I’ve surprised people over the years with my knowledge of football. I’m a language geek, a wrestling nerd, not cool, a follower of football, a deifier of people earning plaudits and millions for kicking around a bag of air.

Admittedly I know nothing about nor care a jot about football from the 90s and onward, but this wasn’t always the case.

There was a time when my capacity to absorb information like a sponge on language affairs and the then World Wrestling Federation was being used to soak up detail about football.

Radio was speaking to me about a German class she attended years ago when the subject in class was the 1954 World Cup, which West Germany won. Out of nowhere I spoke about how it’s silly that they can be known as the best team in the world when the team that they beat 3-2, Helmut Rahn scoring the winner via the post in the dying stages of the match, whipped them 8-1 a couple of weeks prior. I don’t think that she expected that of me

Anyway, knowledge about 1954 (and 1930, 1934, 1938, 1950, 1958 and then every four years until 1986) came my way by virtue of voracious reading leading up to Italia 90. A publisher produced one of those collections that you’re supposed to gather over 20 weeks. You know, first part is 20p rising to a few pounds later, their income supplemented by the incorporation of a sticker album in there, knowing that kids like me would go without their lunch to be able to purchase a few packets every day.

Man, I hope that I still have that massive folder somewhere, because it was really fascinating, and gave me so much insight in such little time. I read about Platini, Cruyff, Garrincha, van Basten, Careca, Yashin. I was held in wonder by the classic goals that I’d never seen before: Gemmell’s mazy run for Scotland en route to defeat against the Dutch in 1978; Rivelino’s supersonic blast through a wall (his colleague astutely stepping aside in the run-up to create a hole) versus the Czechoslovakians in 1970; Junior shooting from the most unlikely of angles against the Northern Irish in 1982, a goal I later saw replicated by Peter Beardsley against the Poles at Wembley.

A combination of excitement at the arrival of my first World Cup and not owning any other books meant that I read this bad boy over and over again, the earlier parts several times over, seeing as there was less in the collection in the early stages.

The build-up to Italia 90 was frenetic for me. I considered myself well versed in contemporary football, and was excited in anticipation of finally seeing Diego Maradona play, somewhat naively hoping that a tepid England squad would emulate the famous team of 1966.

The event didn’t disappoint me at all. I loved the fancy graphics on screen, thinking that they would never be bettered. For some reason, I thought that Ciao (pronounced by the 11-year-old me as “see-ay-yo”), the mascot, was cutting edge. The balmy Italian nights, colourful kits (although even I could see that the Austrian goalkeeper’s fluorescent kit was a little too bright), and surprising performances by Cameroon and Costa Rica made for great television. I’ve watched the World Cup tournaments since, but none has ever succeeded in captivating me like that one did.

Anyway, that was both the beginning and the end. The knowledge that I derived from those frenetic few months is still stored somewhere in that sieve-brain of mine, but I never had the same interest in football again. How could I? The past had been learnt, all that was left was the contemporary, in all its grey drudginess. I’m sure that future writers will try to romanticise the football of that time as it happened too, but that was no good to me as it was playing out.

Fast forward to 2008. Browsing The Works in Leicester I chanced upon a football book which presented mini biographies of ten great players that wore that hallowed shirt number 10. The cover was promising, showing the obvious choices of Pelé and Maradona, though I was surprised to see Dennis Bergkamp there too. (He doesn’t count as a “great player” on the basis that I’ve actually seen him! ) I walked over, picked it up, and flicked through it. There was a chapter on Michel Platini, European footballer of the year for three successive years from 1983. And then I saw a name that I’d not come across at all in the intervening 18 years, that of Enzo Francescoli, captain of Uruguay. He had been one of the “all-time greats” in my collection, though he was ineffective come the actual tournament.

Well, that was my mind made up, and the sum of £1.99 was handed over. I walked two doors down to Caffè Nero in order to start the reading without delay.

Perfect 10 by Richard Williams

Williams writes this book exactly as I would have done. His introduction centres around the “perfectness” of the number 10 seen in antiquity, a bright start that scores a “perfect ten” for a maths enthusiast like me.

He then elaborates on the symbolism of that particular number in the football sense. It’s the marker of the playmaker, the match-winner, the man who makes the difference to a match and provides the flair, the general who sells the tickets and provides the entertainment, the mark of excellence that has adorned the backs of those players who head into the annals of football’s history under the heading “great”. (Not surprisingly, I always hated players on pub teams that wore the number, thinking them arrogant for daring to pull on that particular shirt!)

The resultant ten chapters document the lives and careers of some of the best practitioners of the sport. I knew I wasn’t going to be in for disappointment when I saw that the opening chapter was based on The Galloping Major, Ferenc Puskás, the man who led with panache the Magnificent Magyars, the Hungarian team considered to be the best never to have won the World Cup (in contention with the Dutch side of the 1970s).

Puskás led the side that thrashed England 6-3 at Wembley, becoming the first foreign side to beat the game’s originators on the home turf. He scored a magical goal himself, his dragback-shot in one motion staying in the mind courtesy of the image of England’s legendary Billy Wright flat on his back having been sold the dummy.

The book continues in fine form, racking up bios on Pelé, Francescoli, Gianni and Rivera (two entries counting as one!), Maradona, Platini.

Objectively this is a fine book to read anyway, the chapters catchy and written short enough to be read in one go, long enough to be better than a fact list. Reading it took me back to being that child who read every line of his football collection eagerly anticipating his first World Cup, and for that I hold this book in great affection:)

Tags: Football, World Cup

This entry was posted on Friday, November 14th, 2008 at 9:37 am and is filed under Books, Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.