Soccer Revolution - A Football Forecast from the Fifties

The Football Attic welcomes a new guest writer in the form of Dominic Bliss, editor of the excellent blog, The Inside Left. Here, Dominic tells us how he discovered an old football book that deals with some very modern-day issues...

My girlfriend originally hails from a beautiful Cotswolds village called Willersey, which I look forward to visiting every time we get the opportunity to pay a call on her family. It has sandstone houses, a village pond, two local pubs (where people really know each other) and a red telephone box.

But clichés aside, the area has always struck me as a wonderful place to live, except for one thing – the near-total apathy towards football that pervades there. I can’t recall how many times I have rushed to a Gloucestershire pub to catch kick-off, only to find the TV tuned into a presumably crucial racing card or a one-day county cricket match.

16 Pages of Plates? Awesome!

Unfortunately, I’m one of those people who often get erroneously described as a ‘mad sports fan’ by distant relatives when I’m only really bothered about football. It makes for awkward conversations that begin with questions like ‘What about the rugby then?’ or ‘Who won the grand prix?’ and end with me shrugging like Alan Partridge being introduced to the new BBC current affairs editor.

So it was a surprise for me – a brilliant, proper smile-inducing surprise – when, on a stroll around the picturesque town of Stow-on-the-Wold, I stumbled across a small selection of old football publications in a dusty, perfectly disorganised bookshop in a cobbled side street (Evergreen Livres, since you ask).


“We don’t get much interest in our football section here,” the owner told me, barely audible above the cricket commentary emanating from the radio set on the cabinet behind his head. Nevertheless, he went on to talk about his side, Blackpool, with me for a few minutes as I paid for a couple of musty gems. The first, a 1958 copy of Brian Glanville’s classic, World Cup, co-written with Jerry Weinstein, and the other a 1955 edition of Willy Meisl’s Soccer Revolution, a truly insightful book about the rise and rise of the game overseas at the expense of the unimaginative English, that is as relevant now as it was when he penned it in the mid-part of last century. As a geek of all things historical and football-related, I was grabbed by this book in particular and I have since discovered why it is considered a bit of a cult classic.

Settling down in a nearby pub – one with an outdoor toilet and dimpled, handled pint glasses – I stepped over the dog lying by the fire and started to leaf through the book, written by the younger brother of the ‘Godfather’ of Austrian football, Hugo Meisl, who had been coach of that nation’s great ‘Wonder Team’ of the late 1920s and early 1930s.

That title is rather prescient...

Meisl the younger was resident in England and determined to see his adopted home restored to its former footballing greatness following some major setbacks, not least twin defeats to Hungary (3-6 and 1-7) in 1953 and 1954 - the first, at Wembley, representing our country’s first defeat on home shores.

But this article is not simply meant as the diary entry of a football anorak (although it could probably be read as one). Regularly, within this critical analysis of the state of the English game in the mid-Fifties, I discovered observations seemingly so ahead of their time it astounded me. Here was an Austrian discussing the scourge of diving, feigning injury and time-wasting in English football. Yet received football wisdom tells us that diving has somehow ‘crept into our game’ along with the ‘influx of foreign stars’ over the last decade or two.

Apparently not, for in one instance Meisl comments that he is “yet to see a referee give marching orders to a soccer criminal in a ‘faint’”, going on to say: “Only the best [referees] deny him a penalty when his acting deserves some tangible reward. Many an actor, and I am not thinking of hams, could learn how ‘to die’ impressively on the stage by watching some soccer stars who have perfected this art.”

Remember this is a commentary based largely on English club football in 1955, fully 35 years before Italia ’90 and all the subsequent incidents of ‘continental gamesmanship’ that apparently dragged our wholesome game down with theirs. It got me thinking, we must have a serious nostalgia - or xenophobia - issue in our attitude towards the dark arts within football.

Either that or Meisl was mistaken about what country he had seen these incidents occur in? Surely that was more likely. After all, how could play-acting have been commonplace in a nation where crowds of supporters are regularly heard calling for someone to drag the latest (presumably imported) writhing ‘prima donna’ off the pitch so the ‘real men’ can get on with the game? Well, once again, Meisl was there before me, recalling how the pesky foreigners had once again shown us the way forward on that score.

“We all have seen the player with a bleeding nose, or just rubbing his back or thigh, a few yards, often literally one step, from the goal-line,” quips the former Austrian international later. “He just has to signal to the ref, step over the line, and will receive treatment without disturbing the game. That never happens here. It is not allowed to happen. The referee beckons the trainer on to the field, who comes running on swinging what we call his ‘magic sponge’.

“Why we need such a complicated health service when we can see every Saturday how a simple wet sponge cures the most terrible ills in a jiffy (compared with the weeks that similar cures take in hospitals or clinics) is difficult to grasp,” he goes on, tongue now firmly inside his brilliantly Fifties cheek.

“The trainer takes his man in hand, but does not take him off the field, oh no! We are in for a hurried session of treatment taking anything from one to five minutes. Then the player usually continues none the worse for his accident, often considerably refreshed.”

Meisl also airs his frustrations at the inadequacies of injury time and those occasions when it has cost teams dear; he even dedicates a page or two to the pros and cons of the ‘new ball’. I’m sure he also saw complaints about balls crossing goal-lines without a goal being given but that’s pure conjecture on my part.
The point is this: football was never perfect and nor were footballers, formations, the laws or the way any of the above were implemented. The value of the win, and what lengths it is acceptable to go to in order to achieve it, has always been interpreted differently from man to man. But the country you play your football in does not make you dive or tackle harder, it is sheer folly to assume it would do, and back in 1955 at least one learned spectator was already making those points. What it can do, however, is imbue into players a certain culture – just look at the enduring system of play at Barcelona, benefiting the Spanish national side so much at the moment, or the long list of legendary Brazilian dribblers. But these are forms of play, not behaviour.

The latter is something more likely to be governed by personal circumstance and choice – and to compare the on-pitch antics of a continental European, South American or African footballer with those of an Englishman is pointless and can lead only to prejudice. Some players will look to gain an advantage through any number of tricks or cons, while other players will not. But to assume nationality or some misplaced notion of ‘foreignness’ is behind this differentiation is, frankly, absurd.

Indeed, if these observations show us anything, it’s that the talking points of football either remain steady or are somehow cyclical, re-emerging whenever the latest trends touch a particular element of the game – whether it be new balls, new laws or new systems of play.

Perhaps Meisl’s most eerily prophetic points were made in assessing the mentality of English football and the influence this has on an ingrained culture of play that puts the emphasis on non-technical aspects of the game. Alluding to the inability of England internationals to play the same tidy series of short, accurate passes as the majority of their opponents at international level, the author points to the twin English mantras of ‘safety first’ and ‘speed at all costs’.

“After the war crowds began to yell: ‘Get rid of it!’ when a player tried to get the ball under control and do something sensible with it,” wrote Meisl, who might, in all honesty, have been commenting on the people surrounding me during any of England’s recent displays.

“Exceeding the ‘speed-limit’ as they were, the task of controlling the ball and taking stock of the situation was beyond most of them. The player took the crowd’s advice, and quickly got rid of the ball, but in two out of every three attempts it would go straight to an opponent or over the touchline. ‘But look how the game has speeded up!’ manager and fans could tell each other joyously. Speed at all costs!”’

Don’t misunderstand me, I realise the games Meisl was drawing his conclusions from were almost unrecognisable from the brand of football we are treated to these days. I also recognise that several of England’s players over the years have been at the same technical level as the best overseas ball players. But what is still contemporary in this 55-year-old work is the notion of an underlying English footballing mentality that seems stubbornly resistant to change.

Our thanks go to Dominic for this excellent guest post. If you'd like to share your nostalgia memories with us, get in touch. Just drop us a line to admin [at] thefootballattic [dot] com and we'll take it from there!

The News of the World Football Annual 1983/84

The arrival of the 1983/84 season prompted many to wonder how far football had fallen in recent times. The game had lost its allure and was in something of a tailspin but The News of the World Football Annual, through its anecdotal ponderings, acknowledged this for the ages and tried to offer some cause for hope at the start of a landmark campaign.

The season began with a new name for an old competition. The Football League was now known as the Canon League. According to the Annual, an announcement was made on May 5 1983 that a deal had been struck with the Japanese camera and business equipment maker to the tune of £3.2 million, lasting three years.


If that figure seems paltry compared to today’s big money deals, consider this. When shared out, Canon’s money ensured every First Division club would benefit by just £10,000 each. Considering Watford’s Luther Blissett had moved from Watford to AC Milan for £1 million during the summer of ’83, it really didn't seem like much at all. True, more money was distributed for the high achievers in the League, but even then the First Division champions would only get an additional £50,000. Even the winners of the Milk Cup could expect £64,000.

Fortunately, clubs could finally rely on a greater source of income from the new TV deal that had been thrashed out between the Football League (sorry – Canon League) and the two main broadcasters, BBC and ITV. Under the terms of the new agreement, ten live games would now be shown every season. Match of the Day would show five on Friday nights, while the other five would appear on The Big Match on Sunday afternoons. No club would appear in a live match more than once, although the usual weekend highlights would continue in their regular form on both channels.

According to the News of the World Football Annual 1983/84, the new TV deal wasn’t the fait accompli it may have at first seemed. The League were reluctant to allow live games to be shown for fear that it would discourage people from attending matches in person, while the broadcasters were hesitant about showing team shirts with sponsors logos on them. In the end a compromise was reached ensuring this would be the first season where shirt advertising was seen on our screens.

Elsewhere, further changes were being made to the game. For the first time in 1983/84, the Milk Cup Final would be played on a Sunday, and to ensure the pitch was in good condition (and provide an all-round facelift), a new 20-year £4 million contract had been signed by the FA and Wembley Stadium Ltd in May 1983.

Yet such talk of contracts and high finance masked the growing malaise creeping into the international game. In England, attendances for domestic games had plummeted by 1.24 million in the past year reaching their lowest total since the Second World War. Even across Europe, only eight countries had seen an increase in the number of fans passing through the turnstiles (Scotland being one, curiously).

International matches were suffering too. Within the pages of the Annual it’s noted that the British Championship match between England and Wales at Wembley in February 1983 saw the lowest attendance ever for an England match – just 24,000 paying to see a starting XI featuring such talent as Alan Devonshire, Derek Statham and Gary Mabbutt.



As for success on the pitch, things were little better as English clubs were finding their run of dominance in Europe seemingly at an end. The previous season had seen holders Aston Villa knocked out in the quarter finals of the European Cup by Juventus along with English champions Liverpool, beaten on aggregate by Polish side Widzew Lodz.

In the other competitions, the misery continued. In the Cup-Winners’ Cup, Tottenham had been eliminated by Bayern Munich in the Second Round while Arsenal, Ipswich, Manchester United and Southampton all fell at the first hurdle in the UEFA Cup. Perhaps the English clubs could turn to Scotland for inspiration what with Aberdeen winning the European Cup Winners Cup and Dundee United unexpectedly reaching the UEFA Cup quarter finals.

The times were certainly ‘a-changing according to the News of the World Football Annual 1983/84, not least because Liverpool, the biggest club in the country, were about to begin a new era under the managerial leadership of Joe Fagan. The 1982/83 campaign had ended with Bob Paisley retiring from the game after a nine-season run in which The Reds had picked up 20 major trophies. They were now faced with the task of trying to maintain their unprecedented success by once again promoting from within the Anfield boot room. No-one could be sure Fagan would be able to do so, but a look back at Paisley’s roll of honour would provide his team with ample inspiration for the coming season.

If Liverpool had one quality above all others it was the ability to score goals, yet amid a period of uncertainty and negativity, it was pleasing at least to be reminded of one final statistic from the 384-page pocket annual. The 1982/83 season had provided the highest number of goals across all four English divisions for 15 years, and which team stumped up with the most goals of all the 92 teams? Why Wimbledon, of course. The Division Four champions scored 96 in total - nine more than Liverpool.

Kevin Keegan's Soccer Annual 1977

By the time this annual had been published in 1976, the pastey-looking footballer on the front cover was well on his way to 100 top flight goals in England. Kevin Keegan was already something of a poster boy for young fans as a hot-shot striker for both Liverpool and his country, and this first of three eponymous annuals aimed to provide an insight into a blossoming football career.

Beyond the inviting full-colour cover were 96 pages, all printed in black and white. Quite how inviting that would have been to a young child unwrapping this book on Christmas morning one can only wonder, but the seemingly dull pages were surprisingly interesting to read - in fact quite the opposite of what you’d expect from a lightweight title.

The first feature is called ‘This Is My Life’ where Keegan tells us of his upbringing, his family and his introduction into football. We learn that he originally played in goal for his school teams, St Francis Xavier’s and latterly St Peter’s High, but was politely informed that the other kid vying for the role was probably better suited than him, what with being a full two-feet taller and all. It was then that he decided to try his hand at playing on the wing and with it, somewhere in Skegness, a young Ray Clemence could be heard to let out a notable sigh of relief.

We also discover that as a 16-year-old, Keegan signed on for Scunthorpe United, but after two years of learning his trade he admitted “I got a bit unsettled and fed up.” Luckily for the youngster, a move to Liverpool arrived in the week leading up to the 1971 FA Cup Final. Bill Shankly showed him around the ground, offered him £45 per week and Keegan, precocious to a tee, told his new boss he deserved more. After consultation with club secretary Peter Robinson, “Shanks came back and said: ‘OK son, we’ll make it £50’” Fortune favours the brave and all that, eh Kev?

In ‘For Club and Country’, Keegan described life in the England camp, but the main topic of conversation concerned a recent startling development that was set to revolutionise football in his home country. “It is only this season, 1976-77, that something has at last been done to provide England with the necessary time to prepare for matches.” He went on: “Now, under this new system, England manager Don Revie has a fair chance of taking on the rest of the world. Now we have a week to prepare for internationals instead of three or four days at the most…”  Whatever next? Two internationals in one week?

Keegan went on to talk about his favourite players – Bobby Moore, George Best and Franz Beckenbauer to name but three – along with his favourite coaches. “Bill Shankly was a great psychologist” he said, while his successor, Bob Paisley “knows the club and the game backwards.” As for his England bosses, Keegan happily labelled Sir Alf Ramsey “a gentleman” even though the Liverpool player failed to impress in the only two games he was given to play in. Caretaker boss Joe Mercer gave the striker more of a chance, playing in six of his seven games in charge, before Revie arrived to secure Keegan’s place in the team. “Don is my kind of manager” he said “and a man who cares for his players.”

The feature ‘My Greatest Team’ then follows where Keegan creates his fantasy team of the 12 best players he’s ever “played alongside, against or have watched – either on TV or in the flesh.” Not one to narrow down his options, we then see his final selection. Ooh look – there’s Bobby Moore, George Best and Franz Beckenbauer… now where have we seen those before?  As for the rest, it’s about as classic a line-up as you could want to see: Banks in goal, Pele up front with Cruyff, Eusebio and Gerd Muller and Giacinto Facchetti thrown in for a bit of much-needed imagination.

In ‘A Star Off Duty’ we learn what life is like for The Keegan Family, away from the hurly-burly of First Division football. We hear that the Anfield star had opted to live in a cottage near Mold in North Wales and that to take his mind off things, Keegan had developed a penchant for gypsy caravans. “When they started to pull down the slums in Doncaster, the gypsies moved onto the waste ground in their gaily coloured caravans. They had a really romantic look about them. I had been on the lookout for one for some time and, finally, I managed to buy one quite cheaply. It cost a bit to spruce it up and paint it, but it now stands on the land outside the house and I’m delighted with it.” Think of today’s overpaid footballers and one imagines much in the way of indulgence, but somehow the image of Mario Balotelli painting some fine detail on his own gypsy caravan in Manchester doesn’t seem likely somehow.

Practical advice follows in the form of ‘Six of the Best’ in which Kev gives budding players half a dozen tips on how to improve their game. In short, you’re advised to practice your one-twos, heading the ball, overhead kicks, running at speed, curling the ball and… heading the ball again, only this time to your team mate if they’ve got a better chance of scoring. There’s even a handy diagram in case you’re unsure which is the inside of the boot and which is the outside.

In ‘The Glamour and The Grit’, there’s more talk about the pressures of being a football superstar and all the hard work that helped Keegan to reach that point. It’s here that we find out why Keegan walked out of the England squad in 1974: “I thought I had done a good job for Don Revie in England’s games against Cyprus and Northern Ireland… Then I learned, from the team sheet, that I had been left out for the next game against Wales without any explanation from Don – and that’s what really hurt and made me sick.”

Keegan protested that he deserved to at least be told personally why he wasn’t in the squad but Revie’s impersonal approach left the player thinking about giving up on international football altogether. “Thank goodness the issue was sorted out” he said. “Don and I had a real heart to heart talk and the outcome is, I feel, that the bond between us has been strengthened.” Let’s face it: he paid you, didn’t he Kev? Come on – you can tell us…

Towards the end of the book, Keegan expressed his frustration at not playing for England in the 1974 World Cup, stating “I didn’t go to the Finals and I didn’t watch a single game on television. I’m not a good watcher.” On the subject of the 1978 World Cup, however, Kev had a suggestion. “I’d like to see the World Cup held more frequently than every four years. In my opinion, it’s too long and drawn out in its present form. The qualifying rounds seem to drag on and on. Four years is a long time to wait, not only for the sake of the interest in the tournament but also in respect of players.”

He continued: “I would suggest that the competition is streamlined, with the qualifying rounds simplified – Britain could use the Home Championship for this purpose – so that eight teams play in the Finals every two years instead of four.” Ah, sweet naïve Kevin… so much still left to learn about the harsh realities of life.

After a brief tour of his home club in ‘Anfield: The Liverpool Home’, the book ends with ‘Football and My Future’. This is where Keegan accepts the fact that ambition, or indeed market forces, may cause him and his family to move away from Liverpool FC. As it is, Keegan moved to Hamburg only six months after the book was published, but here he said: “I’ve had more than five great years with Liverpool and I’ve got another two and a half years of my contract at Anfield to run. When that is up, I will consider – and I mean consider – moving abroad.” With the benefit of hindsight, the decision was eventually made for him.

As for a career after football, journalism was already on Kev’s mind and he had his views on how that should be done best too. “I often read the columns and reports of ex-footballers and other sports personalities and much of their material goes over the head of the man in the street. Many phrases are immediately understood by the professional but not by the layman so if ever I did become a pressman that is one danger I would be wary of.”  Needless to say he stuck to his ideals when writing this book, and it’s all the better for it too.

The Football Grounds of Europe

Most people have a list of things they'd save in the event of a fire. I have three books on my list (which kind of suggests it's a long list...I mean, I have a cat and three kids, but then again, the kids aren't on the list, they're old enough to save themselves... and doing the maths, that means each child can carry one of the books! Result!). Anyway, the books...the first of these is 'Mexico 86 - A Pictorial Review' by Phil Soar and John Bone, a glorious hardback book covering the whole of that tournament in great detail. The 2nd is 'True Colours' by John Devlin and the third is the subject of this article.

Have you ever wondered what various football grounds around Europe looked like towards the end of the 1980s?  Hasn't everyone?  Luckily for you, the great Simon Inglis has this covered with the excellent Football Grounds of Europe, published just before the 1990 World Cup which, may I remind you, was 22 (twenty-two) years ago!



As I have already confessed, I have an obsession with football stadiums (Stadia? Apparently both are acceptable) and as mentioned in that review, it's fascinating to see how much has changed in the intervening years. For example, 22 years ago, the Stadio Delle Alpi didn't exist, whereas now... oh right... bad example.

The Delle Apli Roof...sadly, no longer with us

The book starts with a brief introduction, before covering in depth, the stadia that were to be used for Italia 90. As it was written whilst most of these were mid (re)construction, it's somewhat a shame none of the pictures are of the completed venues, though given the ease with which one could find such info on the internet, it's perhaps a blessing that we instead get to see them before they became what they are today (or in the case of the Delle Alpi, what they were up until a few years ago). One point of note in the intro is FIFA's criteria for World Cup stadia - a minimum capacity of 80,000 (3/4 covered) for the opening and final games and at least 40,000 with the main stand covered for all other matches. I purchased this book in October 1994 which meant the World Cup had just been staged in the US where the rules about covered seating seem to have been put aside.

Stadium Porn...

On to the stadiums and up first is the stadium that started my obsession, the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza - more commonly known as Milan's San Siro. This beast of a place, the ultimate in brutalist and modernist architecture, the Lloyds building of football stadia first captured my attention during the opening match of the 1990 World Cup. Just home from school on that friday, ITV's fantastic opening titles, 'Tutti Al Mondo' (suck it, Pavarotti!) make way for my first ever glimpse of this marvel. Gigantic red beams suspending a massive roof over a sheer maze of lines, it remains to this day, in one's humble opinion, one of the most striking sights, not only in modern stadium design but in architecture as a whole.

As previously mentioned, as it was under construction at the time, there are no pictures of the completed roof, however that does mean we are treated to a view from inside the ground, several beams in place, but with a long way to go; the giant yellow cranes, later sold to a Japanese shipbuilder, looming over the extended third tier.

Brutal Beauty in the making

As with every stadium covered in detail in the book, the ground is given a comprehensive history and in the case of the 1990 World Cup venues, a lot of detail is presented on the trials and tribulations that went into their construction / redevelopment. The Luigi Ferraris stadium in Genoa (another of my favourites) seems to have gone through its fair share of hassle, ranging from over-reflective security screens that blinded spectators to having to purchase extra buildings in order to be able to build a second tier on one side.

A stadium of two halves...sorry...

I do think the timing of this book was perfect as Italia 90 was perhaps the first tournament to see such modern, inspiring designs used so widely and had it been written at any other point in time I feel such interesting stories would perhaps have never seen the light of day. You can read about them all on Wikipedia, but the little details aren't there and it's these gems of info that truly make this a great book.

A perfect example of this is that, as Genoa's ground was completed in two halves (split right down the length of the pitch), by the time the second half was completed, the first was already covered in graffiti - a situation lamented by the author as it meant the ground was never pristine. Again at Genoa, the second tier originally had holes in the floor to let light through, but the crowd assumed these were to dispose of litter, much to the chagrin of those in the tier below. The book is full of this kind of exhaustive research and is one of the many reasons reading it even now for what must be the 100th time, is still a joy.

I could spend all day on the grounds of Italy, however I shall move on after one last item of note. The magnificent, yet ultimately flawed Stadio Delle Alpi is never referred to as such in the book: at the time it was known merely as the Nuovo Comunale.

From Italy we move to Austria for a short stop off. The Weiner (Prater to the locals, Ernst-Happel to the modern world) stadium is covered in detail, however it's the home of SK Rapid Vienna that provides yet another Inglis ingot (sorry). While fans may currently be captivated / increasingly irritated by the 'Poznan' goal celebration (hey, welcome to 1961!), Simon treats us to the story of the Rapid Viertelstunde, a.k.a. the Rapid Quarter Hour, "a sustained period of handclapping the fans have traditionally used to stir the team's recovery from lost causes."

On the move again and next we pay a visit to Belgium and inevitably to Heysel. When the book was written, the ground had not yet been redeveloped into the current King Baudouin Stadium and looks exactly as it had done in 1985. The disaster and the aftermath is covered and Simon makes the point that, at the time, there seems to have been a desire to try and forget what happened there, with the infamous Block Z wall that collapsed rebuilt exactly as it was before and no form of memorial at the ground at all. It was only 20 years afterwards that a memorial was finally placed at the new stadium.

Soon after we've left Belgium we land in yet another reminder of a world from the past.. .a country known as Czechoslovakia. This is another reason this book is a true football classic as it contains football grounds from the aforementioned Czech Republic / Slovakia as well as Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and East and West Germany. In the short space of time between this book being published and me buying it, all of these places had ceased to exist and had in fact created 23 new nations.

Questionable murals...

Another ground that is no longer around greets us as we land in Denmark at the Idrætsparken, now completely rebuilt and known more simply as the Parken. The most stunning feature of the old ground was the roof of the main stand, or rather the underside of it. A painting competition was held by the Hydro Oil Company in 1985 and the prize was to have the winner's submitted artwork re-created on a gigantic scale, covering the underside of the main stand roof. The winner was 9-year-old Michael Jorgensens and his piece was indeed enlarged several hundred times and adorned the roof. From the picture, you can see it didn't exactly show up very well and, frankly, it makes you wonder what the quality of the entries (over 13,000 of them!) was like if that was the winner. Sorry Michael.

Give it 30 years...

Moving through the rest of Europe, it becomes very apparent just how many stadiums have either been redeveloped, rebuilt or consigned to history and it's probably easier to count those which haven't changed at all compared with those that have. While this may sound like an obvious point given the sweeping changes that have taken place at football grounds in this country since the Taylor Report, when you look at how many grounds had changed much in the 20 year period prior to the book's publication, the rate of change in the last two decades has been unprecedented. One point that is repeatedly made throughout the book is how far behind Britain had been in stadium design. While concrete cantilevers made their debut in the 1930's in places such as Florence's Stadio Comunale, Britain remained hopelessly in love with the column for a good 30 years. Can you imagine a situation now whereby Britain's grounds were only just beginning to adopt design ideas seen abroad in 1980?

Camp Nou in 1989...or is it 2012?

Large sections are granted to France, Spain, West Germany and the Soviet Union and even in those countries which had only recently held tournaments (Spain in '82, West Germany in '74) and had therefore only just had large redevelopment programmes, most of the grounds shown have still changed significantly.  One notable exception to this is Barca's Camp Nou, which, aside from additional seating replacing standing areas, looks exactly the same in 1989 as it does today.

The final chapter covers the four main stadiums in the former Yugoslavia, one of which - the Maksimir, then known as Stadion Dinamo - was set to be the stage for a huge riot between the mostly Croat fans of Dinamo Zagreb and the mainly Serbian Red Star Belgrade, which left over 60 people injured. The larger ramifications of this day, however, played out over the next few years as the region fell into a bloody civil war and this riot is seen symbolically by some as the start of those hostilities.

Overall, The Football Grounds of Europe is a truly great publication and one which should be in every football fan's collection as, even if you have no particular interest in the grounds themselves, the stories and history encompassed within its pages are reason enough to buy a copy. One can only hope that one day, Mr. Inglis might recreate his journey for a FGOE 2 for, while info and pictures of any European stadium is now just a click away, the detail and love of the subject he brings is something not easily found elsewhere.

You know, going back to that fire thing... these days I could probably get most of these off eBay... in which case the kids can go fetch some more of my football shirts. Hurry children, the smoke is thickening!