Vol. 25 No. 14 · 24 July 2003
pages 29-30 | 3001 words
Carry on up the Corner Flag
R.W. Johnson
- Ajax, the Dutch, the War: Football in Europe during the Second World War by Simon Kuper
Orion, 244 pp, £14.99, January 2003, ISBN 0 7528 5149 7
- Broken Dreams: Vanity, Greed and the Souring of British Football by Tom Bower
Simon and Schuster, 342 pp, £17.99, February 2003, ISBN 0 7432 2079 X
Brought up Jewish and soccer-loving in the Netherlands, Simon Kuper has come to realise that he accepted too easily the myth of Dutch wartime heroism. The result is a long litany of hurt feelings, awkwardly transposed onto the world of soccer. He starts with a snapshot of interwar football, when international encounters were still few and English players enjoyed such unquestioned primacy that one German soccer writer referred to them as ‘a sort of Übermenschen’. ‘It was during the 1930s that football became politics,’ Kuper claims, though he provides few instances. His discussion of the period revolves around the photo of the English team giving the Hitler salute before their 1938 match against Germany in Berlin. Stanley Rous, the FA secretary, had decided this would be a good thing – after all, they had given the Fascist salute in Rome and that had gone down well. Kuper quotes extensively from the autobiographies of Stanley Matthews and the England captain, Eddie Hapgood, who insist that the team stoutly resisted the idea of giving the salute: Hapgood (so they say) even wagged his finger at the FA official who instructed them to salute and ‘told him what he could do with the Nazi salute, which involved putting it where the sun doesn’t shine’.
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Letters
Vol. 25 No. 15 · 7 August 2003
From David Rose
As a footballer in the 1930s and 1940s, R.W. Johnson's father (LRB, 24 July) would certainly have known the Liverpool legend Billy Liddell, who refused to turn professional and played simply because he enjoyed the game. As Johnson says, footballers then received very low wages, and clubs such as Liverpool fostered the ethic of 'wearing your shirt with pride' – there was little else to persuade players to put their shirts on. Liddell earned most of his money – and spent most of his time – working as an accountant, training only as often as his job allowed. As late as 1971 Ian St John earned £40 a week, about the same as Ford workers on Merseyside. Only in 1998, when Roy Evans was replaced as manager by Gérard Houllier, was the cap removed from Liverpool players' wages. When Harry Kewell signed for Liverpool this summer he claimed that it was the realisation of a childhood dream rather than the promise of being joint top earner at Anfield (£60,000 a week) that encouraged him to join the club. Money now prevails in the Premiership and it's little wonder that many workers on Merseyside who once enjoyed parity of income with the players they supported, can no longer afford to go to games.
David Rose
Liverpool
From Brian Towers
R.W. Johnson names Everton and Liverpool along with Celtic and Rangers as teams whose support divides along religious lines. The first football club in Liverpool was Everton, which was founded in 1878 and had its ground at Anfield. Liverpool FC was founded in 1892 after an Everton boardroom row involving John Houlding, who owned Anfield. After that, Everton was forced to find a new ground. The emergence of the two Liverpool clubs had little to do with religious sectarianism, but had its origin in a quarrel about money and property. Today, Liverpool families commonly split along football lines. They should not be seen in the same sectarian league as followers of the Old Firm.
Brian Towers
Nottingham
