| Product: |
All Played Out - Pete Davies |
| Date: |
19/12/00 (529 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Real insights into the workings of the World Cup and the England team
Disadvantages: No matter how many times you read it, we still don't beat the Germans!
Published way back in 1991, long before Nick Hornby appeared on the scene and magically transformed football into an fashionable subject, this excellent book offers a glimpse of what it was like to be part of English football’s finest hour since the World Cup triumph of 1966.
Pete Davies is given what would now be regarded as unprecedented access to the England camp – he is free to talk to any of the players who are willing to give him an interview, a state of affairs that would certainly not come about now... and his story highlights many of the reasons why today’s players seem so reluctant to trust the press, whether the reporters work for the tabloids or the more ‘respectable’ broadsheets. The Italia 90 qualification campaign saw the start of the hysterical journalism that was to hound Graham Taylor out of a job, and the holier-than-thou reporters who accompany England abroad are (in the main) shown to be philandering boozers who will stop at nothing, not even betraying confidences and publishing manifestly untruthful stories, in their quest for an exclusive.
Davies does not include himself in their number, and he is certainly not accepted by the hacks, which makes reading this book a very solitary experience indeed. He is shunned by other pressmen, not trusted by many of the players (despite the fact that several of them are happy to take newspaper money for ghost-written columns) and avoided like the plague by some supporters whose views he would like to canvas, for the simple reason that the press managed to convert a largely-trouble free England presence in Italy into a raging, drunken mob.
Of course, there were ugly scenes during the tournament, but whereas many would have you believe that it was solely the English fans who were to blame, Davies argues that the nasty events sprang from a combination of ignorance on both sides, extremely heavy-handed and panicky policing that led to confrontation, and l
ocal hostility – and of course, the followers of other sides in the tournament were no angels. However, the revelation that reporters were seen offering Englishmen in local bars money to start fights makes you wonder how much of what was written was really true...
Davies is always at pains to point out that the majority of England fans enjoyed their time on Sardinia (where England’s group games were played), and it was only on the mainland that events got out of hand. The friendliness of most locals is carefully emphasised, as is the work of the independent England supporters’ association and their attempts to keep the peace. The people who do come out of the whole affair very badly are the top brass at the FA – Graham Kelly is characterised as ‘a cross between a blancmange and a battleship’, soft, ineffective and slow, while his colleagues fare little better. They appear to be stuck in a time warp, unable to comprehend the anger of the fans and unprepared to help them out.
The most revealing aspect of the book is certainly the interviews with Bobby Robson and his playing staff: Robson vehemently defends his prerogative in terms of selection and tactics, and a persistent theme throughout the text is whether or not he will abandon 4-4-2 in favour of a sweeper system. The papers are clamouring for the latter, and in the interviews with players such as Barnes and Waddle, it becomes clear that the players would prefer that as well. Davies also chooses to repeat the players comments verbatim, leaving in all the awkward pauses, ums and ers to give a truer representation of their responses to his questions.
Indeed, the John Barnes interview is easily the most revealing of the lot, especially when you consider his career after 1990 and his abortive steps into management with Celtic in 1999. Barnes says he does not plan to go into management or coaching (although he would consider involvement at non-league leve
l to get some experience), and he freely admits to being so lazy that he will sit in his flat all afternoon rather than cross the road to buy a paper – it is easy to you can see how that attitude transmitted into the apparently listless performances he so often gave in an England shirt.
Terry Butcher, Steve McMahon and Gary Lineker all give fascinating insights into what it means to play for your country, and you really get the impression that Robson feels personally insulted by Terry Fenwick’s astounding comment that he ‘got bored’ while on England duty. That is a thought that the manager totally fails to understand, and it is easy to see why. The highest honour in football is to pull on the national team shirt, and Robson made sure he only took those players to Italy who really, really wanted it. Paul Gascoigne, for example: ‘All Played Out’ reminds you how he played his way into the final squad in the last qualifiers and friendlies, and although Gazza refuses to talk to the press, his performances and attitude in the finals are showered with deserved praise.
An amusing aspect of the book as a whole is Davies’ experiences of the Italian way of life. Although his path through Italia 90 is made a little smoother by the fact that he can speak some Italian, any stereotypes you had of Italy and her population will be reinforced ten times over by reading this book. Trips to the World Cup venues in early 1990 reveal cities and stadia still being built, with seemingly little hope of meeting any deadlines... there is chaos in the press centres and information systems, signs point to non-existent destinations and don’t even ask about trying to buy a train ticket! However, Italian verbosity and willingness to help win out in the end (helped along by ingenious methods of ducking the alcohol ban at many venues!) and you are left with the impression of a nation that leaves it all to the last minute but somehow, a
nd no-one is quite sure how, gets there in the end!
In amongst all this, Davies manages to be in attendance at the most exciting games of the tournament – he spends weeks travelling back and forth across Italia to watch the big names and the small fry compete for a place in the global spotlight at Italia 90, and it is the way in which the games are set into a wider perspective that elevates this book above being merely a travelogue or a series of match reports. You can picture the crowds, the flags, the tension and the joy and images of Argentina being beaten by Cameroon came flooding back as I read the story of the game: Massing’s karate ‘tackle’ on Caniggia, the disbelieving faces of the South Americans as they realised they had lost to a team of unknowns, it’s all there. And of course you remember Costa Rica beating Scotland, David Platt’s last-gasp winner against the Belgians, Rene Higuita’s suicidal goalkeeping and Roger Milla dancing with the corner flag...
Appropriately enough, the most emotional moment of the tournament for the English, the penalty shoot-out agony against Germany, is accorded the least emotional report. England, ‘all played out’ and without a prayer before the tournament began, had made it to the World Cup semi-final: Everyone knows the story of the game, Gazza’s tears and Waddle and Pearce missing the crucial spot-kicks, but Davies chooses not to dwell on the events of the game too much... Lineker’s goal gets top billing, but you feel real sympathy for the England players, totally drained by a titanic struggle but still having to compose themselves for the 3rd/4th place play-off match with the tournament hosts. No more comment is required, as that match will live long in the memory of anyone who watched it, and even this book struggles to do justice to the peaks and troughs of emotion that players and spectators went through that night in Turin.
All
in all, this is one of the most uplifting and refreshing football books I have read in a long, long time: Perhaps it is so fresh because I read it ten years after the events described took place, and Davies’ style brought back the emotions of the tournament back to life on the page. All the matches and moments I remember from an excellent tournament find a space in Davies’ account, alongside many that slipped my gaze and doubtless passed most other observers by as well, to form what is without a shadow of doubt the definitive story of Italia 90, and a book that I recommend without reservation.
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