World Cup - A Daily Mirror Special (1970)

It can never be underestimated just how much English football fans were looking forward to the 1970 World Cup. Having hosted and won the 1966 tournament, England were ready to take on anyone that dared snatch their title from them. With such self-confidence and excited anticipation, the entire country lapped up every bit of Mexico ‘70 ephemera they could find.

The Daily Mirror was not to be left out as it produced its special guide to the Finals. Calling on the talents of its writers, designers and photographers, the Mirror had all the ingredients required to inform and educate its readers.

Those self-same talents would be put to good use analysing the qualities of the England team and its likelihood to retain the Jules Rimet trophy. Undoubtedly one of the key elements for success would be the way Sir Alf’s squad adapted to the heat and altitude of the host nation. Ken Jones confirmed what we already knew from a recent Attic article:

“The planning began many months ago when the world’s greatest athletes were punishing their bodies in search of gold medals. Sir Alf Ramsey was there then, watching, probing, searching. He went to hotels, tasted food, explored training facilities and talked.”

Jones also correctly pre-empted the pace of the games in the searing heat of Mexico: “Running will have to be restricted and it will become a matter of precise judgement. If the ball is carelessly given away then England will find themselves in trouble. The order will be for no unnecessary effort and the tempo will be slowed down in an attempt to conserve energy.”

Harry Miller explored the rigorous preparations further still in his feature titled ‘Be Prepared’: “Players will be examined daily to see how much sun they have absorbed. There will also be regular checks on feet and a careful watch on diet.”

He went on: “Each player is being issued with two special pairs of sun-glasses [sic]. If you have colour television and expect to see England in a change strip of red - the colour worn when they beat West Germany in the 1966 World Cup Final - forget it! England will wear sky-blue when they are unable to play in traditional white. It has been found to absorb less heat.”

While there was ample pictorial evidence of the players receiving their inoculations, Harry Miller also discussed the important subject of how the squad would avoid boredom during their stay in Mexico: “A variety of indoor games, darts, draughts, feature films and the inevitable playing cards should help.” The Playstation Era this was not...

Further on, a brief description of each group in the tournament was provided although little was learned from each of these mini profiles. In the case of Group 2, a particularly bad prediction was made as the Italians, so it was said “will display the most brilliant football but their suspect temperament could well see the solid defensive play of the composed Swedes pipping them for the second qualifying place.” That’ll be the Italians that reached the Final, no doubt...

The Daily Mirror flooded each page of its guide to the World Cup with many photographs, all of them adding interest to the piece, with some having a curious novelty value. ‘The Magnificient Seven’ showed England’s Leeds United contingent wearing suits while ‘My World Cup’ looked like an easy excuse to show Bobby Moore’s then wife Tina in an England shirt. “Women’s rights are not part of the England soccer scene” said the caption, “but you have to admit Mrs Tina Moore shows pretty good form in Bobby’s international shirt.”

After the visual pleasantries that headed the feature, Frank McGhee took three pages to discuss pretty much every single decent team and player he’d ever seen in a World Cup. Throughout this huge indulgence, it was actually his opening gambit that was the most interesting to read. In it, he referred to Joao Saldanha, coach of the Brazilian team, whose views on the future of the tournament were somewhat gloomy in nature.

“He feels it will be killed eventually, maybe even during the coming decade, by the surfeit of national feelings and international troubles that affect it and which will in time sicken die hard fans and football associations of the competing nations” said McGhee. “And he insists that he won’t be sorry to see it disappear, to be replaced at the game’s grass roots by competition between clubs in which anthems and flags and patriotic drum-beating will be out of place.” Thought-provoking stuff.

At the back end of the Daily Mirror’s fine World Cup guide, Derek Wallis looked at ‘The Outsiders’ and wondered whether the likes of Israel, El Salvador or Morocco could repeat the achievements of North Korea four years earlier (they wouldn't), while Tony Cornell told us all about the efforts the BBC and ITV were making in preparing for the forthcoming televisual festival.

But this review ends with the back page feature focusing on the qualifying results that made up ‘The Road To Mexico.’ Before you ask, though, it wasn't the results that caught my eye - more the picture at the top of the page. It shows the draw being made for the 1970 World Cup Finals, and in particular one man holding aloft a piece of paper showing the name ‘Italy.’

Where these days team names are printed onto beautifully woven pieces of silk or elaborately decorated paper, back then the names of the teams were scrawled on by hand with a pen, and not particularly neatly either.

For that reason and that reason alone, we salute football’s ‘good old days’ and give thanks for this special Daily Mirror commemorative guide.

Panini: Got, Got, AAAARGH! 2

Last year we took a look at Panini's stranger offerings and if there's one thing we've learned in life, it's that a sequel is always a good thing...so let's take another journey into Panini's dark side with Panini - Got, Got, AAAARGH! 2

Speaking of the dark side, ever wondered what Darth Vader looks like on a day off? Wonder no more for here we see the Sith lord, just about to embark on a  morning run...I'm guessing this was just before the Emperor came to check on the progress of the 2nd Death Star as he does look somewhat tense...

Sticking with the theme of film references, imagine Brad Pitt is rehearsing for the final scenes of the film Se7en, where the cardboard box is delivered to that remote location and Morgan Freeman's character opens it, recoils in disgust and urges his colleague not to look.

Anyone who's seen that film , knows full well that he does indeed take a sneaky peek at the contents. It's rumoured that to prepare for that moment, to truly capture the sickening horror of what his eyes would fall upon, Mr Pitt used this image as inspiration...this is a face that has seen things...horrible things...worse than Mrs. Brown's Boys!

And speaking of seeing things (can I keep these links up? Let's see...), remember those photos you'd get on programmes like Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World, where someone had taken a picture of their friend or relative, but when the film was developed, there was someone in the background who they swear wasn't there when it was taken?  Well it happens to famous people too...here we see the great Johan Cruyff...but who's that behind him?
"That irashcible fellow washn't dere a minute ago", swore the Dutch legend.
Spooky!

Last movie reference for you now..."Regardez, sur la gauche, c'est le monstre de Frankenstein"

And on the right...OK, Mr. Potato Head, we're ready for your close up!  Honestly, we've seen terrible examples of bad head planting before (Robbie Fowler being the perfect example), but at least they usually get the size of the head right!

I can think of several possible explanations for this travesty:

• A balloon with his face on floated in front of the camera just as the picture was taken.
• He'd been auditioning for Shrek 5 that morning and hadn't had time to unswell his head.
• Eduardo was the inspiration for the Corinthian line of toys...never saw a penny though!

Some little known facts about the 1970 World Cup now...

The Brazil team all had to receive a blow to the stomach, just before their photo was taken...

...and El Salvador, following a shortage of available players, were allowed to field blow up dolls...




Finally, for the 1974 World Cup, West Germany was determined to escape its not so distant past and banish any ideas of racial stereotyping.

Panini however, were on hand to royally f*** that up for them...

Yes people...this happened...in 1974...

Official Programme of the 1970 World Cup

A cheery red cover invites you to thumb through the 66 pages of this souvenir programme created as a guide to the 1970 World Cup. Priced at just six shillings (or 30p for any Brits harbouring decimal thoughts a year ahead of their time), this was the official handbook guaranteed to help you get the most out of the FIFA’s ninth global tournament.


Or at least two-thirds of it was. Some 23 pages were set aside for adverts, thus proving that rampant commercialism isn’t as new as you think. But what adverts – some for official partners like British Leyland (England’s coach providers), some for popular brands of the day like Mobil oil, and some for utterly random items like Action Man dolls (complete with sporting outfits, mark you). Even the Esso 1970 World Cup Coin Collection gets a look in.

But never mind that, I hear you cry – what sort of useful information could I find inside such an august publication? Well once we’ve been informed who makes up the World Cup Organising Committee, we’re given a short history of the competition translated into four languages. Throughout the programme, everything’s available in English, French, Spanish and German and printed in black, blue, pink and black again respectively.

After that, there are details about the previous tournaments, the qualifying results for the 1970 Finals and the ever-useful fixture list for the sixteen teams taking part.

Then it’s onto an illustrated profile of those teams and the stadia they were due to play in. Taking one group at a time, we get a black and white photograph of each venue plus a line up for each squad with monochrome images of six of the players.

Here we realise the limitations brought about by a lack of colour – and the lack of a photographer. The harsh Mexican sunlight means the likes of V Pereda and I Calderon are shown half-and-half in extreme brightness and shadow. The Swedish players look like they’ve had their photos taken at the local police station, while Bulgaria’s finest appear so dim and grainy as to be barely identifiable at all.

Yet it’s the Czechoslovakian team that causes most concern. Their team are depicted not photographically but as a series of paintings the like of which wouldn’t look out of place in the waiting room of a mental institution. Whether the budget ran out to pay for a measly six photos at the headquarters of the Czech FA we’re not quite sure, but it’s safe to say even an 80-year-old Spanish woman could have done a better job than this.

Finally at the back, there are pages where you can fill in all the scores of the matches as the tournament progresses plus the player line-ups for the two competing finalists. All in all, a curious mix of content which, it could be said, lacked the excitement brought about by Pele, Banks and their ilk, but nonetheless tried valiantly to build on the success of the previous tournament four years before.

The Scoreboard: A display of practicality

I’m embarrassed to say it, but I used to have a bit of a thing about scoreboards when I was younger. Stadium scoreboards, game show scoreboards, cricket scoreboards… you name it, I loved it.

There was something about those static signs  with changeable numbers that had me transfixed as a kid. If someone scored a point in a football match or on a TV quiz show, I’d wait with eager anticipation to see the scoreboard update the total, be it manually or digitally. It’s ridiculous, I know, but I loved the magisterial sense of purpose that a scoreboard possessed.

This blog doesn’t take TV nostalgia as its subject, else you’d be spending the next 15 minutes reading about It’s a Knockout or Family Fortunes. Instead I shall turn my attention towards the humble football scoreboard, and they don’t come much humbler than the one installed at Wembley Stadium around the time of the 1966 World Cup.

Essentially this was a single-line display showing the two competing teams and the score. Being very much old-tech, the scoreboard was literally just a printed  or painted sign with white characters on a black background along with those all important changeable numbers. And those numbers needed some effort to change as the full set were available as individual tiles that had to be lugged around and slotted into place by a couple of men in white coats whenever anyone scored. It was simple, but it worked.

After a while, Wembley put in place an electronic scoreboard which, compared to its predecessor must have seemed like it had arrived from another planet. Using a vast array of light bulbs switched on and off in distinct configurations, rudimentary characters could shine out from the inky black background to tell the crowd what the score was and also who had scored. Such electrical wizardry can't have been lost on a generation eager to see technological advancements improving their game-viewing experience.

Around the UK, scoreboards of all kinds had appeared at football grounds right from the very early days but they never really had the 'wow' factor, nor did they become a universal feature. Scoreboards (old-fashioned or new) were high-maintenance and often expensive so only the most committed clubs went out of their way to get one.

Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough ground got an electronic one around the time of the 1966 World Cup, but like so many of their day, it had its faults. Blown bulbs and faulty mechanisms meant text was displayed with letters missing or even shown on a different area of the scoreboard. After a while, fans got used to the garbled messages and even grew to like them as a distraction from the action taking place on the pitch.

Fully digital scoreboards like Wednesday's were slow to make an impact and venues hesitantly looked for a compromise. Despite the 1970's beginning on the crest of a scientific NASA wave, the greatest tournament on the planet was still relying on name cards and a handful of bulbs to tell people what they needed to know. If it wasn't for the opportunity to raise some money from the advertising space it provided, many scoreboards probably wouldn't have even seen the light of day.

In the end, our first sight of a new-age scoreboard didn't arrive in England or South America, but from the one place most people least expected it. Over in the United States, the occasional blown bulb wasn't going to stop NASL clubs making a song and dance about the new-found sport they were purveying.

With players like Franz Beckenbauer, George Best and Pele in town, fans needed to be reminded about the razzmatazz they were witnessing, or at least reminded who it was they were watching.

In addition to the basic electronic scoreboards already resident at some NFL and baseball stadia, bigger, more advanced displays cropped up at a small selection clubs across the country. Many of them not only displayed the score and scorers but also entertained the fans with animated imagery and messages.

With such extravagance creeping into the world game, it was hardly surprising that Subbuteo updated their own scoreboard accessory to a more modern version in 1978. The World Cup that year reinforced the notion (at Buenos Aires at least) that a new technological age had dawned, yet actually the rate of progress was still painfully slow. Even in Spain four years later, the old hand-painted name plates and tiles were still being used.

It would ultimately be up to the major stadia of the world to lead the way where modern scoreboards were concerned. At seemingly every major Cup Final on every continent of the world, scores and scorers were illuminated for ticket-paying supporters with great efficiency and clarity. Huge matrices arrived to give displays better clarity and definition, to say nothing of bigger text. Yet just as soon as they'd reached the peak they were always destined for, traditional scoreboards were starting to see the writing on the wall. (Or should that be 'board'?)

By the mid-1990's, Sony's Jumbrotron system was appearing at some of the world's major musical and sporting events, affording spectators the chance to see real-time video on enormous screens. The ability to provide people not just with text-based information but moving pictures and action replays left the traditional scoreboard looking rather old-fashioned and redundant all of a sudden. Even down-at-heel football clubs across the UK saw the potential to attract fans, even if it meant snapping up cruder, cheaper versions of Sony's big screen.

And so we find ourselves in 2012, an age where virtually every Premier League ground seems to have a big video screen tucked away in at least one corner of the ground. For all that, however, some clubs have remained true to the old virtues, believing that a simple scoreboard should not be a big distraction to the things happening on the pitch. Therein lies hope for the future - a reminder that sometimes we can learn a lot from the things we learned in the past. Video screens are all well and good, but the scoreboards of days gone by told us exactly what we needed to know in a beautifully simple way.

Rich J's Top 5...World Cup Posters

Following on from Chris' Favourite 5 Tournament Logos article, I was going to do my usual thing and follow it up with my own top five, but then I decided to go off at a slight tangent and instead go for my Top 5 Official World Cup Posters.

I've often found with World Cups that the official posters tend to disappear into the background and usually ones featuring the mascot or variations on the logo tend to take prominence. An example of this would be Italia 90. We all remember the blocky stick man logo and he was all over the posters, but does anyone remember this?

Well I didn't...

If you want to see the full range of posters, you can view them here where you can marvel at just how crappy they've become in recent years. Seriously, anything since 1990 is watered down, focus grouped, corporate bilge.

So, for the first time in any article I've written about the World Cup, I'll not be including anything from any tournaments I actually watched at the time... yep, not even Mexico 86 gets a look in.


1.  Mexico 70

We really hit the ground running here! Minimal design but oozing cool, the sheer confidence and arrogance of this poster just smacks you upside the head and makes you its bitch.

Following the timeline of WC posters, there's a clear shift in direction with this one as all previous posters had been very business like and conveyed the seriousness of the occasion. Mexico 70 kicks down the door, traces of white powder gracing its upper lip, gun hanging loosely by its side, flanked by groupies and just dares you to question its pink attire.

I'm Mexico 70, I'm wearing pink. Now you're all gonna wear pink. And we do...

Oh yeah... and that font. That font is the Mac Daddy!


2. Argentina 78

If Mexico 70 was the dealer, Argentina 78 has clearly been enjoying the fruits of its produce.

Here we meet Argentina 78 at a club in New York just approaching closing time. The DJ has just started spinning Gloria Gaynor and it's happy hour all over again!

Following the new arty direction provided by Mexico 70 and West Germany 74 (despite its sombre appearance, there's definite free-form art at play), Argentina 78 perfectly captures the explosion and batshit insane atmosphere of that tournament. The sensible font stands aside to let the joyous, moustachioed protagonists take centre stage. Even the logo appears to be a wallflower at this dance, confined like a shy teen to the dark corners of the dance floor.

It'd be nice to think this level of joy was real and not in any way Junta induced, but one can't help think the smile of no.8 disappeared once his back was to camera.


3. Uruguay 1930 

From the ridiculous to the... slightly less trippy. The first World Cup was held in 1930 and this fantastic Art Deco number couldn't capture that era more perfectly if it tried.

One can't look at this poster without hearing the Charleston, a dance which even the arrow on the left appears to be getting down to. In fact, what is that arrow even doing there? Who cares? The Great Depression has just started and we just wanna dance our worries away!

From the elongated, hex-headed keeper, caught here mid-save (ah, but is that Uruguay's or Argentina's ball?) to the dynamic font, this is a classy piece of work and provides a bucket load of excitement for a brand new football tournament! Perfecto!



4. France 1938

This is the most serious looking of my top five, but also the most elegant.

What looks like a munitions factory worker from a WWII poster (foreshadowing?) standing atop the world, foot resting on the ball, confident in the bagginess of his shorts (foreshadowing Euro 2012 this time!) this poster is all about serenity and occasion.

This is the 1938 World Cup and this is big. And that's all you need to know. Whereas the first two posters felt inclined to impart secondary information (start date, final host city etc), this one just tells you what you need to know. Time and Place. Be there, or be... well, England?

One interesting point to note... despite the tournament being held in France, the globe doesn't seem to want to show you where that is. One could imagine this point being raised at some point followed by the inevitable Gallic shrug before the proof went off to the printers.

Ah, you know what, I've just looked again and of course, the ball is sitting in France...
Poster Designers 1 - 0 Idiot Blogger.


5. Spain 1982

ESPANAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!


This is like one of those psychiatric ink blot tests. What can you see? I can see what seems to be a snail, balanced on the head of an unhappy dog, who appears to be sniffing the behind of a Toucan being attacked by a fish. Am I sane doc? Am I SANE???? I don't think I can make sense of anything anymore.

The best part of this poster is the designer appears to have been given the brief, "Drop acid and just paint whatever you see... oh and I think it's about a World Cup or something... probably mention it somewhere on there, but mostly just get ripped to the tits!'

SPAIN 82! F*** YEAH!!!!

TV Times: 1970 World Cup preview

Many England fans of a particular vintage rightly look back on the 1966 World Cup as a high water mark in all their time supporting the national team. What's easy to forget, however, is that the following World Cup was the one that had everyone talking. England entered the 1970 World Cup as champions and no-one could fail to get caught up in all the hullabaloo that was generated.

Sir Alf Ramsey's team flew out to Mexico to defend their title and back home it seemed like everyone was intent on watching every moment of what would surely be another successful tournament. For the first time ever, the World Cup was broadcast in colour and an appreciative UK public settled down in eager anticipation to watch events as they panned out.

Getting the women onside

To fan the flames of such widespread interest in the competition, the TV Times launched it's special preview issue on the week of 30 May to 5 June (price - ninepence). Headlined How to Survive the World Cup, the magazine took a unique approach by siding with the UK's female population who, it figured, would soon be bored with the welter of football coverage hitting their screens in the coming weeks.

The front cover was a vivid green, save for the white-bedecked curves of Trisha Noble - an Australian singer well known to British music lovers at the time. Male football fans probably would have bought a TV listings magazine anyway back in the middle of 1970, but having such a tempting feminine form on the cover no doubt would have made it an absolute certainty.

And exactly how would the TV Times provide women with the means to survive the 1970 World Cup, you ask? Why with knitting, of course! Don't you remember? Everyone was knitting back then, or so the TV Times would have you believe. Knit Yourself a World Cup Woolly was the feature if you wanted to look like Peter Bonetti and family. Quite why anyone had woollen sweaters in mind when the average daytime temperature in early June was somewhere in the region of 23 degrees C is beyond me, but there it is. As for his daughter Suzanne and her knitted two-piece 'suit', the least said about that, the better...

Clickety-click

It wasn't just knitting that the TV Times could offer women, though. There was also Bingo! Yes, the average British female in 1970 was barely breaking into three dimensions with such predictable interests, in fact the only thing missing from this issue was a guide on 'How to Make Three Square Meals a Day For Your Husband.'

Anyway, the Bingo game in question was brilliantly contrived in nature. Printed on page 5 of the magazine was a Bingo card, onto which women were invited to write the names of their four dishiest players from the first week of the competition. If those four players matched up with those chosen by Trisha Noble, Kathie Webber (resident cook) and Gabrielle Drake (actress and future Crossroads stalwart), the lucky entrant could win £4,000. Failing that, the man of the house could also enter by predicting the names of that week's Best Player, the scorer of the Best Goal, Best Goalkeeper and Most Sporting Player. With that last category in mind, aficionados won't take long to work out that Jimmy Hill was on the judging panel for this one.

The classic panel

Hill's judgement (along with that of Malcolm Allison, Derek Dougan, Pat Crerand and Brian Moore) would also serve its purpose for the feature Here Come The Soccer 'Oscars'. ITV Sport's crack band of experts would be giving out awards after the World Cup to those players it thought were best throughout. TV Times even looked back four years to see who might have won the same awards in 1966.

Elsewhere, Peter Farley explained the complicated process by which coverage of the World Cup in Mexico would reach our shores in When a Football Bounces 5,500 Miles. Apparently it's got something to do with Goonhilly, a bunch of satellites and an 84-foot wide dish on a mountain outside Mexico City. Perhaps that's what they meant earlier when they were talking about the World Cup's Dishiest Players...

Soccer with the stars

And this being a celebrity-orientated magazine, there was also the obligatory feature telling us How The Stars Will Watch. Michael Parkinson's wife Mary was apparently going spare with all the wallcharts and other ephemera littering the family home. "The house looks like the Aztec Stadium" she said in a not-at-all-written-on-her-behalf quote. Bernard Youens - Coronation Street's Stan Ogden - meanwhile planned to put his feet up while supping a pint or two. 'England for the Sup!' said the TV Times, showing The Sun's headline writers the way long before their time.

Behind the mic

The only other thing we needed to find out was the make up of ITV's commentary team. Poor old Brian Moore had to forego a Mexican holiday in 1970. He was stationed at the ITV studios in London throughout. Luckier, however, was Hugh Johns (ATV), Gerry Harrison (Anglia), Gerald Sinstadt (Granada), Roger Malone (HTV) and none other than the former England international and ATV Head of Sport, Billy Wright.

Johns, we learned, had spent two months compiling a World Cup dossier beforehand. Sinstadt would be in Leon while his wife was giving birth to their first child. Harrison had been doing keep-fit exercises to ensure he stood the pace. Malone, however, was looking forward to celebrating his 37th birthday after the opening match had taken place. It's not difficult to see who the slacker was in the ITV commentary team, is it?

On the box

Finally, what else was on ITV during the opening week of the 1970 World Cup? Well to begin with, Saturday afternoon featured the iconic World of Sport, introduced by Richard Davies, whoever he is. The same evening you could settle down to watch The Des O'Connor Show with guest star Val Doonican and Jack 'Waa-haay!' Douglas.

At 4.15 on Sunday afternoon there was Bob Monkhouse and The Golden Shot which had one of those did-I-read-that-right line-ups of Tommy Trinder, Anita Harris and Status Quo. Later in the week, you could also feast your eyes on Hawaii Five-O, Doctor In The House and the Benny Hill silent one-off, Eddie In August. Well they were hardly going to put their best programmes on during a World Cup, were they?