute, with Manchester leading 3-1, he collided with a Birmingham attacker in a brave attempt to stifle a breakthrough that threatened to throw the game wide open.
In the Picture...
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| 31 may 1972: Ajax winger Piet Keizer in action against Inter rightback Mauro Bellugi |
(Dutch National Achive; Anefo; Ron Kroon; CC0)
Talking about Football...
Maradona on losing to Cameroon in 1990:
It was a refereeing problem: they persisted in not protecting skill over brute force. It was meant to be the Fair Play World Cup but it started off with them kicking the living daylights out of us.
Source: Diego Maradona, Maradona, 155
In the picture
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| Euro 1988: Gullit scores the opening goal in the final for Holland |
Hooliganism makes it to the big stage
Football vandalism has a surprisingly long history, but modern hooliganism is the product of the England of the 1970’s, when crime and violence were rife around football games. The rest of Europe soon found itself introduced to the phenomenon, as British teams travelled to the continent for European cup ties. As authorities struggled to get hooliganism under control, crowd violence led to suspensions from European competition for Leeds United in 1975 and Manchester United in 1977. The World Cups and European Championships held during the decade however, were spared the new violent fan culture. The reason was simple: England had failed to qualify for every major tournament since the 1970 World Cup.
At Euro 1980 England was present for the first time since football hooliganism had exploded into public consciousness. The England team, featuring the likes of Kevin Keegan, Ray Wilkins, Trevor Brooking and Tony Woodcock, was widely counted amongst the favorites. English clubs had won the European Cup four years running, with Liverpool and Nottingham Forest both winning it twice. There was every reason then, to assume that English fans would travel to support their team en masse. About 4500 supporters obtained tickets for England’s first game, in Turin against Belgium, through official channels. But in fact about 8000 Englishmen descended upon Turin and the surrounding area. Any hopes that it might be a peaceful affair soon evaporated as numerous violent confrontations between English fans on the one hand, and Italian fans or police on the other, marred the run up to the game.
Talking about Football...
Ron Greenwood on Ferenc Puskás:
"A roly-poly little fellow who looked as if he did most of his training in restaurants. He was a natural, a grand master of the game. He was entirely left-footed but no matter how the ball came the old left foot went up and his control was instant and precise. It was as if he had glue on the toe of his boot. He seemed to glide rather than run and, a sure sign of a strong personality, he dictated the shape and pace of the game."
Source: Guardian, 18 November 2006
A first for Maradona against Scotland
The 62.000 spectators who attended the friendly between Scotland and Argentina at Hampden Park on June 2nd, 1979 were witnessing history. Unfortunately for them it wasn't a maiden win over Argentina, as the visitors won the match 3-1. What they did witness was a young Diego Maradona scoring his first ever international goal. The fans didn't seem to mind too much, reportedly chanting 'Argentina, Argentina' in recognition of the masterclass put on by the reigning World Champions, and in particular by the 18-year old prodigy in their ranks.
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| Diego Maradona on the ball against Scotland at Hampden Park |
Talking about Football
Raymond Kopa on his time as a miner:
My father and brother worked in the mines and when I was 14 I joined them. I tried to find a job above ground, because at that age I was already showing promise as a footballer. But no one helped me out and from the age of 14 to 17 I drilled the mines at a depth of 612 meters.
Source: Hunt, World Cup Stories, 84
Pelé as a goalkeeper
When you’ve famously scored more than a thousand goals and have gone down in history as one of the best players ever (if not in fact the best one), you can hardly be said to have missed your calling. Still, if the pictures below of a seventeen year old Pelé in action as a goalkeeper are anything to go by, it would seem a decent goalkeeper might have been lost in the legendary Brazilian striker. Because that seems like an excellent save he pulls of in the face of two onstorming attackers.
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Talking about Football...
Günter Netzer after his non-selection for Mexico '70:
National coach Helmut Schön is dead to me. I will never put on the national jersey again. The World Cup, I'll watch on a television screen. I will never play for the national team again.
Source: Willems, Benseman tot Beckenbauer, 103
Courtois following in the footsteps of…
When Belgium took the field against Italy during Euro 2016, Thibaut Courtois became the first Belgian to tend goal at a European Championship in sixteen years. He was following in the footsteps of Eric Deflandre. If that name does not ring the same kind of bell, even among goalkeeping aficionados, that the names of legendary Belgian goalies like Jean-Marie Pfaff and Michel Preud’homme do, it might be because Deflandre was in fact a full-back. He was a fine one at that, earning 57 caps at right-back for Belgium and winning the French league three times in a row with Lyon. But his true five minutes of fame came when the Red Devils experienced a night in purgatory as their Euro 2000 dreams turned into a nightmare.
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| Courtois will likely be a little more pleased to be putting on the gloves |
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