Martyn Green

Dedushka: The Forgotten Football Pioneer

Published on August 1, 2022July 31, 2026 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 July 29, 2022July 31, 2026 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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Before Total Football, there was the Wunderteam

Published on July 28, 2022July 31, 2026 by Martyn Green1 Comment

In 1939, Matthias Sindelar was found dead in his Vienna apartment. Sindelar had embarrassed the Nazi authorities less than a year previous, celebrating his goal for an Austrian team against the German side a little too vigorously. He had refused to be a part of the Germany 1938 World Cup squad, which was eliminated in the first round. And he had been on a Gestapo watchlist. Question marks remain, but a blocked chimney was probably the culprit. It was a tragic, if less conspiratorial end to perhaps the greatest player of the 1930s, and his Wunderteam.

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When UFOs Stopped Play

Published on July 27, 2022July 31, 2026 by Martyn Green

When fans filed into the Stadio Artemio Franchi in October 1954, the excitement was building for a thrilling derby between Tuscan giants Fiorentina and local rivals, and minnows, Pistoiese. Ten thousand people packed the concrete arena for the game, and the first half passed without any noteworthy incident. But just as the second half kicked off, an unusual hush fell over the stadium. Fans were distracted from their conversations, players turned away from the pitch, and the ball rolled, neglected, to a stop. More than ten thousand people, and all of them had their eyes trained on the skies above.

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Brazil’s Little Bird

Published on July 26, 2022July 31, 2026 by Martyn Green

Manuel Francisco dos Santos is one of the greatest players to have ever put on the yellow shirt of Brazil, and yet he should never have been a footballer. He was born in 1933 with a deformed spine and one leg a full 6cm shorter than the other. He had crooked knees, with one bending inward and the other out. And, at a time when football was much more physical, he was small, leading his sister to give him the nickname that would stick for the rest of his life; Garrincha, or Little Bird. Despite his disadvantages, he showed immense talent at an early age, but worryingly for Brazilian football, little inclination to enter the sport professionally.

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The Curse of Bela Guttmann

Published on July 25, 2022July 31, 2026 by Martyn Green1 Comment

When you shoot for the king, you’d better not miss, or so the old saying goes. When that king literally has “Royal” in their name, and are undefeated in the European Cup – the pinnacle of continental competition – for five years, that saying goes double. So it was in the early history of the Europe’s premier tournament. Real Madrid, patronised by General Franco, won every iteration of the competition between its inception and 1960. And then, unthinkably, they didn’t.

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Gre-No-Li: Milan’s Unstoppable Swedes

Published on March 23, 2022July 31, 2026 by Martyn Green

Zlatan Ibrahimovic recently announced that he was looking to sign another contract at Milan, in his 40^th year, having led the line alongside Olivier Giroud as the Rossoneri lead the Serie A table and look for a first Serie A win since 2011. He has helped the cause with more than just his eight goals this season; he is an icon, a gravitational presence that inspires and intimidates in equal measure. But he is far from the first Swede to make his way to the San Siro, and in the minds of many, he may not even be the best.

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What do you do when the GOATs are gone?

Published on March 21, 2022July 31, 2026 by Martyn Green

According to Twitter, the Messi and Ronaldo era is over. It is important not to overestimate their decline; Ronaldo won the golden boot at the European Championships less that 12 months ago, and as fans discovered against Monaco, a PSG side without Messi is still significantly weaker than a PSG side with him. But the fact that neither will play in the quarter-finals of the Champions League feels like an important, if somewhat arbitrary, watershed. Barring injury, both will play at the World Cup in the winter, and Messi might even get to another one in 2026, but their time is coming.

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Big Promises, Rapid Decline: How Hertha’s Dream became a Nightmare

Published on March 15, 2022July 31, 2026 by Martyn Green

When the full-time whistle blew at BORUSSIA-PARK, Gladbach collected just their second win in ten games, putting some of their genuine relegation fears to rest. But on the other side of the coin were Hertha Berlin, whose collapse has been reminiscent of Schalke’s capitulation a couple of seasons ago, and who are staring down the barrel of the 2. Bundesliga for the first time in a decade. But it was all supposed to be very, very different.

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Who Ate All the Pies?

Published on March 14, 2022July 31, 2026 by Martyn Green

“Who ate all the pies?” is a familiar chant around football grounds, directed at any footballer who happens to be a little larger, more sluggish, or slower than you might reasonably expect of a sportsman. Of course, in many cases, it’s a nonsense – I can quite happily admit that every player I’ve ever chanted it at is almost certainly fitter than I am – but the chant has lingered for over a century. The question is, where did it start, and who was the unfortunate player about whom it was created?

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