This review first appeared on the website of Soccer America:
When Manchester City's wayward winger Rodney Marsh came to play for the Tampa Bay Rowdies in the mid-1970s, he famously denounced English soccer as "a grey game, played on gray days by gray people." Like all generalizations, the quote contains a kernel of truth, but doesn't stand up to a whole lot of analysis. Although Marsh's quote appears in Jon Spurling's book to illustrate the clash in England between the old post-war disciplinarian style of coaching and the new generation of free-thinking, long-haired mavericks, the majority of the 370 pages show that the characters, clubs and competitions of the 1970s were many things, and that most of them were anything but gray.
At its best, Spurling writes in his introduction, the English game in the 1970s was "uplifting, unifying, inventive and touchingly innocent," but it could also be "brutal, bullying, thuggish and ugly." He doesn't aim to harp on about "the good old days," but stresses that clubs and stadiums in the top flight were at that time "planted firmly in local communities." It was also the era when agents started to look after players' interests, replica shirts with new designs were marketed for the first time (by the innovating Leicester-based company Admiral), foreign players began to grace and brighten England's game, and certain personalities realized that the more controversial they were in their opinions, the more they'd be paid to express them. Many clubs were casting an eye to the United States for new trends in commercialism, which was how Leeds United allowed a character called Paul Trevillion, who'd worked in the USA for sports agent Mark McCormack, to re-brand the club as Super Leeds.
I'll get to the point about "Get It On." Most of the time, reading a soccer book is a chore akin to wading through a bowl of cold, salted porridge. Sometimes, though, you pick up a book that hits the same spot as a slice of lemon sponge cake on a Sunday afternoon. Each bite, or chapter, is better than the last, and you keep yearning for another slice. It may be because I grew up in England during the 1970s that "Get It On" touched my sweet tooth – the earliest happy memories are the best, after all. Or it may just be that the excellent research, the steady pacing, and the unhinged nature of soccer in this transformative decade have been molded by the perfect writer into an absorbing, irresistible book.
English soccer in the 70s was indeed blighted by negative coaching, foul play, fields of dirty glue, deep-seated racism, and chronic fan violence, and these were all reasons why a lot of players like Marsh found the North American Soccer League such a bright and refreshing change. Spurling covers all these narratives. Yet for every accusation that Don Revie's Leeds United only won so many trophies thanks to its cynical approach, there's a game like the 7-0 dismantling of Southampton to show that they could play another team off the park. When we talk about the seemingly unplayable state of Derby County's Baseball Ground mudbath, we also need to know that Coach Brian Clough ordered the groundsman to prepare it that way, because he knew that only his players were fit and skillful enough to cope with the sticky surface.
An early chapter deals with non-league Hereford United's game against first division Newcastle United in a 1972 FA Cup third round replay. Read the chapter, then watch the highlights on YouTube and feel the goosebumps. The same applies to the European games played by provincial clubs like Derby, Ipswich Town and Nottingham Forest, nowadays all marginalized in English soccer thanks to the financial gulf caused by the great Champions League stitch-up.
Liverpool was the dominant club of the era, but they were rarely runaway champions. The variety of teams that either won the title (Everton, Arsenal, Derby, Leeds, Nottingham Forest) or came very close (Queen's Park Rangers, Ipswich, Wolves, even Manchester City ...) reflects how the art of coaching at this time was to assemble a roster that would gel, but without breaking the budget (not unlike MLS). Sadly, we'll never know if Pep Guardiola is capable of taking a provincial club from the butt end of the second tier to become European champions in two years, as Brian Clough did with Forest (or if Guardiola could deftly juggle draft picks and allocation money to take FC Cincinnati to MLS Cup ...).
Spurling's interviews benefit from the historical perspective that allows its actors a mainly frank and considered review of the past. His work on the book spanned the last two decades, meaning that several of the players and coaches quoted have passed away, so we are privy to exclusives from beyond the grave. It's also shocking to realize just how many of your childhood heroes are now deceased, making the videos of them skipping across the grass-starved fields all the more poignant. And despite all the tactical manuals that have burdened bookshelves in recent times, the game itself has not changed as much as we like to think. Pass, move, dribble, tackle, shoot. Only now, there's less mud, booze and cigarettes around to slow you down as you press the life out of the opposition.