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McIlvanney on Football
Hugh McIlvanney is a living legend in sports journalism. A regular winner of the UK Sports Writer of the Year Award, he is the only sports writer to have also won the Journalist of the Year honour. This book represents the best of 35 years of excellence in football writing for "The Scotsman", "The Observer" and "The Sunday Times", from the epic Real Madrid versus Eintracht Frankfurt European Cup final to the World Cup in France 1998. It profiles managerial giants from Matt Busby, Jock Stein and Bill Shankly to Jack Charlton, Alex Ferguson and Terry Venables, and provides essays on footballing greats such as Pele, Moore, Best and Maradona. It also looks at disasters from Ibrox to Hillsborough and celebrates World Cup competitions from 1966 to 1994.
347 pages, Paperback
First published October 19, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 12, 2019
The author of this compilation, Hugh McIlvanney, died in January of this year (2019) at the age of 84, and it was hearing about him again that prompted me to buy this book. If you’ve read the blurb at the top of the page you’ll know that he was considered the foremost British sports writer of his day. Football, boxing and horse racing were his favourite sports, and there’s a separate anthology of his articles on boxing, (which I haven’t read).
These articles extend from the 1960s to the 1990s and are likely to appeal most to those who, like me, are of – ahem – more mature years. The book is divided into four sections; pen portraits of the most significant figures in the British game; a short section called “Issues”; writing on World Cup tournaments from 1966 to 1994; and a final section called “Later Despatches”.
The articles were of course written separately, and I would have enjoyed them more as standalone pieces. When you read them together in a collection like this they start to have a very “samey” feel, and this is particularly true of the opening section on “great men” of the game.
I probably enjoyed the World Cup writings best. The 1970 World Cup was the first international tournament I can recall. I was 8 going on 9 at the time and as a small boy was bedazzled by the brilliant Brazilian team of that year. Reading McIlvanney’s pieces you get the impression he never entirely lost the wide-eyed feeling that a young boy has about the world’s greatest players, and that’s attractive in its way. He’s a little too hero-worshipping of the Brazilians though, even trying to excuse Leanardo for his notorious elbowing of US player Tab Ramos during the 1994 World Cup, from which Ramos ended up with a fractured skull.
The last article in the compilation was written a few days before McIlvanney’s home town team of Kilmarnock competed in the 1997 Scottish Cup Final, a nice way to end the book.
So, plenty of nostalgia, but a collection that can feel a bit repetitive.
These articles extend from the 1960s to the 1990s and are likely to appeal most to those who, like me, are of – ahem – more mature years. The book is divided into four sections; pen portraits of the most significant figures in the British game; a short section called “Issues”; writing on World Cup tournaments from 1966 to 1994; and a final section called “Later Despatches”.
The articles were of course written separately, and I would have enjoyed them more as standalone pieces. When you read them together in a collection like this they start to have a very “samey” feel, and this is particularly true of the opening section on “great men” of the game.
I probably enjoyed the World Cup writings best. The 1970 World Cup was the first international tournament I can recall. I was 8 going on 9 at the time and as a small boy was bedazzled by the brilliant Brazilian team of that year. Reading McIlvanney’s pieces you get the impression he never entirely lost the wide-eyed feeling that a young boy has about the world’s greatest players, and that’s attractive in its way. He’s a little too hero-worshipping of the Brazilians though, even trying to excuse Leanardo for his notorious elbowing of US player Tab Ramos during the 1994 World Cup, from which Ramos ended up with a fractured skull.
The last article in the compilation was written a few days before McIlvanney’s home town team of Kilmarnock competed in the 1997 Scottish Cup Final, a nice way to end the book.
So, plenty of nostalgia, but a collection that can feel a bit repetitive.
April 30, 2023
2.5 Stars!
McIlvanney belongs to that old school type of Scottish sports journalism, a slow, distinctive brand which is almost gone, and which can come across as a little dry and stilted to many in the 21st Century. McIlvanney is held in high regard by many, and I recall reading some of his work in the broadsheets, but this certainly isn't my idea of quality or enjoyable football writing, although it had its moments.
With obituary pieces for Matt Busby, Bobby Moore, Jock Stein, Bill Shankly, as well as fellow scribe, John Rafferty, this can almost feel a little bit like a graveyard at times. But he’s not just all about praise and recognition, as his take on one footballer/film actor shows, “the lamentable mediocrity of the Premier League, a competition in which an unreconstructed hod-carrier called Vinny Jones not only qualifies for first team wages but is enough of a roughneck celebrity to promote a video that purports to be a macho-man’s guide to dirty tricks.”
He can clearly see the clouds gathering on the horizon during the opening seasons of the English Premiership, warning how important the game has been and remains for so many people, particularly among the working classes, and how the growing greed of clubs in the new era is threatening to take that away, and gentrify it at the exclusion of the original audience, and of course this is exactly what happened, on a scale that maybe even McIlvanney couldn’t have anticipated.
He does occasionally fall into nostalgia traps, convinced that players and standards were better in the past, repeatedly bringing up the huge impact of Charlton, Law and Best, but then he also openly admires and promotes many of the talents in the times he writes from. Giving particular praise to the likes of Ryan Giggs, John Barnes and Liam Brady and many others from further afield.
Far too many of these articles were just too dull for me, I found most of his World Cup pieces particularly tedious or forgettable, they lacked a spark or angle which would be the thing to make them worthwhile of being part of such a collection. I wouldn’t call this essential reading, but these do successfully capture an era of pre-EPL, pre-Champions League, before the money got insane and the players and clubs grew bloated, greedy and still got away with convincing most that it wasn’t really all just about the money.
McIlvanney belongs to that old school type of Scottish sports journalism, a slow, distinctive brand which is almost gone, and which can come across as a little dry and stilted to many in the 21st Century. McIlvanney is held in high regard by many, and I recall reading some of his work in the broadsheets, but this certainly isn't my idea of quality or enjoyable football writing, although it had its moments.
With obituary pieces for Matt Busby, Bobby Moore, Jock Stein, Bill Shankly, as well as fellow scribe, John Rafferty, this can almost feel a little bit like a graveyard at times. But he’s not just all about praise and recognition, as his take on one footballer/film actor shows, “the lamentable mediocrity of the Premier League, a competition in which an unreconstructed hod-carrier called Vinny Jones not only qualifies for first team wages but is enough of a roughneck celebrity to promote a video that purports to be a macho-man’s guide to dirty tricks.”
He can clearly see the clouds gathering on the horizon during the opening seasons of the English Premiership, warning how important the game has been and remains for so many people, particularly among the working classes, and how the growing greed of clubs in the new era is threatening to take that away, and gentrify it at the exclusion of the original audience, and of course this is exactly what happened, on a scale that maybe even McIlvanney couldn’t have anticipated.
He does occasionally fall into nostalgia traps, convinced that players and standards were better in the past, repeatedly bringing up the huge impact of Charlton, Law and Best, but then he also openly admires and promotes many of the talents in the times he writes from. Giving particular praise to the likes of Ryan Giggs, John Barnes and Liam Brady and many others from further afield.
Far too many of these articles were just too dull for me, I found most of his World Cup pieces particularly tedious or forgettable, they lacked a spark or angle which would be the thing to make them worthwhile of being part of such a collection. I wouldn’t call this essential reading, but these do successfully capture an era of pre-EPL, pre-Champions League, before the money got insane and the players and clubs grew bloated, greedy and still got away with convincing most that it wasn’t really all just about the money.
August 15, 2023
Some good writing in this, but it's very much of its time and period. Although these are opinion pieces, often with a heavy Scottish bias, they now seem very dated given how much football has moved on. That said, his description - in 1990 - of penalty shootouts as "a concentrated personal misery...it distorts a team game into an ordeal for individuals in isolation.", does make you think. 33 years on and nothing has changed...
November 24, 2021
Brilliant set of portraits and reportage full of prose that talks up to you, not down. Will be studied for decades as the right way to do sports criticism.
September 30, 2024
If only there were football writers still around that were half as good as McIlvaney. Would take writing like this over any sensationalists, data dumpers or stenographers.
July 27, 2023
More from the greatest sports writer of all time.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews