This won’t be new to many of you, but I absolutely love the Guardian‘s “Seven Deadly Sins of Football” feature, which is essentially a compilation of shocking, outlandish, and dismaying moments, helpfully grouped according to an ancient Catholic doctrine based on Gregory I’s revision of the work of a fourth-century monk called Evagrius the Solitary. Needless to say, this is exactly the sort of thing I think the mainstream sports media should be doing.
It helps that the Guardian‘s football writers have a suave way with an anecdote and clearly relish the cracked stories they’ve uncovered—for instance:
Goalkeeper abandoned in forest – Arges Pitesti, 1999
It’s one way of making your point. Not a particularly constructive way, but a way nonetheless. After Romanian league Arges Pitesti’s goalkeeper Bogdan Vintila had conceded a soft goal against rivals Universitatea Craiova, coach Florin Halagian, a notorious disciplinarian, stopped the team bus as it passed through a forest on the way home. Vintila was ordered to get off the bus and ended up walking 10 miles through the forest before he found a lift home. JW (from Wrath)
Barson packs a piece – Aston Villa, 1919-1922
Either side of the first world war, Frank Barson was the game’s first real hard man, a preposterous specimen with thighs like tree trunks and hair greased back so tight that it came within an extra comb on terminally restricting the bloodflow. He was once banned for seven months after cleaning out a Fulham player. And after one especially zesty display during his time at Barnsley, he had to be smuggled out of Goodison Park to avoid a group of Everton fans who wanted to discuss a couple of tactical subtleties. Some stories suggest he brought a gun into the manager’s office to accelerate discussions over a pay rise. And he unashamedly spoke of his friendship with the Fowler brothers, who were later hanged for murder. RS (from Wrath)
Preston rule the world briefly – Preston North End, 1888
Very much the Chelsea of their day, in the late 1880s Preston North End were synonymous with glamour, wealth and dizzying on-field success. End won the first two league titles thanks to their deep pockets and a whole team of foreigners from Scotland. They became known as “Proud Preston”, taking no heed of what pride comes before, which in their case was a retreat into relative obscurity for much of the ensuing 120 years. They might have taken a hint from the FA Cup final of 1888, when they were confident of beating West Brom. They had after all scored 55 goals on the way to the final, including a record 26-0 win over Hyde. So confident were they, in fact, that they asked to be photographed with the trophy before the match – heresy among the pantheon of modern-day football superstitions. Inevitably, the mighty End lost, West Brom winning 2-1 with a goal 13 minutes from time. MT (from Pride)
So far, I think Wrath is my favorite, but Pride and Envy have their moments. (Greed is a little predictable, this being football and all.) Gluttony, Sloth, and Lust are slated to appear over the next few days, and for some reason, I’m especially excited about Sloth. In any case, they’re all well worth a look.
Read More: Alienation and Dread, Guardian
by Brian Phillips · May 19, 2009
This is my favourite:
Arsenal purse war – Rome, 1970
It is not uncommon for a fight among footballers to be referred to as “handbags”. It is less common for it to actually be caused by handbags. But that, apparently, is what was behind the 1970 fight between Arsenal and Lazio players in and outside a Rome restaurant after a 2–2 Fairs Cup draw. The Italian club presented the visiting players with souvenir leather bags, which were derided as “effeminate”. Arsenal’s players started to throw the bags around the restaurant, but then a Lazio player grabbed one, threw it into Bob McNab’s face and, in the words of Arsenal’s Frank McLintock, “we all piled in. For a while, it was like the wild west”. Uefa swiftly banned post-match socialising. “Looking back,” the Arsenal defender John Roberts said later, “those purses were lovely.” SB
Or this one involving my local team:
Sitton it – Leyton Orient 1995
When Channel 4 commissioned a behind-the-scenes documentary of life at Leyton Orient at the start of the 1994-95 season, it’s unlikely that they had bargained for the study in managerial meltdown they subsequently found themselves piecing together as Orient sunk ignominiously towards relegation under the aegis of the combustible John Sitton. Sitton it was who took centre stage. His potty-mouthed dressing-room soliloquies included the half-time dismissal of a long-serving player, Terry Howard, and the classic motivational tract: “You, you big cunt, and you, you little cunt, when I tell you to do something, do it, and don’t be coming back at me – or we’ll have a right old sort out in here. And you can pair up if you like, and you can bring him along, and you can bring your dinners, because you’ll need your dinners by the time I’ve finished with you.” Which is great. But what does it mean? TD
Fear and loathing has come to Piedmont; inexplicable fights and even more bizarre Europop outbursts are up over 200%
Kahn and Brdaric – Bayern Munich, 2002
Genius, madman, or irritating and uppity ginger bloke with big eyebrows? We may never know for sure. Oliver Kahn of Bayern Munich and the German national team was not only a superb goalkeeper but also prone to the most random of outbursts. He bit one opponent, strangled another and kung-fu kicked a third, which led his teammate Mehmet Scholl to say: “I am afraid of just two things in this life: war and Oliver Kahn.” And the Hannover 96 striker Thomas Brdaric even wrote a song after being attacked by the goalkeeper. It was called “The wild 13″ and included the line “Cat Kahn, I thank you for shake me and make me wake up. Yes, I was scared of you. But then you are just a sweet animal.” MC
Oh, te amo.
Maradona shoots – Buenos Aires, 1994
Diego Maradona may have thought he was above the law when he started shooting at journalists with an air rifle outside his home. However, although it looked for a long time as if he would get away with it, four years later he was finally given a suspended jail sentence of two years and 10 months. TV footage of the incident showed Maradona, who was found guilty of assault with a weapon, crouched behind a Mercedes with two other men firing an air gun at reporters. “At least this exemplary case does show that there is justice for all,” said the reporter Daniel Talamoni, one of the four journalists who sued Maradona. MC
I guess the pellets were not guided by God’s hand …
I really liked that Evagrius was known as “the solitary.”
Normally when I think of a monk, I think of a mixture between Fat Albert and John Belusci’s character from Animal House – a partying, social animal who is constantly on the go and very talkative.
“I’m especially excited about Sloth”
I don’t know if you caught the Football Weekly podcast this week, but apparently Barry Glendenning was supposed to write this section. According to one of the people there, he put in more of a ‘performance art’ rendenition of the piece.
According to Nick Miller at Football365.com:
Gary McAllister was due to sign for Nottingham Forest in 1989, but turned up for his medical wearing cowboy boots. Brian Clough called off the deal.
How is there a soccer ball in that medieval woodcut?
Lest we forget, the sport was banned by several kings, including, I believe, one of the Edwards ,,,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_football