As Ghana’s drive to the final of the African Nations Cup continues, one man is missing: Nii Lamptey, Ghana’s Pele, who is tending his farm in Accra rather than leading his country to victory. His tale is one of tragedy and torment.
The common image of African football is of a dusty field, a rag ball, rickety wooden goalposts, and a bunch of shoeless kids playing for fun. But the early history of the game suggests that African football is more complex and sophisticated. It is a history of money, racism, tactics and magic. Jack Lord explains.
The European Championships were very different in the 1960s to today’s extravaganza, as we continue our historical look at past tournaments with Spain 1964.
In the second of our historical series looking at previous European Championships ahead of Euro 2008, we now turn to 1964. Last time, we looked at the first tournament held in France, won by the Soviet Union.
1964 European Nations’ Cup Qualifiers
Like four years earlier, the format was vastly different from the extravaganza put […]
We hail the European Championships as a major tournament these days, but that hasn’t always been the case. In this series, we’ll look at each tournament held since it began in 1960, covering one roughly every two weeks until we get to Euro 2008 next June. As usual on Pitch Invasion, we’ll look at […]
I’ll let George Vecsey of the New York Times imagine the scene in Pasadena, a town at the foot of the San Gabriel mountains north of Los Angeles. The dateline to his report reads August 13th, 1984.
Just before dusk on Saturday night, the Firestone blimp lumbered into the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains investigating […]
In Canada this week, Vancouver finally welcomes the Soccer Messiah, aka David Beckham, for a rearranged game against the Vancouver Whitecaps of the USL tomorrow night tonight. As the always thoughtful Global Game blog asserts, though, his arrival is more interesting as it “raises more interest in pre-existing soccer traditions than in the soccer actually […]
Fandom drives people to do a variety of outwardly strange things, from scarf collecting to lucky-shirt rituals. Via the Uni Watch Blog comes a great example: billsportsmaps.com, the site of a fan who crafts his own maps of various sports leagues around the world. Some are computer-generated, some hand-drawn, and all gorgeous […]
Rangers and Celtic of Glasgow are renowned for their historic enmity; yet the most notorious football riot of the pre-World War One days in Britain saw the two sets of fans united in a pitch invasion at the 1909 Scottish Cup Final.
That riot at Hampden Park was one sparked by frustration, as supporters of […]
