A vivid recollection of English football’s golden era, author Malcolm Stark truly captures a decade, the decade in stunning form with his book “Glam Soccer!: A Story of the Colourful Years of English Football League Clubs, 1967-1976”. This is what was established in the first article of the series, “What is Glam Soccer?”. In this excerpt from Last Word On Sports’ exclusive interview with author Malcolm Stark, delve into the magic of football during the era. Just what is it about this decade that made it as special as it was to those fortunate enough to savor in its glory and why will you care? This book will pluck the heartstring of the passionate and the casual soccer fanatic alike with its delightful, illustrative narrative immersing the reader amongst the names enshrouded in myth.
What do you hope the prospective reader will take away from “Glam Soccer!”?
Malcolm Stark: I hope they get the magic that inspired me to write Glam Soccer! The magic that was the greatness that filled most First Division teams back then, but most particularly in 1971-72, it was that magic that made me believe that Leeds United were so great because of the greatness of Arsenal, of Derby, of Liverpool, of Man City, of Spurs, of Wolves, etc.
And it was exactly the same for all of them.
Billy Bremner was possibly the greatest British midfield player of all time, but he mightn’t have been so without the competition of Dave Mackay, George Best, Colin Bell, Alan Ball, Emlyn Hughes, Martin Peters, Alan Mullery, Tony Currie, John Hollins, Charlie Cooke, Archie Gemmill, etc, etc.
There was the toughest, strongest competition certainly, but also a co-existence between them all; no player was so great without greatness facing him.
However, if readers don’t “get” that magic, but just a lot of great memories, if they were born in the Sixties or before, or if they’re entertained by my commentaries of many of the greatest and most notorious matches in the history of football, then that gladdens my heart greatly.
I hope they look into the players, visit my Glam Soccer page on Facebook, and see that it was a completely colourful, modern era of football, much of which doesn’t look out of place in today’s game. Just watch the DVD of the 1970 FA Cup Final, Leeds v Chelsea, or the England v Poland World Cup match from 1973, and you’d be astonished at the pace of those games.
When I was a kid, I was told about all those great players like Matthews and Milburn and Lofthouse and Lawton and Finney, and I’m in no doubt of their absolute legendary statusses. I’ve seen film footage of all of them, and the stats all back up how excellent they were. But the defending was not top drawer (just watch the space Matthews was afforded during the 1953 Cup Final), and the whole Pathe News footage had a quaintly old-fashioned look about it.
During the Glam Soccer! years, we got great commentaries from Brian Moore, Barry Davies and John Motson that still make the hairs of your body stand up.
That’s what I want readers to take away.
It was today’s football, but much better, back then.
Why did this era and football league in particular stand out to you from other time periods and leagues, such as Italian football in the 90’s or Spanish football of the 2000’s?
MS: It was not only a completely open period of English football with all those teams achieving success, and twenty different teams involved in First Division title races from February onwards, but it was a spectacularly successful period for English clubs in Europe also.
Ten different English teams reached the finals of European tournaments, and forty percent of places in those European finals were filled by English clubs during those ten years.
This is a tremendous record that was only broken by Italian clubs during the 1990s. But while English clubs during the Glam Soccer! years were filled with mainly British players, Italian Serie A clubs enjoyed their most wonderful decade as a result of all the greatest players in the World moving to Italy to ply their trade.
Of course, another factor in the success of Italian clubs during the Nineties was the five year ban of all English clubs from European competitions during the second half of the Eighties.
It took English clubs many years to properly catch up, and had there been no blanket ban, I’m certain that Italian clubs wouldn’t have been so successful. But that is an entirely different argument.
There is a section devoted to your thoughts which you discuss at length on “The Damned United”, the popular novel brought to life in film. Will fixation with this era become commonplace (or continue to)?
MS: I believe it will, Aldo. David Peace, of course, last year wrote his second football book Red Or Dead, a superb “fictional” biography of Bill Shankly’s reign at Liverpool. I actually thought it was a stronger story than The Damned Utd. It was so powerfully written, and I really was crying at the end.
Just now I’m reading The Robin Friday Story (the greatest footballer you never saw) by Paul McGuigan and Paolo Hewitt, about the Reading FC legend from the mid-Seventies. Friday actually made George Best look like Stanley Matthews, he was so outrageous in his off-field behaviour. Most scouts, and managers, who saw him were certain he was the best player they’d ever seen. But big clubs were terrified by his lack of fitness and notorious off-field antics.
It’s well worth a read. I also particularly loved Paolo Hewitt’s co-written autobiography of Martin Chivers.
I do think there are loads of great stories from the 70s that would make good visual drama. I’d like to see The Damned Utd done properly on film, but it never will be now that film was made, and it did present a disgraceful misrepresentation of that great Leeds United team.
Apparently there are plans to make a film of Red Or Dead, and I expect that to be a more accurate adaptation of David Peace’s book. This is great because it does further raise the profile of those Glam Soccer! years, but in all honesty, no film could ever do true justice to that book.
Thank you for reading. To learn more about Glam Soccer!, visit www.glamsoccer.co.uk/
Please take a moment to follow me on Twitter – @Aldo_Calcio. Support LWOS by following us on Twitter – @LastWordOnSport – and “liking” our Facebook page.
For the latest in sports injury news, check out our friends at Sports Injury Alert.
Have you tuned into Last Word On Sports Radio? LWOS is pleased to bring you 24/7 sports radio to your PC, laptop, tablet or smartphone. What are you waiting for?
Feel free to discuss this and other footy related articles with thousands at r/football.
