IT IS difficult to comprehend today, but between 1960 and 1973, Barcelona failed to win Spain’s La Liga. Every major club in history has its occasional lean spell, Manchester United and Liverpool, for example, did not win the English league for 26 and 30 years respectively. In 1973, Barca were desperate to end their barren […]
SEVENTY-NINE years ago, in Mozambique, Eusébio da Silva Ferreira was born. It’s fashionable to liberally throw the word “legend” around, but very few footballers actually achieve that status in their lifetime, let alone when they pass from view and their legacy is grainy video footage or yellowing newspaper coverage. Eusébio was so good he inspired many […]
BETWEEN 1968 and 1971, the late Dave Sexton, Chelsea’s softly-spoken and erudite manager, received a string of letters – written with a duck-egg green Osmiroid pen – that highlighted the skills and attributes of a midfielder plying his trade with Manchester City. The young lad who wrote these testimonials was giving Sexton the benefit of […]
THE Guardian top 100 players is always an interesting end-of-year exercise and almost always reflects the shape of the past 12 months. But this year’s top 20 has a very disconcerting look about it – of the 20, seven are over 30 years of age and the first three are well into their fourth decade. […]
THE PASSING of Jim McLean will sadden many people in Dundee and right across Scottish football. He was, after all, one of the instigators of the duopoly that was called “The New Firm” – Aberdeen and Dundee United which broke the Celtic-Rangers stranglehold. For many people, Scottish football had never been more interesting. But it […]
WHEN the year ends with a “1”, Tottenham win things. That’s the old adage, one that may have run its course, although in 2021, it could ring true once more. Almost one hundred years ago, Tottenham won their second FA Cup, beating Wolverhampton Wanderers at Stamford Bridge in the final. It was the high point […]
IF THERE is was one thing remarkable about Diego Maradona, it was the achievement of living to his 60th birthday. Sadly, he barely got beyond that landmark. There was something very inevitable about his premature demise, his lifestyle catching up on him to consign him to legend status. On November 25, 2020, football, Argentina and the […]
URUGUAY has long struggled to live up to its football heritage, but then any country of just three and a half million people battles against huge odds to win major competitions, especially with far noisier and more acclaimed neighbours on their doorstep. Yet two Olympic titles and two World Cups, along with 15 Copa America […]
IN 1972, Maurice Golesworthy published a book that celebrated the league champions from 1888-1972. Game of the People is taking up the story from where he left off. After going close to winning the championship in 1971-72, finishing just one point behind champions Derby County, Liverpool clinched their eighth Football League title in April 1973. […]
