Author: Martyn Green

A History of Magic

Published on by Martyn Green

The FA Cup is the oldest cup competition in the world. It is more than 150 years old. In the same year as the first ever FA Cup match, Germany was created, there was a Napoleon in captivity having been removed as leader of France, Queen Victoria opened the Royal Albert Hall, and the President of the United States was Civil War General Ulysses S. Grant. The FA Cup has survived from that alien, ancient time, to provide us with something that few other competitions in the world can provide. As unlikely as it may seem, it is still theoretically possible, a century and a half later, for a team that starts in the earliest rounds – today, and all over this first weekend of August, before the elite clubs have even remembered that the competition exists – to go all the way and win the competition. That’s something worth celebrating.

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Football in Division: Unity through the Mitropa Cup

Published on by Martyn Green

As football grew in popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, there was an appetite to not only prove the dominance of a team against their domestic rivals, but also to test themselves against the best of the European neighbours. For some, this meant leaving their home country to embark on tours; for the most successful teams, invited to tour in the Western hemisphere, it sometimes even meant withdrawing from a league campaign for a season to accommodate what were usually very lucrative playing schedules. But the friendlies played in these tours conferred only dubious bragging rights. There was a need for something bigger, something more official, where the best of the best would play against each other for more than bragging rights.

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Dedushka: The Forgotten Football Pioneer

Published on by Martyn Green

There are some things that every football fan just knows. Sir Alf Ramsey, faced with a lack of effective wing-backs, converted his side into a new formation and invented, for the first time, the 442. Arsene Wenger, as a young manager at Monaco, revolutionised the fitness and recovery of football players in a way that has been adopted by pretty much every professional club in the world. And counter-pressing, “heavy metal football”, was invented in Germany by Ralf Rangnick, and passed through to Jurgen Klopp. Unquestioned truths of the game. But, as Mark Twain said, “it ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

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The Darlington Maldini

Published on by Martyn Green

Following their success at the 1966 World Cup, and the disappointment of a Quarter-Final exit in 1970, there was shock in 1973 when England, still under the command of Sir Alf Ramsey, was unable to qualify for the competition to take place in the following year. Jan Tomaszewski, branded a clown by Brian Clough, put in a man of the match performance for Poland, and Alf Ramsey left his post to be replaced by Don Revie. But that didn’t mean England had no representation at the tournament. Most famously, Jack Taylor refereed the final between West Germany and the Netherlands. But more intriguing is the story of Joseph Wilson, Lazio legend and Italy international.

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