Yesterday I googled “Tim Vickery” when I was writing up a piece on his South American football column over on the BBC website.
In doing so, I found an interview with Tim over on football blog “The Culture of Soccer” which is run by an American-based PhD student called David Keyes.
After a quick run through the website I found that the interesting interview with Mr Vickery wasn’t just a on-off, this blog is full of interesting, well written articles. Interviews with players, historical articles and pieces on, what David describes as, the economics, politics, religion, history, ethnicity, race, immigration, identity, psychology, sexuality, and other aspects of Soccer culture.
Sounds clever, and it is.
I’ve handpicked a couple of articles which I really enjoyed, because at times I wish I could write as good as this… linking to it is the next best thing ;)…
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The Interesting Beginnings of Famous Clubs
Throughout history, soccer teams have been founded for many reasons. Many of the most prominent teams today were begun by groups of friends eager to find a source of amusement.
Dutch giants Ajax were founded by a young man named Floris Stempel, who, in 1900, invited several of his friends to join him in his new endeavor with a letter that read: “Hereby the undersigned invites you politely to grace us with your presence in one of the upper rooms of Café-Bar ‘Oost-Indië’, at number 2, Kalverstraat, on Sunday morning at 9 hours and 3 quarters, to discuss the establishment of an entirely new Football Club.” Were they alive today, Stempel and co. would probably be surprised to realize how big their club has become.
Many clubs throughout the world have their origins as teams formed by British expatriates. Such is the case with many teams in South America as well as Italian giants AC Milan…
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Soccer Superstitions
Every once in a while, stories pop up in the Western press about odd goings-on at a soccer match in a remote part of the world. These stories contain sordid details of spells placed by witch doctors, animals sacrificed by fans, or objects burned by those seeking to affect the outcome of a game.
The most recent, and most hilarious, incarnation of the soccer superstition was Stuart Pearce and his lucky mascot, Beanie the Horse. Given to him by his daughter when he was manager of Manchester City, Pearce placed his equine buddy in the technical area, claiming it brought his team luck (Psycho lost his job later that season, so perhaps it wasn’t that lucky).
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2008 MLS Preview
Major League Soccer officials have just one hope for England’s friendly against France on Wednesday: that David Beckham does not get hurt. They are less concerned with Beckham earning his 100th cap than they are with ensuring that he return for Saturday’s LA Galaxy season opener injury-free.
The bubble of hype that Beckham’s arrival in LA inflated was popped by the injuries that kept him out of most of last season. Some fans who had purchased tickets to see Beckham complained - many teams forced them to buy multi-game packages to see the Galaxy come to town - and MLS officials were forced to explain that his injuries were genuine and there was nothing they could do. The off-season has given Beckham time to recover fully, leading to his England recall and a nervous few days for MLS officials.
But to say that Beckham is all MLS has going for it is to ignore a maturing and increasingly competitive league. The league began in 1996, hoping to build on the legacy of the 1994 World Cup. In the 12 years since then, the league’s long-term survival has occasionally been in doubt, but the past few seasons have undoubtedly been the best, both on and off the field.
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Why Do They Play That Way?
One of the joys of watching the World Cup is seeing teams from different parts of the globe play each other. The styles they employ are often a study in contrasts. Any time England plays Argentina, it is a battle of grit and determination versus technique and guile (there’s also the wee matter of the Falklands / Malvinas that provides the political backstory to such matches). But how did teams come to play they way they do? The answers offered to this question are as varied as the styles themselves.
Peter Lupson’s book Thank God for Football! explores the religious backgrounds of many top English club teams (of the 38 teams that have played in the Premier League since its inception in 1992, 12 have their origins in churches). Churches that founded teams often did so for reasons other than pure love of soccer. David Goldblatt, in his history of world soccer called The Ball is Round, has written of the importance of so-called muscular Christianity in shaping early English football. He writes that “the Victorians were quite convinced of the relationship between physical, mental, and moral health”.
Lupson told the EPL Talk podcast last year that churches sought to instill 4 elements of character into their football-playing parishioners: courage, fair play, team spirit, and self-control (20:50). Such qualities are still seen today in the English game. Post-game press conferences with English managers almost always focus on at least one of these elements (Stuart Pearce is my personal favorite, rattling on and on about team spirit but with seemingly little concern for tactics and the like).
As soccer spread around the world, diverse styles of play developed that barely resembled the game played in England. In South America, short passing replaced the long ball made popular in England. In Argentina, this style was offered referred to as criollo. David Goldblatt writes that “criollo football and masculinity came to be defined in opposition to the English” who had brought the game to Argentina, and whose economic system was fundamental in shaping the country’s style of play.
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So yeah, that’s www.cultureofsoccer.com, well worth a read for any ’soccer’ fan.
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