Musa Okwonga - A Cultured Left Foot

A Cultured Left Foot

Musa Okwonga

First eBook edition 2011
First published in 2007 by
Duckworth Overlook

LONDON
90-93 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6BF
Tel: 020 7490 7300
Fax: 020 7490 0080
www.ducknet.co.uk

NEW YORK
141 Wooster Street, New York, NY 10012

2007 by Musa Okwonga

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

The right of Musa Okwonga to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by Him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

eBook ISBNs
Mobipocket 978-0-7156-4130-9
ePub 978-0-7156-4129-3
Adobe PDF 978-0-7156-4128-6

For my father, my mother, for Miriam, for Wilson, and for my family; for Toni, and for Tom Fenwick, a legend. Finally, for Duncan Mulholland, Richard Eagle and Ollie Broome, three true football men: take care, guys.

First Id like to thank everyone who responded to my questionnaire, and who made this debate so enjoyable.

Id like to thank especially the following, who gave their time, their guidance and their enthusiasm to make this book possible:

Majid Abdullah; Simon Albert; Giovanni Amedeo; Phil Ball; Robin Balmer; Simon Barnes; Andy Barton; Olivier Bazin; The Beast; Martin Blake; Tom Bromley; Raphael Burke; Papa Chris Bushell; Chopper; Kate Church; John Collins; Vinny Cooper; Caroline and Suzannah at Duckworths; James Edwards; Nick Ferguson; Fuzzy; Lindsay FitzGerald of Axis Podiatry; Matthew Hardwick; Gordon Hill; Lee Hodges; Elly James; Rob Jones; Natalie Kenley; Simon Kuper; Lois and Sean Magee; Neil McCarthy; Hugh McIlvanney; Steven McManaman; Andy Morris; Tyler Nottberg; Alex Payne; James Pryor; Pugs; Maria Ribo-Pares; Matt Ridley; Albert Scardino; Andy Sloan; Squirrel; Patrick Taylor (twice!); Camilla Waite; Vic Wakeling; Paul Walter; Tim Williams; Justin Zaman; Boudewijn Zenden; Pierre Zenden.

Above all, Id like to thank my agent Heather Holden-Brown, and Nick Webb for showing extraordinary faith in me; and thanks again to my father, who wont get to read this, but who remains as present as my mother in any of the good that I have ever done.

What makes a great footballer?

Its the essay to end all essays, its the football followers dream assignment; whats that elusive mix of gifts which makes for a Bobby Moore, a Maradona, a Pel?

There are as many answers to this question as there are football fans, and in what remains the worlds sport of choice those responses number a fair few: theres not a stray soft drink can on a street across the globe that hasnt been kicked in homage to the beautiful game. My own view was years in the making: honed through thousands of hours spent watching and weeping as that penalty soared high beyond that crossbar, or reading till knee-deep in needless sporting trivia, or hugging hundreds of strangers in crowded bars because the beauty of that goal, that thirty-yard slalom through that tightest of rearguards or that half-volley so holy its probably got God shaking his head, has made you embrace each other because theres just no other way you can make someone else feel the perfection of what youve just seen.

So, having my own view, I thought it only right that I should go out and test it against those of other people. I drew up a survey inviting comments on and rankings of the eleven defining qualities that I believed all great players had to possess; eleven wasnt a significant figure, other than being a magical number that everyone associates with football. I sent the survey to everyone I knew, telling them to send it to everyone they knew. And, while their responses rained in from everywhere, be it Malta or Malaysia, I went out and talked to anyone.

Anyone was a late-night conversation with a French friend, discussing the finesse in the finishing of Thierry Henry. Anyone was a series of sports writers, a psychologist, a poet, a broker and a ballet dancer. Anyone was an impromptu judo tutorial with a Holland international, and an hour with the founder of maybe the most successful sporting monopoly in global television. Anyone was a man once revered by Ryan Giggs and now a born-again Christian in Bristol. Anyone was the finest centre-forward the Muslim world has ever seen, and a Missouri father-of-two with the hands of Gordon Banks. Anyone was a courteous Scouser, fond friend of Robbie Fowler and Luis Figo, with an ego tough as tungsten. Anyone was them, and also you.

I learned very quickly that the best way to handle this task wasnt to write it so much as to chair it, as if it were a raucous debate in any given local pub. I walked into several interviews expecting one insight, and walked out with three or four that were entirely different. And I learned, despite over twenty years immersion in the game, just how little I knew about football. Its true: I knew plenty of footballs nuts and bolts, I knew the winners of various trophies and probably even the minutes in which many of the decisive goals were scored; I felt my teams losses so deeply that I couldnt read the sports pages for days afterwards, for fear of being reminded of their defeat. But I wasnt ready for the sheer scope of thought that I came across, and Ive included many contributions here.

It was brought home to me more than ever that as a football fan, whether youre Pel or the village postman, greatness will have moved you, and in infinitely different ways.

Football can make you laugh, love, hate and hurt, and if a footballers great he can do all of that to you in an instant. A great footballer will need that madness, that blinkered obsession, which blinds him to any outcome other than victory. But hell also need to see everything; hell need vision of boundless sweep, to play the pass or strike the drive thatll draw glory to him. Hell have to summon as much grit as grace from the depths of his boots, and while he must play as hard as he can, he has to remember to have fun; to remember that, after all, hes only playing.

In this book, I aim to show you a range of things: why the games leading figures thought Gascoigne was greater than Lineker, why Brazils Ronaldo was great not once but twice, and why a dog had more fun playing the game than Roy Keane. But most of all, with this long and broad look at those whove illuminated footballs past and present, I aim to show you what its rising stars will require to light up its future. I have written it partly as a semi-serious analysis, but mostly as a statement of my infatuation with football, which I still dont fully understand and therefore know will never end. And, since Ive been given this chance to put together a study of those who were the best at the thing that I love the most, itll always be the best piece of homework that anybody ever gave me.

MO, May 2007

If you support a football team, then your choice of football team isnt really a choice at all: its as much a choice as your skin colour or the hand that you write with. In each fans life theres a seminal moment that binds him or her to a particular club for life, which makes them realise that theyre truly hooked. It could be that time that they go for a kickabout in the park, and for some reason even they dont understand they find themselves impersonating a certain player. Or it could be the time that theyre listening to the final scores on Saturday on the BBC, and when they hear that Grimsby or Hartlepool or Luton Town have lost, tears escape their eyes. But what it really comes down to in many cases, and definitely in my case, was falling in love with feet.