From the Jaws of Victory I

"The best football anthology since Falling for Football" — Magic Spongers

In time-honoured fashion, it has only taken us six years, but we're beyond excited to announce the launch of 'From the Jaws of Victory', our new book about football's glorious nearly men.

This book wouldn't be what it is without the phenomenal team of writers that have contributed to it - and before our pre-order period we'll be listing them here so you can get a taste of what's on offer. Here's Part 1!

Football rentre à la maison

Fabien Barthez, Laurent Blanc and Zinedine Zidane
pose for the cameras in 1998

If England 96 was when football came home, France 98 was when it got a radical new haircut, swaggered into the living room having not been seen for a couple of months, nailed the cat to the TV, threw all the family photos out of a top-floor window and then left straight through the wall, joyfully, ferociously, shrugging as it went. Or so your faulty memory would have you believe. Or would it?

Fifa-Fi-Fo-Fum

"I want one BILLION dollars."

‘A World Cup of fraud’, said Loretta Lynch, the US attorney general. So did the IRS’s criminal investigations unit’s chief investigator, Richard Weber, before adding, ‘today we are issuing FIFA a red card’. ‘AMERICA(N METAPHORS)! F*CK YEAH!’, he didn’t add, unfortunately.

You can say what you like about FIFA, but it certainly doesn’t do things by half. Nine senior FIFA officials arrested for trousering somewhere in the region of $150m over the last 25 years, 25 as yet un-named co-conspirators, investigations into the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, and more racketeering on the go than Roland Garros.

No One Likes Us, We Don't Care

"Come on lads. Group cry."

To the tune of (We are Sailing) by Rod Stewart: 

“No one likes us. No one likes us. 
 No one likes us. We don’t care. 
 We are Bra-zil. We are Bra-zil.
 We are Bra-zil. From Ri-o.” 

Once the final, elongated vowels of Osório Duque-Estrada’s anthem bellow out at the Estádio Mineirão tonight and hairs on necks return to their normal shape, the reality that Brazil are in a dog fight will sink in. A siege mentality that had already been constructed around the Seleccão after the first wobbly group games has been reinforced to the extent that one would be forgiven for thinking Brazil had been underdogs all along. The injury to Neymar and, to a lesser extent, the suspension of Thiago Silva adds further fuel to this particular fire.

That Which Has Been Born: Part 2 of 2

Frederic Carver finishes off what he started on the alternative World Cup. Find his brilliant blog here, which he hasn't updated for a year but is still well worth a trawl. 

Last post I started off ranting about Marxism and then started to tell you the story of the delightfully quirky ConIFA World Cup – the World Cup for countries who struggle to obtain. I introduced the cast, now I’m going to tell you how they did.

That Which Has Been Born: Part 1 of 2

In the interests of keeping up the facade that we champion 'proper' football writing every now and then, please give a warm welcome to Frederic Carver, who delves into a very different World Cup.

“The working men have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got. Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is so far, itself national, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word. National differences and antagonism between peoples are daily more and more vanishing, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world market, to uniformity in the mode of production and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto. The supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to vanish still faster. United action, of the leading civilised countries at least, is one of the first conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat” – the Communist Manifesto

Why A European Side Is Going To Win It This Year Or We'll Delete This Post

"Awww shit. Magic Spongers got it right again."

A lot is made about how European teams cannot win a World Cup on Latin American soil. Probably because they never have. So far, so fair enough. But as we’ve never let the problematic presence of ‘facts’ get in the way of our writing, we’re going to stick our necks out and say that this is the year it all changes and a European side will do just that. And this is a win-win situation for us because, if a European side does win it, we’ll just delete this very sentence, say "we told you so" and we’ll be the toast of the internet. And if a European side doesn’t win it, we just delete this entire piece. Or we keep it in and we look ‘meta’. There are plenty of ways to skin an onion.

Preview #2 - the World Cup is ACE

IT'S GOING TO BE ACE YOU F***S

Part two of our World Cup preview goes all Eric Idle and looks on the bright side. It's a World Cup. In Brazil. A WORLD CUP. IN BRAZIL. What's not to love, exactly?

When is a preview not a preview? When it comes after the event has started? Oh shit. We better start writing then. Plans here to concoct something approaching a coherent preview and even a series of podcasts have gone awry in a blaze of work deadlines and £4.50-for-two vodka and coke deals in York’s premier nightspot, Fibbers. So what we’ve decided to do, in principle at least, is make a half-arsed attempt to cover as much of the tournament as we can, which will probably end up being a solitary article lamenting England’s winless, car-crash of a capitulation at the group stage, while taking the piss out of the root and branch enquiry into the national team’s failings in South Africa four years ago. Business as usual then.

Preview #1 - the World Cup is AWFUL

'Corruption you say? Kiss my ball(s)'

It's the first of our, let's call them 'anticipated', World Cup previews. We were going to do the positive one first, but we thought 'sod it', which before you start moaning is exactly the attitude you'll have too once you've finished with this one. 

It's the World Cup, Stupid

'That's what I think of your Golden Generation.'

So, sports car or saloon? It’s a bizarre question, of course it is, but should give us pause for thought. In some ways it’s inkeeping with many a reaction to an England squad announcement, seeking to give a competitive style to the national side without pausing to consider the fact that whatever the answer, it was still a being attributed to a Vauxhall.

Falling for Football II: Fall Harder

A 'delightful book'

Another day, another extract from Falling for Football - and this time it's a bit we've actually written. Many thanks if you've already bought the book, told your friends, or tweeted about it - it's much appreciated. We officially launched on March 10th and the book is available in paperback at www.ockleybooks.co.uk and electronically at http://amzn.to/1i2yDOx. And if that doesn't tempt you, here's the introduction to the book:

It’s easy to talk of high water marks. It’s arguably more difficult to encapsulate what made a period of time so special.

When we decided to stop merely ranting about football in one of London’s many watering holes (usually a Sammy Smith’s) and commit fingers to keyboards in 2010, little did we know what a fantastic journey we were about to embark upon.

Falling For Football

The best book you'll buy today

First things first, we have a book out. We’ve been writing this blog now for just under 4 years and the book has been in the pipeline for around 3 of those years. There really is something beautiful about seeing a plan finally come to fruition. So without further ado, and with a heartfelt thank you to all of those who have contributed, inspired and encouraged, here is the foreword to Falling For Football: The teams that shaped our obsession by Brian Phillips. Available here from today (official launch March 10). 

And if that’s not enough to whet the appetite, you’re obviously not hungry enough.

A Load of Balls

World cupping

It’s perhaps one of football’s greater ironies that FIFA spend a great deal of time trying to make the game produce more goals and excitement to the general detriment of draws, only to spend an inordinate amount of other people’s time and money on one that is so pointless and overblown that from an initial level of anticipation at the start, viewers are forced into to a general state of torpor and indifference by the close. A bit like this paragraph.

Never Mind The Bollocks

"Yes, I WILL be doing this every week."

Close season transfer speculation/gossip/bullshit, for me, reached its zenith in the (probably balmy) summer of 1996. When my peers and I were young enough not to know better and had yet to be infected by pessimism, especially as England had come desperately close to their first final of my lifetime until that ultimate of bastards Andreas Moller snatched away the dream in a way only a bastard of German heritage can.

This Be The Curse

"We should have defended deeper!"

“England let you down.” Roy Keane’s blunt assessment of England’s shortcomings against Montenegro last night struck a chord. Because that’s precisely what England do. Always. Even when, aged roughly 18, you have recalibrated your expectations to match the reality that England are no better than a quarter final side in the tournaments they do manage to qualify for. In short, England manager hands on misery to England manager; England fan hands on misery to England fan.

Going For A Burton

Nice, isn't it? NOW GET RUNNING

An important moment in English football came and went this week. A day when the FA finally attempted to throw off the shackles of their abbreviation connoting ‘Fucking Arseholes’ and pushed forward into a brave new dawn of ‘Fingers out of Arses’. A day when incessant, ceaseless ranting on these fair pages – here, here, here, here and here… you get the picture – finally appears to have come to fruition. A day when the national game’s powers that be finally believe they have an answer to the age-old, 10-word conundrum, comprising in no particular order the words:

‘What, the, Fuck, happened, to, root, and, branch, review, the?’.

YOU’RE WELCOME, ENGLAND.

What If? Scotland's 1960s

Jim Baxter becomes an 'unofficial World Champion'

Over to Magic Spongers' Rob MacDonald to lament the many and varied 'What Ifs' of Scotland's very own golden generation...

A famous anecdote about the Rangers midfielder Jim Baxter on international duty reads thus: As others bustled and clattered around the room he was, unusually, a study in concentration. He tapped the studs on the heel of his right boot idly, and exhaled slowly. The volume of the shouts, the barks, the back slapping increased. In the far corner, Denis Law was so flushed with intent it looked like he might explode. ‘Jim’, a voice said, over the cacophony of Celtic camaraderie. ‘Jim’, it said again. ‘You should warm up. It is England after all’.

Baxter lowered the pages of his Racing Post, and stretched his left leg out in front of him. He stretched his right leg,languid and disinterested. To the casual observer, the Racing Post exercise would have appeared the most strenuous of the three. He raised his eyes.

‘That’s me warmed up’.

The Generation Game

"Frank Lampard never played for Milan... golden generation my arse."



*Disclaimer. Some or all of what follows may be completely fictional and not represent in any way, shape or form the beliefs of Magic Spongers.

When Spandau Ballet wrote their seminal hit ‘Gold’ in 1983 about the so-called golden generation of Trevor Francis, Tony Woodcock, Luther Blisset, Paul Mariner et al, the fanfare was short-lived as England failed to qualify for the European Championships a year later. Though the song would live on in chain pubs across the land on Saturday nights, the golden generation proved to be of pyrite persuasion, shining brightly in the April sun in a 2-0 victory over Hungary, before succumbing to the talents of Michael Laudrup and Jesper Olsen at Wembley in September ’84 and ultimately petering out.

Dickheads #12 - Luis Suarez

Dream destroyer

While neutrals everywhere cried into their beer, one man went into Pantomime villain mode and another man has never forgiven him. Please give a warm welcome to Magic Spongers to Jonny Sharples who can be followed here.

It was Friday, July 2 2011 and I sat at home in a knock-off Ghana shirt bought from the side of the road in Accra. I was swearing quite a lot. A hell of a lot. I was angry, I was upset and I'm not even Ghanaian. I can only imagine how much a native of the country feels about him but me? I hate Luis Suarez.

Dickheads #8 - ITV's Punditry Team

Pure evil



Here's the other, slightly better half of Magic Spongers, Adam Bushby, on his more-than-just-an-aversion to three men on channel three...

"[Watching him is] like being stuck in the buffet car of a slow-moving train with a Toby jug that has miraculously discovered the power of speech… A talking Toby jug full of steaming hot piss.” Comedian Stewart Lee on Adrian Chiles.

I am 27. I earn an average wage only made average by the overtime I put in. I would say I am slightly better than average looking; women would disagree.

Adrian Chiles is 44. He earns £1m a year, which is above average. He is below average in terms of looks because he looks like a potato that a child of below average intelligence has drawn a face on.