YOU ONLY need see pictures of Chernobyl to understand what happens when science goes wrong. The world’s greatest nuclear disaster took place 150km from Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine and in 1986, part of the USSR. Science and the Soviets went hand-in-hand and a scientific approach, needless to say, was also applied to its […]
IN 1980-81, Dinamo Tbilisi put on a scintillating display when they met West Ham United at Upton Park in the European Cup-Winners’ Cup. They won emphatically by playing a brand of fast, attacking football that stunned the London crowd. “Those Russians, bloody marvellous football,” said one Hammers fan as he left the stadium. “I’ve not […]
THE collapse of communism and the plethora of velvet revolutions across Europe undoubtedly diluted the strength of the old Eastern Bloc and its acolytes. We feared the technique, strength and organisation of the state-run footballing machines, but once the Red Army retreated and the busts tumbled from their plinths, Warsaw Pact football was all but […]
YOU ONLY need see pictures of Chernobyl to understand what happens when science goes wrong. The world’s greatest nuclear disaster took place 150km from Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine and in 1986, part of the USSR. Science and the Soviets went hand-in-hand and a scientific approach, needless to say, was also applied to its […]
THE European Championships have become the second most important international football competition after the World Cup, although you could argue that the UEFA Champions League is doing its best to overtake both. In the first of a new series, Game of the People looks at some of the great Euros, starting with the very first. […]
LESLIE VERNON was football journalism’s European expert in the 1960s and early 1970s. Information on this gentleman is scarce, but for some reason I assumed he had some sort of link with Hungary. Somebody told me he had come to England in the mid-1950s during the Hungarian uprising. I had an image of this pencil-bearded […]
