As with most books, this one wasn’t written in isolation and it wouldn’t have been possible without the work and guidance of a load of fantastic people, who I’d like to tip my hat to here.
Firstly, I’d like to thank my representative, Iain Macintosh, who approached me in early 2015 with the offer of touting my name around a few publishers. This must have been a leap of faith on Iain’s part, as he had no idea about me beyond my cartoons in the Guardian. It was only later that he discovered I am a compulsive worrier, but I already had his email address by then.
I’d also like to thank Ian Prior at the Guardian, who took a punt on commissioning me to provide a weekly cartoon and stuck with me even after the very first one I published contained a glaring typo. Ian and the rest of the Guardian Sports team (particularly James Dart, who spares me from any further typo-related mishaps on a weekly basis) have been endlessly supportive over the last couple of years and I can’t express my gratitude enough. Equally, Mike Hytner at Guardian Australia has been an absolute bloody ripper and has often helped me work through moments of self-doubt. It is a testament to his character that he was able to forgive me getting his surname wrong for the first year of our working relationship.
I also owe a debt of gratitude to Ben Brusey and Huw Armstrong at Penguin Random House. Their editorial direction and much-welcomed encouragement have enabled this book to be as good as it could possibly be. They have been an absolute delight to work with, so much so that I am even able to forgive Ben for being a Reading fan.
I’m legally obliged to acknowledge the musicians whose lyrics are quoted in this book: The Shamen (‘Love, Sex, Intelligence’), Robbie Williams (‘Let Me Entertain You’) and MIMS (‘This Is Why I’m Hot’). Please note, MIMS should not be confused with the former Everton and Blackburn Rovers goalkeeper, Bobby Mimms, who, to the best of my knowledge, is not, and has never been, hot.
Thanks also to my family and friends who have helped me through this long process, either through providing advice and information, or by simply being there to listen to me rant on about not being able to think of a good joke about Bayern Munich’s team of the mid-1970s. Special mentions to: Pete Barber, Simon Hodgon, Kieran Holden, John Mitchell, Jonathan O’Shea, Ian Plenderleith, Justin Smith, David Stubbs, Paul Whitehead and Alastair Wilson. Also thanks to the online community at When Saturday Comes, who have backed my cartoon work since the outset and can rightly complain about the bloody fair-weather fans who have only discovered my stuff more recently.
OK, this is starting to sound like the longest pre-Thanksgiving-dinner prayer in history (and I only know about that from my consumption of American television). I’ll wrap up by thanking my parents, for their endless support and love and, most importantly, by thanking my partner, Sarah. There aren’t many people who would have stuck by someone who spent over a year of their relationship hunched over a drawing board, and she has to be one of the most patient people on the planet. This book simply wouldn’t have happened without her. Thank you, Sarah.
Right, you can eat now, tuck in.
This is football comic-ery, but not as you know it. Welcome to the inimitable work of illustrator David Squires.
Football and comics. Once a hearty Saturday combination to match cartoons and cereal, in recent years they’ve drifted apart. Thankfully for us, Squires is here to change all that.
In The Illustrated History of Football, his first book, Squires relives some of football’s most glorious moments and meets its greatest figures. In a sport full of handsome paycheques and corporate sponsors, he also casts a critical eye over corrupt backroom workings and helps pierce football’s overblown balloon.
Funny, good-looking and preternaturally astute, this book is everything Sepp Blatter wishes he could be.
David Squires is a Sydney-based artist and illustrator. His work has featured prominently in a wide range of publications, from The Second Captains to Yellow (in which fifty-two illustrators each create an image to reflect a week in news). His work focuses on football and his popular weekly Guardian comics and detailed illustrations cast a critical eye on the sport. This is his first book.
Books
Phil Ball, Morbo
Patrick Barclay, The Life and Times of Herbert Chapman
Alex Bellos, Futebol
Paul Brown, The Victorian Football Miscellany
David Conn, The Beautiful Game?
David Conn, Richer than God
Jack Charlton, The Autobiography
Kevin Connolly and Rab McWilliam, Fields of Glory, Paths of Gold
Jeff Dawson, Back Home
John Foot, Calcio
Cris Freddi, The Complete Book of the World Cup
Brian Glanville, For Club and Country
Brian Glanville, The Story of the World Cup
David Goldblatt, The Ball Is Round
Duncan Hamilton, Provided You Don’t Kiss Me
Ian Hawkey, Feet of the Chameleon
Uli Hesse, Tor!
Christ Hunt, World Cup Stories
Hyder Jawad, Four Weeks in Montevideo
Roy Keane, Keane
Simon Kuper, Football Against The Enemy
Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski, Soccernomics
Amy Lawrence, Invincible
Diego Maradona, El Diego
Andrea Pirlo, I Think Therefore I Play
Ian Plenderleith, Rock ’n’ Roll Soccer
Bobby Robson, Farewell But Not Goodbye
Peter Seddon, The World Cup’s Strangest Moments
John Spurling, Death or Glory
David Wangerin, Soccer in a Football World
Jonathan Wilson, The Anatomy of England
Jonathan Wilson, Inverting the Pyramid
Jonathan Wilson with Scott Murray, The Anatomy of Liverpool
David Winner, Brilliant Orange
David Winner, Those Feet
Magazines
When Saturday Comes, Issue 210, Paul Pomonis, ‘Accidental Heroes’
When Saturday Comes, Issue 338, John Spurling, ‘Exit Strategy’
The Blizzard
Websites
www.bbc.com
www.beyondthelastman.com
www.bleacherreport.com
www.chrishunt.biz
www.dailymail.co.uk
www.espnfc.com
www.fourfourtwo.com
www.theguardian.com
www.inbedwithmaradona.com
www.independent.co.uk
www.liverpoolecho.co.uk
www.nytimes.com
www.pitchinvasion.net
www.reuters.com
www.sbnation.com
www.si.com
www.standard.co.uk
www.spiegel.de
www.telegraph.co.uk
www.thepfa.com
www.twohundredpercent.net
www.uefa.com
www.worldsoccer.com
www.youtube.com
About the Book
About the Author
Title Page
Dedication
Introduction
Thigh Bones for Goalposts
The Magical Mayans
Cobblestones and Corporal Punishment
Hackers
Ceremonial Jam Spoons
The First International Match
The Formation of the Football League
The Global Game
A Shining Beacon of Virtue
Shirkers and Cannon Fodder
The Great Innovator
The White Horse Final
The First World Cup
The First World Cup Goal
Victory or Death
Das Wunderteam
Mussolini’s World Cup
The Battle of Highbury
Totalitarian Football
Joe Gaetjens’ Finest Hour
The Maracanazo
The Matthews Final
The Magical Magyars
The Miracle of Bern
Champion of Champions
The Boys from Brazil
Five in a Row
Delauney’s Vision Realised
Fight the Power
The Battle of Santiago
The Little Bird Takes Flight
Follow that Star
Flight of the Chollima
They Think It’s All Over
The Lisbon Lions
That Night in North London
What a Carry on
Sheer Delightful Football
The Birth of Total Football
Bob Stokoe’s Red Leggings
Total Fuckwits
Bavarian Brilliance
Hot Chip
The Red Machine
The Junta’s World Cup
Ally’s Tartan Army
General Delight
Showbiz Soccer
Nottingham Forest, Champions of Europe
‘The Day Football Died’
The Hip Bone’s Connected to the Cheek Bone
The Hand of God
The Goal of the Century
The Crazy Gang versus the Culture Club
From Perimeter Rope to Gigantic Slopes
‘It’s Up for Grabs Now!’
A Shoe Salesman’s Grand Plan
The Indomitable Lions
’Have a Word with Him’
Football Becomes Trendy
‘Blow Them Out of the Water’
Super Subs
Power to the Plutocrats!
Sunshine and Shell Suits
The Drugs Were Just Resting in My Bloodstream
The Murder of Andrés Escobar
‘Off You Go, Cantona. It’s an Early Shower for You!’
Free for All
The Rainbow Warriors
Yeah, This Is Probably Fine
Manchester United Win the Treble
Polyester Parable
The Saipan Strop
Again 1966
Roman’s Empire
Greek Lightning
The Invincibles
The Dudek Final
The Greatest Moment in the History of Sport
Going Out with a Bang
An Unquestioning Welcome
The War to End All Wars
The French Revolution
The Invention of Passing
‘AgüeroOOOOOO!’
‘This Does Not Slip Now’
Perfectly Rational Behaviour for a Grown Man
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
House of Cads
Foxes in the Chicken Coop
Stadiums in the Sky
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Copyright
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Epub ISBN: 9781473536715
Version 1.0
Published by Century in 2016
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Copyright © David Squires, 2016
David Squires has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Century
Century
The Penguin Random House Group Limited
20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, SW1V 2SA
www.penguin.co.uk
Century is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781780895581
FOR SARAH
From the dawn of human existence, across every continent, human beings have been playing some form of football. In some cases, a bundle of rags would be chased after; in others, an animal bladder rabona-ed. Basic match reports appeared in cave illustrations with primitive paints used to scrawl heat maps and pass-completion stats.
What we do know is that no matter how rudimentary the ‘ball’, it almost certainly didn’t have its own social media account. This may explain why the game took so long to evolve into the much-loved, slickly administered money machine we know today.
A form of football was played in many early cultures. Competitive games were played in ancient China and medieval Japan, where a game called kemari became popular. Kemari was played on a patch of dirt, with trees planted in each corner. To visit a British football stadium in the 1980s was to be unwittingly transported back to twelfth-century Japan. Also, much like British football, the aim of kemari was to keep the ball in the air for as long as possible. Historians are divided as to whether visiting fans were also chased back to the bus station by firms of samurai, fired-up on primordial glue.
The indigenous people of Australia and North America also played games that involved kicking ball-like objects, and the people of Mesoamerica played using a heavy bouncing ball, crafted from local rubber trees. Contemporary pundits may have remarked upon the latest ball moving too much in the air.
The Spanish conquistadors who arrived in the sixteenth century were spellbound by this exotic ball game and shipped the ball, players and equipment back home to perform in front of King Charles V and other members of the nobility. At first the Castilians were thrilled by their new acquisition and wide-eyed at the prospect of the amount of gold that would swap hands through replica cape sales and duvet covers. But the novelty soon wore off and it wasn’t long before the king was publicly courting Aztec imports through the local media.
Wealthy urban aristocrats played a game called calcio in Middle Ages Florence. Two teams of twenty-seven players would use their hands and feet to try to shoot the ball into goals at either end, and which ran the width of the sand pitch. If you’re thinking that a target that big couldn’t be missed even by a medieval Hélder Postiga, you’d be wrong; there were two goalkeepers and an official sitting in a tent to block the path to goal. The removal of tents is another sad indictment on a sport that some believe has lost its soul. AGAINST MODERN CALCIO.
The streets and villages of Britain bore witness to riotous scenes as unruly football matches weaved their destructive path. Numerous monarchs suppressed the game throughout the ages (although Henry VIII did own a pair of football boots). Pottery stalls were overturned, parsnips trampled; the rough game was unpopular with local business owners and heightened the enduring British fear of crimes against property. Just imagine what a rampant pack of muddy serfs crashing through your hamlet would have done for hut prices.