The Greatest Show on Earth: The Inside Story of the Legendary 1970 World Cup by Andrew Downie (Arena Sport 2021)

 

Gordon Banks (England): . . . The moment the ball left his head I heard Pelé shout ‘Golo!’

Carlos Alberto (Brazil): When Pelé prepared to jump and head the ball I think we all thought that it would be a goal.

Gordon Banks (England): Faced with a situation like that your mind becomes clear. All your experience and technique take over. One thing did flash through my mind: if I do make contact, I’ll not hold this. The ball hit the deck two yards in front of me. My immediate concern was how high it would bounce. It left the turf and headed towards my right-hand corner, but I managed to make contact with the finger of my gloved right hand. It was the first time I’d worn these particular gloves. I’d noticed that the Mexican and South American goalkeepers wore gloves that were larger than their British counterparts, with palms covered in dimpled rubber. I’d been so impressed with this innovation that I’d invested in two pairs. Those little rubber dimples did their stuff: the bouncing ball didn’t immediately glanceoff my hand and I was able to scoop it high into the air. But another thought flashed through my mind. In directing the ball upwards, I might only succeed in flicking it up into the roof of the net. So I rolled my right hand, slightly, using the third and fourth fingers as leverage. I landed crumpled against the inner side netting of the goal, and my first reaction was to look at Pelé. I hadn’t a clue where the ball was. He’d ground to a halt, head clasped between his hands, and I knew then all that I needed to know. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred Pelé’s shout of ‘Golo!’ would have been justified, but on that day I was equal to the task. It was really just about being in the right place at the right time – one of those rare occasions when years of hard work and practice combine in one perfect moment. As Pelé positioned himself for the resulting corner he turned to me and smiled. He told me he thought that he’d scored. So did I – and I told him as much. ‘Great save . . . mate,’ he said. At a critical stage of the game, it was 0–0, if the ball had gone in at that particular stage I think the heads would have gone down.

My Rock 'n' Roll Friend by Tracey Thorn (Canongate 2021)

 

1989

Finally – finally! – it all comes to a head, and Robert and Grant, both desperate to escape, decide that they will break up the band in the most brutally symbolic manner possible. They arrange that on the day after Boxing Day each of them will confront their lover, or ex-lover, and sack them. At the exact same  moment, but in separate locations, Robert will sack Lindy, and Grant will sack Amanda. The thinking is hard to fathom, impenetrable even. The weird symmetry; the ex-couple and the current couple; the men telling the women; the brutal display of where the power lies. There is a glaring absence of band democracy, any sense that this could be a discussion in which all voices might be heard. The act itself seems designed to humiliate and to hurt. A childish, unnecessarily theatrical scheme, it is no wonder that it ends in catastrophe.

The hour arrives, the news is delivered, like a telephoned warning of a planted bomb. And the explosion is immediate. The two women, in separate rooms, in separate houses, can’t see each other, which seems deliberate. Like blindfolded hostages, they are powerless. Lindy catches a glimpse of her reflection in the window, but she has to imagine Amanda’s face. She wonders if it is as desolate, as furious, as her own.

Robert describes Lindy’s reaction in these terms: ‘Her bitter laugh almost held a touch of admiration. How had two guys she’d always regarded as being weak-kneed suddenly found the balls to do something like this? . . . Lindy walked to the phone. She looked back at me after dialling and then turned in profile to talk. Her first words: “Leave him.”’

For Lindy, on hearing the shocking news, has immediately called Amanda, asking whether she has just been handed the same information. She has, and her response echoes Lindy’s. She is packing her stuff and leaving Grant, and as she says now, ‘Listen, I didn’t need telling.’ Indeed, she is resentful of any suggestion that it was Lindy who dictated her reaction.

Hooked: Addiction and the Long Road to Recovery by Paul Merson with Rob Bagchi (Headline 2021)

 

'Still,’ I thought, ‘who goes to the World Cup from the league I’m in?’

I did. To go to the World Cup when you’re not playing in the Premier League is a massive achievement, I realise now, and I owe it all to Glenn. I remember Ray Parlour saying to me after he’d just won the Double at Arsenal in 1998 and wasn’t getting a look-in with England, that Arsène rang Glenn to ask why. They knew each other from their time at Monaco together and he told Glenn that Ray was playing superbly, made a vital contribution to winning the Double and that he did not understand why he wasn’t involved. He turned to Ray after he put the phone down and said, ‘You’ve just got to hope he gets the sack.’ When Kevin Keegan came in, Ray played for England but I never got a call-up. Ray was no better in 2000 than he was in 1998, I was better in 2000 than I was two years earlier. It’s all about the manager. If he likes you, you’ve got a chance. If not . . . you’re stuffed.

Ray having a laugh with the lads about what he claimed to have said when he went to see Glenn’s faith healer Eileen Drewery – ‘short back and sides, please, Eileen’ – didn’t help. I went to Eileen with an open mind and liked her. I was struggling so badly with the gambling relapse, bottling it up and keeping it secret out of shame, that I would try anything. It had sent me into a deep depression, but I didn’t know that’s what it was. I’d be so down that I couldn’t get out of bed and the paranoia, which had never really gone away, ramped up. It seemed that everybody was looking at me, judging me. I thought, ‘I need something to work here.’ And whatever help was offered, I would try it. Eileen gave me that calmness, settled my raging doubts and was a big part of me being in the right frame of mind to go out to La Manga with the squad of twenty-eight, which was to be cut to twenty-two after the warm-up games.

It was an odd week. Too many of us felt on trial and I was convinced I’d be one of the six who wouldn’t make it to the World Cup. I don’t know why Glenn did it that way, it was unsettling and there was an air of tension. I expect Glenn thought it would keep everyone on their toes, but most players were a bag of nerves. He wasn’t the best man-manager, at times he became impatient when a player couldn’t do what he wanted. Because he could still play, he often joined in and demonstrated something by doing it himself. After a while players get frustrated with that, a bit jealous. If he had been better at handling people and hadn’t said all that weird stuff about disabled people and karma, he would still be England manager now. No one could touch him as a tactician.

Life Without Children by Roddy Doyle (Viking 2021)

Every morning, for ten days – his slot was ten o’clock – he sat at the kitchen table and waited for the call. He held up the iPad with one hand and pressed the green circle.

The screen this time, the camera – he was looking straight at her face. The mask was off, beside her on the pillow, leaning against her ear.

She was saying something – speaking.

—I – heard – one. Joe.

—Did you? he said.

He seemed to see each word before he heard it.

—At first – I was – afraid – I was pet – rified.

He knew the song.

—‘I Will Survive’, he said.

The words were heavy – she worked hard at pulling them out.

—I – might.

—Jesus – I love you, he said.

Something struck him now, the thought that had been lurking for months.

—Your worms, he said. —You’ve been making them up all the time, haven’t you?

He looked at her mouth on the screen, and waited. It was ages before she answered.

(From the short story, 'Worms'.)

Fierce Genius: Cruyff’s Year at Feyenoord by Andy Bollen (Pitch Publishing 2021))

 

Cruyff was a product of his time. Sophisticated, controversial, stylish, opinionated, he embodied each decade, from flower power to revolution, to glam rock, to social unrest, to punk, to new wave, then even more social struggle and revolution. Here was someone who had not only played but starred, over three decades, at the highest level. He was like the Beatles and the Stones, the Sex Pistols and the Clash, the Human League and Joy Division and had transcended every aspect of culture in its broadest manifestation; art, film, theatre. From peace and love to post-industrial landscapes, glam rock to punk, to the 1980s of miners’ strikes and football hooliganism. But always there, always playing, always instigating, always smiling and always complaining, he remained one step ahead. By the time you’d thought it, he’d done it. Now, here he was, in front of me. In the flesh.

In the Thick of It: The Private Diaries of a Minister by Alan Duncan (HarperCollins 2021)

Since being elected in 1992 as the Member of Parliament for Rutland and Melton, I had always considered myself to be an instinctive Eurosceptic. I voted ‘No’ in the 1975 referendum, and maintained my belief in the following decades that the EU was undemocratic, inflexible and in need of fundamental reform. As 2016 came around, I still expected to join the Leave campaign, and began discussions to do so. But, as will be seen, I eventually decided against it. With age and experience comes, if not wisdom, greater perspective. Politics cannot always be about indulging one’s natural inclinations.

Like many, I received my share of abuse for backing Remain, but I do not regret it. If anything,  events have reinforced me in my belief that I was right to pull back from the brink. Nor do I think I have fundamentally changed my position on Europe. Somewhere along the line from the early 1990s the cause of honest and thoughtful Euroscepticism mutated into a form of simplistic nationalism that strikes me as ugly and demeaning. Rather than devoting their energies to campaigning for the reform of outdated EU institutions and seeking a better deal for the UK, too many Eurosceptics retreated instead to crude sloganeering. There was a rational and pragmatic case to be made for leaving the EU, but few bothered to make it. Instead, we faced a wave of populist nonsense, emotive platitudes and downright lies: a barrage of Farage.

And Away . . . by Bob Mortimer (Simon & Schuster 2021)

 

(Another shit comment that I have never been able to wash from my embarrassment files happened when I met Sinéad O’Connor sometime in the early ’90s. I had been to the filming of a comedy entertainment show in central London in which Sinéad had appeared. All the boys I was with were in quiet disbelief about how beautiful she was in the flesh. After the show, Jim, Jools Holland and I kind of queued up to chat to her as she stood at the bar. When my turn came, I fell to pieces in the face of her radiance and blurted out, ‘Hi, Sinéad, do you have a local shop near to where you live?’ She politely answered ‘Yes’ and then turned away. It still hurts to think of it.)

Slinging Arrows by Wayne Mardle (Ebury Press 2021)

 

There does come a point when every darts player is forced to confront his or her intake and for me that point came in Vegas – where else? – during the summer of 2004. I’d reached the final of the PDC’s third Las Vegas Desert Classic, a huge event at the Vegas MGM Grand.

Remember when Tyson fought Holyfield in 1997? Same place. Some aspects of my own experience at the MGM were similar – for instance, the huge LED screens above the stage, which had once flashed with the rotating names MIKE TYSON and EVANDER HOLYFIELD, were still there, and were now reading PHIL TAYLOR and WAYNE MARDLE. (It’s quite something seeing your name up in lights like that, and it’s hard not to feel empowered. I remember seeing the stage and thinking: ‘Right, I’m going to maul him. I’m going to absolutely maul him.’) Unfortunately that’s where the similarities end, mainly because while Tyson famously left the ring having torn something off, namely a not insignificant portion of Holyfield’s right ear, I staggered onto the stage after tying one on.

By that I mean I was pissed. I wasn’t paralytic, but equally I hadn’t been to bed for two nights. I was competing against the world’s best player, in a major final, live on Sky Sports, and I hadn’t slept for forty-eight hours because I’d been knocking back champagne, vodka and mojitos, and gambling like a fiend.

The game was due to start at midday, but I’d taken up residence at one of the hotel bars at 6am. I remember when I’d first arrived at this little bar in the middle of the casino – a bar no bigger than ten feet wide, with a little opening for the barman and a handful of poker consoles on top – I’d said to the barman: ‘Are you open?’

And he’d gone: ‘We’re always open.’

It was music to my ears. By that point I’d already been drinking for so long that I’d convinced myself I was sobering up, even though of course I wasn’t sobering up at all and was, in fact, becoming progressively more drunk. The reality of the situation was not something that troubled me when I ordered a vodka and cranberry. Then another. Then several more.

I was having a great time as the clock ticked closer and closer to midday. 

Somewhere in the blur of it all Sharapova won the Wimbledon final, beating Serena Williams, and I’d had a bet on that outcome so I was jumping around the place like a lunatic. And of course by this point the darts fans were all wandering in, and I was there in my Hawaiian shirt so even in Vegas I wasn’t exactly blending in, meaning that the fans were all coming over for photos and autographs.

The barman was watching all this happen – and bear in mind I’d been there two or three hours by that point, and he’d been serving me for the duration, so there was no doubt about it: I was drunk. The barman went: ‘I have to ask, who are you?”

“I said: ‘Well, there’s darts on, isn’t there?’

‘Yeah,’ he nodded. ‘I know that.’ And then this look of absolute horror crossed his face. ‘Hold on,’ he went. ‘Are you playing?’

‘Yep, I’m in the final.’

He looked me up and down, paused a moment and replied: ‘Can I bet on the other guy?’

‘Yes, you can!’ I declared triumphantly and, with that, I staggered off to face my fate. I turned back, and he was just kind of staring at me, with the most subtle shake of his head. You know the head-shake: the type you’d usually only get from a disapproving parent. And at that point I remember thinking: ‘Wayne, there’s a very slight possibility you might have overdone it.’

This came into focus (and for me, it was pretty much the only thing in focus) when I got downstairs to the practice room and found Phil, already practising. Safe to say, Phil hadn’t exactly been on the piss during his time in Vegas, and the only refreshment he had in front of him was a small portion of fruit. He looked me up and down and said: ‘What the FUCK has happened to you?’

‘Nothing,’ I said, attempting to gloss over the fact that I probably looked like I’d just been dragged away from a brawl outside a tiki bar. ‘I’m fine. I’m fine!’ (If someone tells you they’re fine once, they might be – if they feel the need to tell you twice, they’re not fine at all and are almost certainly pissed.)

I asked Phil what he’d been up to in Sin City and he told me matter-of-factly that he hadn’t left his hotel room in the last seven days. ‘I’m here to play, and win, then go home,’ he said, adding that in his entire time there he’d only left his room to eat and play darts.

I looked at him standing there, all ready to lift another trophy, and I said: ‘Phil, I think you might win this.’

Which, of course, is exactly what happened, although strangely he only beat me 6–4 in sets (and I actually won more legs than him), and it was a pretty close game considering I was off my face on Vegas! As for my trusty barman, who’d been such a friend when he was pouring out those vodka and cranberries, and such a stern parent when I’d staggered off to meet my defeat … Well, despite his claim that he was always open, I didn’t see him again the next day, or the day after that. I like to think he did go and place that bet on Phil winning; that he pocketed the cash and jacked in his job on the spot. At least one of us would have been lucky that day.

This Much is True by Miriam Margolyes (John Murray Publishers 2021)

 

At that time, in the late sixties and throughout the seventies, Equity was sharply divided on how best to fight apartheid. A growing list of international playwrights, including Daphne du Maurier, Samuel Beckett, Tennessee Williams, Muriel Spark and Arthur Miller signed a declaration through the Anti-Apartheid Movement in London, refusing performing rights for their plays to all theatres in South Africa where discrimination was practised on grounds of colour.

I agreed, I felt that artists and sports people should refuse to work there – we had to name and shame the South African government by boycotting all commercial artistic engagement in the country.

As an Equity Council member, I attended all the meetings. Vanessa Redgrave was never a member of the Council, but she and her brother, Corin, regularly spoke at the annual general meetings with fire and fluency – both superb speakers without notes. I first worked with Vanessa in 1972. Ted Heath was in Number 10; in Equity likewise, the right wing was in power: people like Marius Goring and Nigel Davenport and Leonard Rossiter. Leonard was a bastard: a good actor, but a nasty, spite-driven man. With all those right-wing actors flexing their muscles, the Workers Revolutionary Party faction were the great opposition, and so Vanessa became an important element in the deliberations.

Vanessa was quite retiring, except when there was anything political going on, and then she would harangue you from morning till night. I didn’t know her well but, intoxicated by her articulate conviction, I started to join her at the WRP meetings.

When you were interested in politics in those days – and I suppose for some people it is still the case – you had to go to meetings. You wanted to stand up and be counted, and I was no different. I soon became a signed-up member, though whether I joined the WRP literally because of Vanessa, I don’t know.

Not long after I became a member, the WRP annual summer camp was held in an enclosed field by the Blackwater estuary in Essex; naturally I went along. Gerry Healy, the leader of the WRP, was an unpleasant, devious chap; he was dangerous in fact. There were talks and discussions in a big tent and Gerry would lecture us all about how to move England to the extreme left. I’d never been to that sort of political meeting before, and it was not appealing. Most of the other camp attendees clearly found it rousing: I found it threatening and nasty. I realised then that this wasn’t my idea of a left-wing revolution, but the summer camp was in a beautiful place, and Vanessa and people like Frances de la Tour were there, so I stayed. In the morning, I thought I’d go for a walk with a chum. When we arrived at the fence enclosing the camp, a man with a gun was guarding the gate. He said, ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ I said, ‘For a walk.’ He said, ‘Oh, no. You can’t leave.’ I said, ‘What do you mean we can’t leave? We want to go for a walk.’ ‘Well, you can’t. That’s against the rules,’ he said. ‘No one can leave the camp.’ And he put his hand firmly on his gun. ‘All right, love, keep your hair on,’ I said and we went back to the Red House, our revolutionary hostel. Although I stayed to the end of that particular jamboree, that incident marked the end of my workers’ revolution”

The Dark Remains by William McIlvanney and Ian Rankin (Canongate 2021)

 

Lighting another cigarette, Laidlaw became aware of a stooped old-timer with rheumy eyes who had joined the bus queue behind him.

‘You should enjoy life more, son. Your face is tripping you.’

The man’s breath was like a blowtorch, and Laidlaw wondered why it was that after a drink so many Glaswegians turned into the Ancient Mariner, eager to share their stories and wisdom with complete strangers. This particular example boasted a rolled-up newspaper, which he wielded like a baton, as if he could conduct the world.

‘At least it’s only my face that’s tripping me,’ Laidlaw responded. ‘Your whole life seems to be one long bout of falling over.’ He gestured towards the rips in the man’s trousers and the elbows of his worn-out jacket.

The man studied him, taking a step back as if to help him focus. ‘You look like an actor, son. Have I seen you in anything?’

‘We’re all actors in this town, haven’t you noticed? You’re acting right now.’

‘Am I?'

'Badly – but even bad acting deserves the occasional round of applause.’ Laidlaw dug a few coins from his pocket and placed them in the man’s hand. ‘Should cover your bus fare. Either that or a paper from this week rather than last.’

There was a double-decker drawing towards them at that moment. Laidlaw gestured for the old man to precede him aboard, but then stood his ground and told the clippie he’d wait for the next one. The new passenger stared in bemusement from the window as the bell rang and the bus pulled away, depriving him of his audience. Laidlaw didn’t doubt he would soon find another.

The April Dead by Alan Parks (Canongate Books 2021)

They turned into Old Shettleston Road, forge on the left, and Shettleston was revealed in all its glory. McCoy didn’t know if it was because of the forge but this bit of Glasgow always seemed dirty, tenements black with smoke and soot. Even the pavements looked grimy. They were firmly in the East End now, not McCoy’s normal stomping ground. Knew it a bit from his beat days. Walking up and down Shettleston Road on a Friday night wasn’t an experience he ever wanted to repeat. Could get wild here. Gangs, pubs on every second corner, gangsters defending their turf. Maybe he was just getting too soft in his old age. This was the Glasgow he started in, should be able to take what it threw at them.

The Accidental Footballer by Pat Nevin (Monoray 2021)

 

Another room was swiftly bypassed on the stairs with a flick of the wrist and a ‘You wouldn’t be interested in that one’ comment. Like hell I wouldn’t be interested, that was the one I wanted to see most, now that he had dismissed it with just a little too much disdain! I was already envisaging a picture of Dorian Gray, but with an ageing Morrissey in the frame. He changed his mind and then relented again after some gentle persuasion. He turned the key in the lock so sluggishly and opened the door to the room so slowly that it was even more obvious that he was embarrassed about its contents. I just wanted to push past him at this point, it was such a painstaking palaver.

The door finally opened to reveal the very last thing I expected to see: a fully kitted-out multigym with all the most modern equipment.