SOCCER

Quotation: There is a commonly held view amongst football fans - It's the hope that kills you.

70s Football

###

In the 1970s English and Welsh soccer was a contact sport played on muddy pitches by glamour boys, mavericks, and thugs few of whom were athletes. Clubs outside the leading half-dozen were able to win both the league and silverware. Interest in the game was aided by the advent of colour television. Football managers and players became public figures. There were an increasing number of Black players, a disproportionate number of whom were with London clubs.

The 1966 World Cup

###

In 1966 London hosted the World Cup competition. The trophy itself was stolen from a stamp fair that was being held in The Methodist Central Hall. A week later the vessel was discovered by a dog called Pickles in a hedge in Beulah Hill, South Norwood.

During the final between West Germany and England the score stood at 2-2 with ten minutes to go. Geoff Hurst took a shot at goal. The Swiss referee Gottfried Dienst (1919-1998) was unable to tell whether player had scored. He turned to the Russian linesman Tofik Bakhrahmov to state whether or not the ball had gone in. Mr Bakhrahmov declared that it had. A goal was given. England went on to win the game 4-2. It is reputed that some years later the Russian was asked why he had made the decision. He is reputed to have replied with a single word - Stalingrad.

The France vs. Uruguay match was played at White City Stadium. This was because it took place on Friday evening. Wembley Stadium was not prepared to abandon the scheduled greyhound race.

England did not play particularly good football during the 1966 World Cup. They were dubbed the wingless wonders . There is a view that the 1970 England team was stronger than the 1966 one.

Location: Methodist Central Hall, Storey's Gate, SW1H 9NH (blue, pink)

The Royal Garden Hotel, 2-24 Kensington High Street, W8 4PT. The post-match reception was held at the hotel. (purple, purple)

Wembley Stadium, South Way, HA9 0WS

See Also: DOGS; DOGS Dog Racing

Website: https://mchw.live www.royalgardenhotel.co.uk

BSkyB

###

Sam Chisholm (1939-2018), a New Zealander who had long worked in the commercial Australian television industry, was appointed to turn around BSkyB. He re-negotiated the deals with the Hollywood that the company had. In 1992 BSkyB signed an unprecedented, five-year, 304m deal with the Premier League to show its matches live. This rendered the company's subscription model viable.

Towards the close of 1994 Chisholm appointed the former print journalist Vic Wakeling (1943-2017) to be the head of Sky Sports, declaring You are not f***ing good enough and I will probably end up sacking you in six months, but I am pissing off to Oz for Christmas and I can t find anybody else right now, so the job is yours. Wakeling retained the job until he retired in 2009. He helped to enable football to become one of the company's principal economic motors. As a result, numerous Premier League players became multi-millionaires and British soccer experienced an in-flow of globally talented players.

Location: Grant Way, Osterley, TW7 5QD

Class and Soccer

###

The practice of passing the ball was invented by working-class players because they were physically unable to take the tackles that their larger, better nourished public school-educated competitors could absorb. The Saturday half-day holiday was introduced in the early 1870s, the professional game mushroomed afterwards. The working-class strand then took over the running of the sport without splitting it in the way that rugby fissured in two separate codes.

See Also: CLASS Cricket

####

Corinthian F.C.

#####

Corinthian F.C. was a side of gentlemen players that was founded in the 1883. In the hattrick of internationals that England and Scotland had played against each other, the Scots had won all three. Nicholas Lane Jackson (1949-1937), the Assistant Secretary of the Football Association, believed that there should be some organised response to this situation. He concluded that the best English talent should be pooled into a single team. This was viable because the sport in England was dominated by southern teams and the railway network meant that travel had become much easier than it had before.

It was intended that the team should only play on Wednesdays. This would leave its members free to play for other clubs on Saturdays. Therefore, it was proposed initially that the new body should be called the Wednesday Club. However, at the suggestion of Harry Swepstone (1859-1907), Corinthian F.C. was chosen instead.

The stances that Corinthian F.C. took in the domestic game seem in part to have been a response to the growing professionalism of the sport, particularly in the North and the Midlands. The side s members refused to take penalties. It was capable of not only of beating the successful professional teams but doing so by a margin of several goals.¹ Originally, the team played only friend matches. However, over the years 1898-1907 it competed for the Sheriff of London Charity Shield.² In 1922 it started participating in the F.A. Cup competition.

Over the period 1881-1906 a third of all the international players who turned out for England were Corinthians. There were occasions in 1894 and 1895 when the national side was composed exclusively of club members.

Corinthian F.C.'s foreign tours helped to popularise football internationally. In 1907 a dispute split football. Many of the leading amateur sides, of which the club was one, made clear that they did not believe that professional teams should be admitted to country Football Associations. The Football Association responded by banning the top clubs from Corinthian F.C.. The club's response was to increase the number of foreign tours that it side took. S o Paulo's Sport Club Corinthians Paulista derives its name from the club.³ Madrid's Real Madrid wear Corinthian's white strip. The Korintherb garen (the Corinthian Cup) was Sweden's first national football title.

Corinthian F.C. played its final game in 1939. That year the club merged with Casuals F.C.⁴ to form Corinthian-Casuals F.C., which is still extant.

Location: 28 Paternoster Row, EC4M 8AB. Where the team was founded. (red, pink)

Website: http://www.corinthian-casuals.com

¹. In 1904 Corinthian F.C. trounced Manchester United 11-3 in a game that was played in Leyton.

². The Shield was superseded by the F.A. Charity Shield.

³. Charles Miller (1874-1953) is considered by many to be the father of Brazilian Football. In 1892 he played for Corinthian F.C..

⁴. Only men who had attended three public school - Charterhouse, Eton College, and Westminster - could play for Casuals.

England

###

The first England manager was appointed in 1946.

In 1950 the United States defeated England.

Website: www.englandfootball.com

####

Wags

#####

Wags is the term for the wives and girlfriends of the England soccer squad. It is believed to have been coined by the employee of a hotel in Dubai. It entered print in 2002 in an edition of The Sunday Telegraph newspaper. Four years later the World Cup was held in Germany. Sven-G ran Eriksson, the then England manager, allowed the players to take their partners to the tournament. The tabloid newspapers gave extensive coverage to the shopping and drinking habits of the wags, much of it had a negative tone. When the national team failed to perform well in the competition, some ascribed this to the wags presence. The player Rio Ferdinand commented that the soccer had been written about as though it were secondary element.

In the years that followed the media coverage of the wags had a strong misogynistic undertow. However, what shifted was that the development of social media enabled the women to make themselves more relatable to the public. The West Ham player had 429,000 followers on Instagram. His partner Dani Dyer, who had become a reality television star before she had ever met him, had 3.7m.

The Football Association

###

In 1864 the first soccer game to be played according to F.A. rules was played in Battersea Park.

The Football Association's 2000 move from Lancaster Gate into the West End was seen as being indicative of how soccer had become entwined with the broadcast and entertainment industries.

Location: Battersea Park, Albert Bridge Road, SW11 4NJ

Website: www.thefa.com

Football Grounds

###

The Sky money arrived in 1992. The same year the Big Five v - Arsenal, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United, and Tottenham Hotspur - set up the F.A. Premier League to harness television money. This led to the construction of new stadia.

Park Football

###

Hackney Marshes has numerous football pitches that are used by amateur teams.

See Also: THE BUDDHA OF MOUNT STREET; PARKS

Wembley Stadium

###

Wembley Stadium (2007) was designed by Foster & Partners. The family can seat 90,000 people. Its 133m. (463ft.) high arch was fixed at an angle of 22 in order that it should not cast a shadow onto the pitch.

Location: South Way, Wembley, HA9 0WS

See Also: ARCHES

Website: www.wembleystadium.com

Women's Soccer

###

During the First World War vast numbers of women worked in factories for the first time. Many workplaces had one or more women's soccer teams. The game flourished and proved to be able to draw large crowds for high-profile games. In 1921 the Football Association banned women from playing in League grounds. Fifty years later the prohibition was revoked.

Website: https://wflafootball.com

David Backhouse 2024