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France, the Front Libération Nationale and Football
Juliet Jacques
Kicking + Screening Greg Lalas Interview
And Festival Pig’s Bladder Football cover ILLUSTRATION Chris Madden
Interview THE LOUD
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CONTENTS P07 P10
Juliet Jacques France, the Front Libération Nationale and Football
P18 P19
Kicking + Screening Greg Lalas Interview
P23 P26
Pig’s Bladder Football Remember when you used to use a pigs bladder for a kick-about?
P29 P30 The LOUD
Interview
INFORMATION Text: Headlines — Ultramagnetic; designed in San Francisco 1999 by Mike Cina for YouWorkForThem Body — Neuzeit Grotesk; designed in Frankfurt 1928 by Wilhelm Pischner for Stempel Support — Akkurat Mono; designed in Amsterdam 2004 by Laurenz Brunner for Lineto Paper: 32pp 100gsm uncoated offset ‘Oxygen’ stock by Elliot Baxter 4pp 160gsm uncoated offset ‘Oxygen’ stock by Elliot Baxter All paper is 100% recycled and made in France from 30% post-consumer waste otherwise destined for landfill Printing: Printed using entirely alcohol free methods by Custom Print in Liverpool on a Heidelberg Speedmaster Press and finished on a Horizon Stitch Liner Branding: Mercy mercyonline.co.uk Design: Textbook Studio textbookstudio.co.uk
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SPIEL MAGAZINE ISSUE — 002
WORD FROM THE
EDITORS Online: www.spielmagazine.com @spiel_magazine Contact: Paul@spielmagazine.com +44 (0) 7791667804 Dan@spielmagazine.com +44 (0) 7527509400 Post: Basecamp3 29 Parliament Street Liverpool L8 5RN With thanks: Chris King, Juliet Jacques, David Hartrick, Sarah Flotel, Jack Lang, Matt Thomas & Kerryn Grady, Michael
In primary school we used to sing a little ditty that went something like this: ‘Autumn days, when the grass is jewelled. And the silk inside the chestnut shell. Jet planes meeting in the air to be refuelled. All these things I love so well.’ It climaxed with us all shouting, ‘AND A WIN FOR MY HOME TEAM!’ Subsequently I have realised that jet planes meeting in the air to refuel doesn’t scream autumn to me, but the song does.
Cottage, John Biddle, Dan Leydon, Mark Mottershead, Tom Bolton, Tom Bright, Greg Lalas, John O’Shea, Lokomotiv The Loud, Boss Model Management, Roy and Ray from Basecamp3, Quiet British Accent, Milos SIMPRAGA, Mercy Design Editors:
Autumn also means a few other things: Everton are in all likelihood experiencing a ‘customary’ slow start to the season; the leaf-pilemerchants are out in force; Halloween is just around the corner; and, most importantly, Spiel are bringing out their second issue.
Paul Gleeson & Dan Byrne
The season is a time of tradition too; the agricultural traditions of bringing in the harvest, of food preparation for winter, and also the religious custom of giving thanks for the bounty of the season. These religious customs are now only partially preserved in Thanksgiving or country fairs, but have their origins in the most ancient of votive offerings to the gods. Issue Two is our Autumnal basket of offerings, which you will discover is free of any agricultural thingy-ma-jigs found in other areas of Autumnalthanks. In it there is a selection of our finest wares: from sound advice on how to pick a new team from warmer climes to eloquent writings on the political schisms that helped split up one of France’s finest generations.
Sub-editors: Matthew Hull Will Gordon
Issue #2 Contributors: Chris King — northernwrites.co.uk
Mark Mottershead —
Photography:
Juliet Jacques — julietjacques.blogspot.com
mrmarkmottersheadillustration.blogspot.com
Tom Bolton, Tom Bright,
David Hartrick —
Chris Madden — maddenillustration.co.uk
Matt Thomas
knowingcyrille.blogspot.com
Tom Bright — tombright.eu
Michael Cottage — wolfhead.co.uk
Kerryn Grady
John Biddle — thispendantworld.tumblr.com
Tom Bolton
Dan Leydon — hotfootynews.blogspot.com
Milos Simpraga — simpraga.com
Matt Thomas — mattthomas.co.uk
Mercy — mercyonline.co.uk
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FRANCE, THE FRONT LIBÉRATION NATIONALE AND FOOTBALL
France, the Front Libération Nationale and Football From Meghni to Yebda, the French academy system has produced many players who have represented Algeria. Long before Algeria’s independence, though, it wasn’t quite so easy. Juliet Jacques looks at early French-Algerian relations in football
In April 1958, Rachid Mekhloufi stood on the brink of international superstardom. Having scored 25 goals in thirty games to help AS SaintÉtienne win their first Championnat the year before, Mekhloufi was about to win his fifth France cap in a friendly against Switzerland, with coach Paul Nicolas including him in the forty-man preselection for Les Bleus’ highly fancied World Cup squad. Then the news broke: Mekhloufi would not be in Paris for the match; nor would Monaco’s Mustapha Zitouni, expected to be the defensive cornerstone of Nicolas’s World Cup team. After a rigorously planned covert operation, Mekhloufi, Zitouni and seven other Algerian-born footballers playing in France had left via Switzerland for Tunis, where they had established a team to represent the Front Libération Nationale (FLN), who were fighting a bitter war with France. In 1954, using the World Cup as cover to travel unnoticed, the FLN had been founded in Switzerland, hoping to end over one hundred years of colonial rule in Algeria, where ILLUSTRATION: mark mottershead
one million Europeans lived alongside nine million Arabic or Berber Muslims. Soon after the infuriatingly triumphant French celebrations for the centenary of the invasion in 1930, Algeria’s Muslims adopted football as their main sport: it was to become a prominent weapon in the struggle for independence. The foundations for an anti-imperialist culture had already been laid: in 1913, two decades after football arrived in Algeria, FC Musulman de Mascara were founded as the first indigenous Islamic side, and by the 1920s, one fifth of the territory’s clubs were explicitly Muslim. Although they remained politically autonomous, losing colonial subsidies if they did not, many celebrated Islamic heritage — such as Mouloudia CA, formed in 1921 and named after the prophet Mohammed. With political groups heavily regulated, football offered spaces where anti-colonial colours could be worn openly — Mouloudia and other teams played in green and red, which had strong Islamic connotations. With crowds
segregated by ethnicity and class, Algerian stadia were fractious places. The tension was heightened by the Native Affairs unit monitoring clubs’ links with political organisations, and laws introduced in 1928 stating that each team must have at least three European players — increased to five in 1935. In particular, the Djidjelli Sports Club regularly hosted inter-ethnic clashes. These intensified when football resumed after the Second World War, with knife fights and attacks on police being commonplace, with a player killed on the pitch during a riot. Nationalism and football became ever more intertwined. By the mid-1930s, Parti du people algérien founder Messali Hadj was staging meetings in packed stadia, and after the war, Ahmed Ben Balla, who played for Olympique de Marseille in a 9—0 win over Antibes in April 1940, became a leader of the FLN, which organised the various anti-colonial groups into something resembling a provisional government. After Ferhat Abbas called for independence in Sétif in May 1945, the French authorities
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brutally repressed nationalist activity across Algeria, killing an estimated 20,000—30,000 people. In an effort to diffuse the situation, the government allowed Algerian subjects to become French citizens, granting parliamentary representation and encouraging its football clubs to play in the Coupe de France — even after the FLN had attacked targets in Algiers, sparking the Franco-Algerian War. Mekhloufi, whose defection particularly angered the authorities, was sentenced to ten years in absentia
On 4 February 1957, the amateur team for FLN-supporting Algerian settlers, Sporting Club Universitaire d’El Biar caused a major cup shock, beating Stade de Reims — who had reached the European Cup final the previous season and provided the backbone of Batteux’s World Cup side. Six days later, as they faced Racing Universitaire Algérois, bombs exploded in their stands, killing eight people. El Biar lost to Lille in the Coupe quarterfinal: the final was overshadowed by FLN member Mohamed Ben Sadok’s assassination of anti-independence deputy Ali Chekkal as he watched the game. Former Valenciennes and Bordeaux player Mohamed Boumezrag had seen a North African selection beat France 3—0 in a benefit match for victims of the Orléansville (now Ech-Cheliff) earthquake in November 1954 — the same
SPIEL MAGAZINE ISSUE — 002
month that the FLN’s military wing had attacked Algiers. Believing that a successful team would radically further the FLN’s cause, Boumezrag and Mokhtar Arribi, trainer of southern French side Avignon, began recruiting leading Algerian footballers. First, the FLN secured Monaco’s Abdelaziz Ben Tifour, who had represented France in the 1954 World Cup, and exMarseille goalkeeper Abderrahmane Ibrir, who won six French caps in 1949—1950. Ibrir came out of retirement; his team-mates, still playing in France had much more to lose, being well paid and popular in the cities they represented. Many had families in the metropole; some were doing military service at the Battalion de Joinville (created especially for athletes) and would be considered deserters if they fled. Mekhloufi, whose defection particularly angered the authorities, was sentenced to ten years in absentia, having helped France win the World Military Games football tournament in 1957. On 15 April 1958, sports paper L’Équipe announced that nine of the 53 Algerians playing in France had disappeared, writing that ‘The French team remains, even if the word ‘France’ takes on a more narrow meaning’. Zitouni, who had been offered a transfer to Real Madrid after a brilliant match for France against Spain in March 1958, wanted to leave after the World Cup: he was ready to give up his life in l’Hexagone,
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FRANCE, THE FRONT LIBÉRATION NATIONALE AND FOOTBALL
but reluctant to miss out on the game’s biggest stage. Boumezrag persuaded Zitouni that leaving beforehand would make far more impact — realising that “history had caught up with [him]”, Zitouni accepted the invitation and prepared to leave. Gradually, other players joined. Two were arrested as they tried to leave France, one being imprisoned for a year. Once they had a team in Tunis, the FLN issued a press release stating that they were taking the struggle for Algerian independence to the pitch, and arranged fixtures. The players stressed that they were not ‘anti-French’, with several rooting for France, who reached the last four of the World Cup, losing 5—2 to Brazil — Les Bleus stayed in touch with Zitouni, sending him a postcard from Sweden signed by the entire squad. The French Football Federation were less forgiving, asking FIFA to expel any team who played the FLN side. This proved impossible: the FLN staged 91 matches, all preceded by the Algerian national anthem, mainly against teams from Islamic nations in North Africa and the Middle East, and Communist states in Asia and Europe. The latter were safe from FIFA sanctions, given their influence and the potential consequences of suspending them, and the FLN’s exuberant attacking style and impressive defensive organisation won them many plaudits in the Eastern Bloc and beyond.
As the situation in Algeria worsened, following the dissolution of the Fourth Republic in May 1958 and the return of Charles de Gaulle as French President, the FLN team’s phenomenal results meant its significance could not be ignored. Over four years, the FLN won 65 times, beating Yugoslavia 6—1, scoring eight without reply against Morocco and winning against Czechoslovakia. In late 1959, the FLN toured North Vietnam, a nation that had recently won independence from France, before going to China. They stopped in Germany en route to Algeria, but FIFA intervention prevented the FLN from testing themselves against the 1954 World Cup winners. With an official national side swiftly formed, playing in green, red and white, the FLN team was disbanded
By then, de Gaulle had begun negotiations with the FLN’s political wing, and the war — one of the longest and bloodiest decolonisation battles — ended on 5 July 1962 with Algeria being granted full independence. With an
official national side swiftly formed, playing in green, red and white, the FLN team was disbanded: several players retired, some joined clubs in their homeland and others returned to France. Rachid Mekhloufi went back to Saint-Étienne via Swiss club Servette. His status was ambiguous: admired by the Algerian public for his national service but disdained by its socialist rulers for his professionalism, Mekhloufi was hated by some in France for his defection but loved by the majority for returning. Les Verts had missed their skilful playmaker: Mekhloufi inspired them to their second title in 1964, and was integral to two further championships in 1967 and 1968. His final Saint-Étienne game was the 1968 Coupe de France final, scoring twice as ASSE won 2—1. Presenting Saint-Étienne captain Mekhloufi with his winners’ medal, de Gaulle told him that ‘La France, c’est vous’. After winning 11 Algerian caps, Mekhloufi had three spells as national coach, comanaging the team at their first World Cup in 1982. They famously beat West Ger-
many 2-1, with Algeria-based Lakhdar Belloumi making his name with the winning goal, but collusion between the Germans and Austria meant that Algeria were eliminated in the first round. Sixteen years later, Zinedine Zidane, born in Marseille to Algerian parents, became a national hero in France and Algeria after leading Les Bleus to World Cup victory. Algeria did not play France until October 2001: the friendly was abandoned when Algerian supporters, mainly French-born and raised in France’s deprived banlieue estates, invaded the pitch. For all the efforts of Mekhloufi and his team-mates, not to mention Zidane, the FrancoAlgerian tensions were far from resolved. Words by Juliet Jacques
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VICENTE: FROM THE MESTALLA TO THE FALMER
Vicente: from the Mestalla to the Falmer Vicente at Brighton: if you made this prediction in the halcyon days of the 03/04 season, you’d have been labelled a madman. Fast-forward to 2011 and crazy prophecy is now crazy reality, allowing David Hartrick to give a fans perspective on one of the most sensational transfers of the summer
Brighton and Hove Albion are facing an uncertain future. The hallowed Goldstone Ground has become the victim of a vicious asset strip conducted by a disinterested board and an even more disinterested director. On the pitch, elimination from the Football League has only just been avoided on the last day of the season in a dramatic game between two teams placed 91st and 92nd in English football. Some bemoan the fall from grace of the former division one side who, only 14 years previous, were FA Cup finalists. Those in the know, however, are more concerned that the club is on the verge of tumbling into an administrative abyss. Meanwhile in Spain Levante Unión Deportiva are playing in the Segunda División, embarking on a season that will eventually end with the club in relegation. Despite what will prove to be an ultimately disappointing campaign, one of the high points is a promising debut by Vicente Rodríguez Guillén. Destined to become more simply known as ‘Vicente’, the sixteen year old left-winger is already being purred over by several of Europe’s most important scouts. ILLUSTRATION: Dan Leydon
He is immediately installed in the Spanish national team’s youth set-up, making his debut at U16 level and going on to play in the U17, U18 and U21 teams in the next two years. Fast-forward to the year 2000. A new century; a new millennium. Vicente has continued to impress and grow as a player, helping to steer Levante back into the Segunda División at the first time of asking and then to a comfortable 7th place finish. He is the standout performer at the club, destined for far grander things. A move to Champions League runnersup and Supercopa winner’s Valencia is made. Despite Kily González standing in his way Vicente forces his way into the first team and hits the ground running. In his first season he helps Valencia reach another Champions League final. Disappointingly he spends the game on the bench watching his new side lose to Bayern Munich on penalties. He has already shown signs that the left-wing berth will be his long-term, he is now on a mission to prove it.
Back in England there are green shoots of recovery in Brighton as a consortium led by Dick Knight has chased the businessmen out of Albion’s boardroom and replaced them with people who care about the club’s future. After leaving the Goldstone in 1997, two seasons have been spent laughably calling Gillingham’s Priestfield Stadium ‘home’ as the club has been forced to play their games at the ground, a mere 150 mile round trip from Brighton itself. The 1999—2000 season sees a return to the city, with the seagulls setting up shop at Withdean Stadium. The new home is rough around the edges but being back in Brizzle brings with it a longsought sense of hope and by the end of the season, a modest but assured level of pride is returning to the club. In February of 2000 the team make their own move for a youngster and sign an unproven striker named Bobby Zamora. Brighton once again feels like a club with a future. Flash forward again to 2004 and Brighton and Hove Albion have been making headlines for their football as well
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as their finances. A double promotion with Zamora at the head of a bristling and industrious side had brought hope, relegation from Division One a brief bump back down to earth. However, bubbling behind every move the club makes is the saga that’s slowly beginning to define its existence — the move to get planning permission to build a new and permanent home in Falmer. A double promotion with Zamora at the head of a bristling and industrious side had brought hope
A fight is raging between Lewes’s District Council and local residents potentially affected by the proposal, and the club’s board and fans led by Dick Knight’s determination to get the plans through. Having been through the courts and still with no resolution imminent, the government itself is being called in to intervene and Brighton’s long-term future once again rests with people with no direct investment in the club or its future.
Another promotion to the newly named Championship is earned via the Play-Offs but the doubts remain, the Withdean is a short-term solution and without a permanent home, Brighton and Hove Albion still feel like unwelcome guests in their own city.
pay hike included, and with Ryan Giggs’s form supposedly waning at Old Trafford and a more central role beckoning, many are sure that Vicente would provide Manchester United’s attacking thrust from the left-wing in the very near future.
In Spain Vicente has become one of La Liga’s top performers and over the past three seasons and has just recorded his best ever campaign, tearing apart defences across the country and throughout Europe as Valencia won the first the title, then the UEFA Cup and the UEFA Super Cup. He returns 14 goals in a season that sees every major club in Europe linked to his signature, he is by now established in the full national side having played every game of Spain’s poor Euro 2004 tournament in Portugal, and his magnificent season is suitably rewarded by his club with a new contract and mountains of praise from his normally reserved manager Rafael Benítez.
And so we come to 2011, to today, and to Brighton and Vicente’s improbable marriage sealed with a one-year contract formally signed on September 2 this year.
Despite signing a four-year extension, with a handsome
Brighton’s long battle to gain planning permission was finally won in 2007 and Vicente’s new home was not the athletics stadium butchered into shape enough to host Football League games at Withdean, but the £105m Falmer site now with naming rights sold and resplendent in it’s guise as the American Express Community Stadium. With a capacity of 22,500 and with new chairman Tony Bloom and now ‘Club President for Life’ Dick Knight’s vision complete, the necessary icing on the cake for any truly great football story had come
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VICENTE: FROM THE MESTALLA TO THE FALMER
in the form of manger Gus Poyet leading Brighton from the League One wilderness back to the Championship in title-winning style in their last season at Withdean. This is our Robert Prosinecki to Portsmouth moment, the realization that you’ve got a player so unlikely you find yourself casting furtive glances left and right
Vicente’s career undoubtedly stalled from that truly wonderful 2003—04 season with Valencia thanks to a combination of ankle injuries and what he claimed were incorrect treatments and diagnosis from medical staff. While each comeback has showed the capabilities of a truly gifted player, the body has broken down each time and failed the spirit. As Brighton took the 2010—11 League One title playing arguably the most entertaining brand of football ever employed by an Albion side, Vicente was preparing for an inevitable exit from a club he
admitted to loving. At the age of 29 a player who had been potentially one of Europe’s best left-sided midfielders found himself without a club and desperate to shake off the injury-prone tag he felt he didn’t deserve. As a Brighton fan, Vicente’s signing felt like that moment in a recent history filled with an almost unheard of amount of joy. This is without any shadow of doubt a player of such talent he could be gracing far bigger stages but he chose to rebuild his career with us. This is our Robert Prosinečki to Portsmouth moment, the realization that you’ve got a player so unlikely you find yourself casting furtive glances left and right looking for the wind-up to end. Whether his career at Brighton ultimately proves to be a success or failure, his hero status was all but sealed the moment he picked us as his new employers. With back one after
a new stadium, a city in love with the game, of the most soughtyoung managers in the
English leagues and now a player with La Liga, Champions League and international pedigree to call our own, this is a very special time to be a Brighton fan. Having weathered the storms of the nineties to emerge happy to still have a club to call our own, then spent the noughties biting fingernails through legal battles, and potential rain at the horrifically exposed Withdean, this feels like it just might be our time. Do we want to storm into the Premier League and start challenging for Europe immediately? No. For most of us a few trouble free seasons enjoying mid-table, non-headline baiting campaigns in the Championship and financial parity will do just fine. As for Vicente; he just might be here on loan to us for a year before a bigger club realises we’ve got him. Still, for as long as he’s here, I’m going to enjoy every minute. Words by David Hartrick
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PRO VERCELLI, CALCIO AND LEARNING ITALIAN
PRO VERCELLI, CALCIO AND LEARNING ITALIAN Wanting to learn Italian? If you’re from the Football Italia generation, you’ll be more familiar with goalatzio than other Italian terminologies. With this in mind, Chris King explains his attempts to learn the language through calcio
I’m getting a look. I’m getting that look. It’s the look I get when I forget where I am and start to fumble under the table, oblivious to the people around me. It’s a look that could turn a person to stone, but on this occasion is enough just to bring me back in to the room. “What are you doing?” she says. “Nothing” I reply. “You’re on your phone!” she retorts. “Yeah — but Pro Vercelli have just scored.” I don’t bother to check for a reaction. I simply hit close and return the phone back to my pocket. “How’s your lunch?” I ask. It’s all too easy to explain an obsession away as a mere act of ignorance. Sitting on a phone, in the middle of lunch, with my family sat around me is not necessarily the politest thing to do — especially when others are trying to extract “vital” information with regards to my life. But then it’s not my fault someone planned lunch to start at the exact time Pro Vercelli took to the field in a Coppa Italia Lega Pro match. Photography: Sarah Patel
What those on the other side do not understand, is that an obsessive would quite happily trade the days they spend agonising over their obsession, in exchange for a blissful moment of ignorance. Daydreaming is, well, but a dream to the person sat there — apparently — staring in to space, as they over analyse their next major decision. For if a chess Grand Master has to think up to five steps ahead in their game; a footballing obsessive has the next 10 months, painfully playing out inside their head. I set myself a project at the start of this season to try and improve my Italian, through using football as my reference point. I’ve picked up a couple of teach-yourself packs over recent years, so I know my way around a menu or train station — but what I really want, is to chat endlessly with Italians about the beautiful game — in their own romantic language. A tall order for someone who hates studying and has no direct, family links to the country. The first hint that an obsession was forming was when I decided that I needed to
choose a team to follow; so that I would keep working — on a daily basis — on developing those much needed language skills. That decision cost me two weeks of my life. If I wasn’t sleeping I was thinking about Italian football. I was devising formulas, score sheets, selection criteria; my brain was bleeding information about calcio when, quite frankly, it could have been put to “better” use. Every time I blinked I saw Excel spreadsheets with names and numbers on. If someone asked me to do something at work, I would frustratingly sigh, hit save, then speed through whatever it was they needed — before immediately hitting TAB ALT to get back to the only window that mattered. At home I would sit with my laptop perched on the end of the table as I persuaded my daughter to eat her dinner. I would bend down to pick up a knife she had thrown on the floor, only to see her finger hovering over the power button. Had I saved that last piece of work? How much would I lose if she turned it off? I couldn’t take the chance. “Look!” I shouted,
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pointing at the TV — buying myself enough time to distract her as I dragged the laptop from under her destructive finger. After two weeks of emailing myself from my phone as I lay in bed, or “zoning out” in meetings at work — so that I could plot ideas on my pad — I eventually calculated that Pro Vercelli were the best option for me. They had a known history to anyone that had thumbed through a book on Italian football. They played in a pristine, all white shirt. They were based in Piemonte, one of my favourite areas of Italy. More important than all of that — they were in the lower reaches of the Italian league — so finding anything out about them in English would be far harder than if I had picked a Serie A/B side. And then, just like that, the whole project started to unravel like a series of lies I might tell someone who finds me fumbling with a mobile phone under a dinner table. The obsession had swallowed this project whole. The language development was now secondary to the real burning desire — that of finding out
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more, more, more, more on Pro Vercelli. I wake up every morning and check twitter to see if there are any Lega Pro updates. I pay £1.60 for a copy of La Gazzetta dello Sport that I know I can’t read, just in hope that there is one line about “my” club. I spent an hour today trying to find something, anything I could on Pietro Iemmello, the club’s Italian U19 striker. I will spend two hours tonight listening to a radio programme I don’t understand, just to catch a muted cheer as Pro Vercelli play Calcio Como — simply because I want to know the score before it appears online. I quite clearly obsess about something I decided to do, so that — in truth — it would quash those embarrassing feelings I get when confronted by an Italian speaker who asks me a question in a bar. I decided to learn their language through something I love — football — to aid my continued enjoyment of another great love, Italy. This project was meant to help me, to calm and soothe me. What I didn’t bargain for was the way this project would
PRO VERCELLI, CALCIO AND LEARNING ITALIAN
completely absorb every spare minute I had. Eating at my head until I fed my brain — with knowledge, with stats, with everything I could find out about Pietro Iemmello. But then, you know all of this. Like me, you love football. You choose to love football. You choose to love a football team. My obsession is your obsession is our obsession. We share those same feelings. Those same frustrations, those same apparent acts of ignorance as we hunt down the information we need. Only, Pietro Iemmello is mine. You’ll have to find someone else to obsess about. Words by Chris King
ILLUSTRATION: Chris MAdden
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KICKING + SCREENING
Kicking + Screening Using the wonders of online-phone technology, Spiel caught up with Greg Lalas — just one cog in the magical Kicking + Screening machine — to discuss the festivals maiden voyage to London
As with most ventures, Kicking + Screening got off to an auspicious start; a blind date between two soccer fans and plenty of tequila to ease the awkward atmosphere. As the evening wore on — Greg (Lalas, brother of the former American international Alexi) didn’t say whether it was going particularly well or not — his date, Rachel Markus, mentioned to him an idea she’d had whilst living in London; a football film festival. The date itself did not lead to any romantic embraces or eternal happiness — much to the dismay of their friends, who no doubt saw them as a match made in heaven. It did, however, lead to the inaugural festival, celebrating the presence of football (soccer) in film, which premiered in New York during July 2009. “She was very nervous about what it would be, whereas I’m one of those people who says, ‘Just try it, who cares what it is?’ And we said: ‘if it’s twenty people sat in our living room and we call it a film festival, then that’s what it is.’” Twenty, it turned out, would be a gross underestimation
of the New Yorkers’ interest in the festival. Owing much to the soccer-culture abound in the city, which, like our own, orbits around bars and pubs, Greg and Rachel set about asking several local watering holes if they’d be interested. They were, and the ensuing festival was, in Greg’s own words, “a rousing success.” Just two years later and with another New York event under their belts, as well as sojourns to Washington, DC, Houston, North Adams, Mass and Amsterdam, the Kicking + Screening festival rolled up in London for its debut at the Everyman Cinema. for every She’s The Man, there’s at least one Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait
Interestingly, things could have been entirely different if it weren’t for the involvement of one club: Fulham. Indeed, whilst living in London, Rachel had approached the fo otb all - club - cum - Michael Jackson-shrine to see if they would be interested in hosting the inaugural event, which initially they were. Regardless
of this positive reaction, an inexplicable change of mind from the Premier League club eventually led to the cancellation of the event. Thanks, Fulham, you’ve made us wait two years longer than we might of for this! In a touch of slight-vengeance, when the festival was finally pencilled in for London this year, the team sent a note to Fulham just to let them know the festival had finally arrived in the city. Did Mohammed Al Fayed turn up? No, of course not. However, the former Harrods owner did send a note of congratulations, so perhaps we’ll let him off. Glancing across the programme for Kicking + Screening, the one thing that sticks out is just how few of the films actually concentrate on the ninety minutes of action we would normally associate with football viewing. “These are films that very rarely get seen...so we do whatever we can to bring them to people, and hopefully they like them and have fun with it.” Continuing the discussion regarding the aesthetic approach of the various films on
show — predominantly documentaries and more independently produced productions — Greg pointed out something glaringly obvious which, in hindsight, I had never considered before: just how markedly different football films can be in comparison to mainstream productions. “It’s an interesting thing, when you think about the popularity of the sport throughout the world, when you contrast it with how small and independent and alternative the film part is.” Then again, when you cast your gaze across the numerous flops that football-fiction has produced for the Big Screen — Goal, Bend it Like Beckham and Mean Machine — it’s easy to see why filmmakers have given the genre a wide berth, favouring, more often than not, the realism that the documentary genre provides. As such, for every She’s The Man, there’s at least one Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, The Two Escobars or One Night in Turin. As the festival came to a close, wrapping things up with Escape to Victory, featuring a guest appearance from Ossie
Ardiles, I feel inclined to ask, perhaps already knowing the answer, whether the event was a success? “Yes,” is the emphatic response. In fact, even if the event had flopped, the fact that Gaizka Mendieta was in attendance, lets face it, elevates the festival pretty darn highly in most peoples’ opinions, especially mine! Aside from its overwhelming success in terms of attendance figures and the sheer quality of films presented, the final gala also helped raise funds for the Bobby Moore Fund, one of the festivals’ chosen charities for its London event. In fact, the main thing that surprised me about the festival was that its organisers all work for no, or very little, financial return, with the majority of proceeds going directly to charitable causes. Indeed, as Greg explained, “we’re not looking to have shares in this company and sell it or something, it’s not what it’s about, it’s not what the game has been about to us. The game has been about the beauty of the game and the fans.” This is exactly what the Kicking + Screening film festival provides: a seven
day extravaganza celebrating the beauty of the game and its fans, almost wholly encapsulated by its charitybased ethos. As for next year, it seems that the weeklong celebration of all things film and football will be returning to the United Kingdom. As for the location, well, that is yet been finalised, although I for one was hoping for a switch up North: Liverpool, perhaps? Words by Paul Gleeson
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ILLUSTRATION: Michael Cottage
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PIG’S BLADDER FOOTBALL
Pig’s Bladder Football Artist John O’Shea talks about his ongoing Pig’s Bladder Football project, featured at this year’s Abandon Normal Devices Festival
“You might want to stand back, there is a bit of a smell”, explains John, as he dons an apron and rubber gloves, and prepares to open the cooler chest containing the “fresh bladders”. Within the chest, the bladders lie inside a bath of disinfectant and cleaning product; the sort of chemical mask often used to hide the smell of something nasty. Indeed, as the first bladder is removed it becomes clear that John had not overestimated the smell and, despite the chemicals, there remained a hint of something rancid in the air. This un-sanitised element of the project examines the evolution of football and questions whether the addition of synthetic elements to the game has fundamentally changed it. Material changes are subsequently the focal point for Pig’s Bladder Football’s enquiries, and identifies that our attitude towards the material used in constructing the ball is as revealing of our changing experience of the game itself. On a very basic level, these workshops demonstrate how the material qualities of both the pigs bladder and the filling
- straw seemed most practical, but helium and split peas were also used - changed the nature of the ball produced. If we look at this in terms of game development, this has significant implications for the tactics used, as well as the way the game is appreciated; for instance, bladder footballs don’t really bounce and seem to favour a big striker holding the ball up. Further to this, there is a sense that the increasing movements towards integrating technology into football have moved it away from its very honest and humble roots. In conversation, John reveals the poignancy of the first entirely synthetic football being a variant of the Mitre Delta, launched to coincide with the launch of the Premier League. “when they gave us a plastic ball did they give us a plastic game too?”
We tend to envisage a golden age when reviewing football’s past; romantic ideas of the amateurism, ‘The Corinthian Spirit’, low ticket prices and the atmosphere of the standing end all combine to create something perilously close to ‘when men were men’ style
generalisations. In contrast, Pig’s Bladder Football doesn’t look to promote a halcyon era, focusing instead on origins and difference. The football presented by this project has a primal and visceral element to it, with the game stripped back to its most basic form; a now only half remembered take on football. Historically, the roots of football being played with a pig’s bladder derive from the early forms of the game; particularly mob football and football played in the streets. This seems remote from football today, but playing with a bladder is still within living memory for some - particularly those who lived through World War Two, when football-making materials were at the bare minimum - and in some parts of the country, the bladder-based mob game still persists. In preparation for the project, John visited the annual ‘Uppies and Downies’ game in Workington; a mob football match played for centuries in the town, traditionally between miners and dock workers. The game starts in the centre of town and the aim is for the fishermen and dockworkers
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to take the ball down the town to the harbour and for the miners to take the ball up the town to the top of the hill. That is basically it; there are no other rules and modern obstacles, such as roads and a Tesco carpark, are integrated into the game. ‘Uppies and Downies’ is still played with a leather ball, made in the town and filled with local wool. The participants may no longer be fishermen or dockers but the erstwhile elements of the game have remained. footballs are for the most part totally synthetic these days, but as someone who is personally interested in relationships between materials and experience I wanted to see and feel what this was like
Having such historical origins, the perception of the game is that it could be tainted with an overspill of violence from a less constrained age. This, however, is certainly not the case and John was taken aback by the stringent self-regulatory aspect of the game he participated in and filmed. The footage he shot is most likely the most complete photography: Tom Bright
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PIG’S BLADDER FOOTBALL
record of the game and shows a community game taking place not only without violence and antagonism, but also without the pomp and artifice we usually associate with football today. There are no concession stands here, no flags or mascots, and the distinction between a player and a spectator is hard to discern. John sees the game as an “assertion of free will”, a view that is supported by local stalwarts of the game, who discuss the tradition as a local “happening” rather than a sporting event. Pig’s Bladder Football is essentially an experimental project. John speaks about his desire to “see and feel” what football was like when it was played with a bladder ball and to understand something about its earliest medieval origins. This theme of experimentation runs through the workshops John holds. By inviting the public to make their own balls from bladders questions are raised about the trajectory football has taken since its origins, about what we see football as and about our fundamental relationship with materials. Manipulating, inflating and filling a bladder, raw offal, is
bizarre and alien. Consequently, the hands-on experience offered during these workshops - featuring materials not often used in everyday life – also provides a reflexive view of how we treat materials within a broader social context. Indeed, synthetics have become ubiquitous in contemporary society and with their rise we have taken a step away from the origins of the things we interact with. Distance and progress are by no means negative, but an ignorance of such origins is: Pig’s Bladder Football urges a reconnection with these founding principles and, above all, it compels us to re-examine the paths taken from these origins. it feels like we are increasingly sheltered from experiencing anything which hasn’t been “sanitised”
For the next stage of the project, the experimentation moves from the collaborative workshops to the laboratory. Pig’s bladders have always been used practically; their shape, durability and elasticity in particular have been useful for carrying liquids. Despite this, technological advances
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have long since made pieces of offal redundant in the watercarrying world. However, recently other natural properties within the bladder have begun to be re-examined, in a primarily scientific context. The matrix structures present within a pig’s bladder, it turns out, have come to the fore in modern medical research; the structures inherent in the pig’s bladder, when being stripped back to its most basic elements, can be implemented in the surgical repair of human soft tissue. Indeed, stem cell research points to the use of animal cells in regenerative medicine and in the coming year, John and Pigs Bladder Football will be examining these developments. Taking up residency in the University of Liverpool’s Clinical Engineering Unit, the aim is to construct a ball, under laboratory conditions, from animal cells. This
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represents a genuine scientific challenge - as demonstrated by the projects funding by the Wellcome Trust - and looks set to push boundaries further by John’s intended use of his own cells. Our proposition will demonstrate many of these new techniques, but it will do so in a way which has never been done before.
Whilst football seems to have left bladders and animal material behind, this examination of football’s journey through material and technological advances opens up of an important dialogue, with football’s origins having significantly shaped its development since. Words By Dan Byrne
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THE LOUD
After a disappointing result last month, Spiel look to improve their five-a-side record; taking on The
ILLUSTRATION: John Biddle
Loud on home soil
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It was hardly a who’s-who of football aristocracy making up the Spiel team — Allan Lehan, Peter Sloan, Paul Gleeson, Chris Pickering and Dan Byrne — but then it did represent a strengthening of the team after last month when we had to borrow players. Despite this reinforcement, we weren’t particularly optimistic; especially as The Loud looked like they might be half-decent. Furthermore, the weather was crap; it was dark and cold; and we play football better in ours heads — think Ajax, mid-90’s – than in reality, where we’re more lowly Sunday League. Lining up against Spiel were The Loud, featuring Lee, Leroy and Matty from the band, as well as Joe and Craig to boost the numbers.tThe Birkenhead band has been attracting attention from press and critics since the release of their mini-album, Harris Shutter. There is a post-punk punch to their music, the guys cite MC5 and The Stooges as influences, but there is also a sort of glam rock infusion to their sound and their songs resolve stylishly with an ear for melody. There is something street-savvy about their music too; they are no art-school band and seem
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grounded in the everyday. A double sided single out at the end of November (Mother Warned Me About Girls Like You / For My Record Machine) features Joe Edwards — of Rascals and The Little Flames fame — on organ; the band see it as a maturing of their craft and something of a progression from earlier work. An early goal, as commentators often tell us with their penchant for stating the obvious, can shape a match. It was Team Spiel who, surprisingly, scored not only the first, but also the second, third, fourth and fifth of the game. One strike in particular from Peter Sloan, a Lothar Matthaus-esque thunderbolt from the half way line, summed up our early dominance. In all honesty, we were thinking: ‘How the hell are we five-nil up.’ With goals, though, comes confidence, which we were shorn of in our previous match. The Loud, however, were in no mood to give up and, aided and abetted by a truly woeful spell in goal from one of the Spiel team (who for the purposes of editorial pride shall remain anonymous), the fight-back was on. After hitting a swift five or six to
THE LOUD
bring themselves back into the game, there followed a good old-fashion end-to-end: it was a bit like watching two Newcastle teams from the mid-nineties. With minutes on the clock and the game tied it was Spiel’s Peter Sloan who stepped up to seal the win with a wonderful strike. The lad was playing like Ronaldo (R9), no joke. After nearly throwing it away, we’d on gone and bloody won: 12-11 being the final score. And so it was back to the changing rooms, sodden and exhausted, to conduct the interview — getting in there though, we decided better of it and arranged to meet during the week. One of the main things you need to be able to do is talk; we were so tired we could barely even walk. The Loud will be playing at the closing event of Liverpool Music Week on November 11th, as well as at London’s Shacklewell Arms on November 28th. www.theloud.co.uk Words by Dan Byrne
photography: Tom Bolton
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Photography: Matt Thomas
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CAN’T STAND UP FOR
Falling Down Manachain
Dickies Grey Shirt: Resurrection
Ben Sherman Red/Blue Check Shirt:
Suit Jacket: Asos.com
Purple Polo: Topman
Intarsia Knitted Tie: Asos.com
Wool Coat: Topman
Resurrection
Spot and Stripe Shirt: Asos.com
Salt and Pepper Cardigan: Topman
Felt Fedora (Hat): Topman.
Skinny Jeans: Topman
Red Dickie Bow: Asos.com
Glasses: Topman
Wool Coat: American Apparel
Red Belt: American Apparel
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CAN’T STAND UP FOR
CREDITS
Tipped Polo: Topman
Dog Print Polo: Slazenger Heritage
Felt Fedora (Hat): Topman
Jacket: Dunlop Retro
Slim Grey Shirt: Asos.com
STYLIST: Kerryn Grady
Skinny Jeans: Topman
Wool Waistcoat: Topman
HAIR STYLIST: Claire Ball
Leather Belt: Stylists Own
Skinny Tie: Topman
MODEL: Manachain at Boss Model Management LOCATION:
Shot
Studio, West Kirby
at
Brook
House
BENICASSIM, SPAIN