The Past of Football: The World Cup, 1506-2022

Following on from his chapters on Alfbert, Lord Ramsey’s England, statistics, and the NASAL, General Sir Frank Lazarus bravely continues his chronicling of the history of the Beautiful Sport by tackling the Large One: the World Cup.


1506

A spectator slips a ball into the ring during a bout of the traditional Florentine post-pub fighting game calcio stramascio (Italian for "proper twenty-one-man brawl"). No one notices, but football is invented once more. A group of holidaying Frenchmen challenge the locals to a game. The World Cup is born. Things gets heated, and an irate Frenchman charges an Italian much in the manner of a rhinoceros, which had only recently been invented.



1930

The soccering world plead with their British masters to revive the old World Cup idea. The British say no, but gallantly allow the foreigners to stage a competition by themselves, if they were even capable. The winner of this event would face the champion of the Home Internationals, then the supreme tournament, in a showdown for global supremacy. In the final, Uruguay and Argentina can't decide whose football to use, so they use both. The ref can't keep score, and in the confusion declares Uruguay winners. Reminded of their promise of a super global playoff, the British go oh, we don't know what you're talking about, we're busy that decade, we were joking anyway, shut up, go away, there's a Scottish League-Irish League game on.


1934

With the World Cup hosting rights awarded to Italy, Argentina decide to enter the tournament disguised as Italians, in the hope of profiting from favourable refereeing decisions this time. This fails to work, as the officiating is scrupulously fair and impartial at all times. Despite this, Italy/Argentina win the competition.

To save time, the 1938 World Cup is held simultaneously. Italy/Argentina also win this.


1942

With everyone else too busy killing the flip out of each other, my now late then punctual fifth cousin Bobberidge Lazarus seizes the opportunity to stage the 1942 World Cup in his self-declared microstate Lazarusvania (pictured below). All the other nations of the world being too chicken to turn up, Lazarusvania are declared champions and remain the only unbeaten team in World Cup history except Scotland. The FIFA still won't recognise this because ooh that bloody Sepp Blatter.

1946

The whole world clean forgets about the World Cup! They promise they won't do it again.


1950

200,000,000 people cram into the brand new Maracanã to watch the final game between Brazil and Uruguay. The Uruguayans are victorious, but Jules Rimet has left the Him Trophy under the bed from the war. To cover up his mistake, he points out that since the competition format did not technically include a final, the World Cup actually has no winner. Everyone shrugs their shoulders, goes home and never speaks of the match again.

1954

The FIFA decree that all games will be first to 100 or until it gets dark. The Germans stun the world by beating Hungary in the final. They celebrate by being very friendly to strangers, drinking lots of water, and dancing all night to acid oompah.


1958

Brazil power to glory behind young phenomenon Edson, who celebrates by stealing a name from the tournament's Swedish hosts. He will henceforth be known to all as Pelle. In his victory speech, Pelle declares: "I am much better than Maradona."


1962

Chile and Italy get into a massive fight, but a dog runs on and pees on everyone, and people rejoice in the sheer bloody beauty of the moment. Pelle misses the latter stages of Brazil's triumphant run due to injury, but nonetheless collects his medal in full kit.

1966

England's triumph and subsequent fall from grace have already been extensively covered in this series. Suffice it to add that further research has revealed that a large shipment of grain was dispatched from Felixstowe to Leningrad the day after the final. I'm just leaving that piece of information there.


1970

whoooooooooaaaaaaahhhhhh duuuuuuuude have you seen this it's all like colours and stuff it's so bright and shiny and bluuuuurrrrrry and like green and yellow man look at that yellow it’s the yellowy yellow lellow lellyowest yellow I’ve ever seen where is this place it's sunny like aaaaaaaaall the time dude is it just me or is this game going reeeeeeal sloooooow like they're barely even moving wait did Italy just win their group 1-0 is that weird looking German dude okay he can't stop scoring goals for some reason look at the yellow and the white it's like there's a party in my retinas and everyone's invited OH MY GOD HE'S SHOOTING FROM THE HALFWAY LINE AAAAAAAHAHAHAHAAAAA wait wait what they were two up weren't they weren't they answer me man what the fuck dude I want a Peru shirt is that guy playing in a sling like an actual fucking sling HOLY SHIT HE JUST WENT ROUND THE KEEPER WITHOUT TOUCHING THE BALL FUCK FUCK I CAN'T TAKE THIS THIS IS GETTING TOOOOOOO MUCH they keep passing passing passing what are they doing passing passing passing I feel sick passing passing passing he's just passed it to nobodFUCK MAN IT'S THE FULL-BACK I'm going to die

1974

A World Cup of firsts: Scotland truly become Scotland for the first time; future 40-year-old Dino Zoff concedes a goal for the first time in his life; and the Dutch qualify for their first World Cup (apart from that other time when they were called the Dutch East Indies).

The Dutch had created an entirely new soccering philosophy called Sexy Football, which was a development of the Brazilian style, O Sexy Football, named after Irish missionary priest Fr. Peter O'Sexyfootball (an t-Athair Peadar Ó Soichsighphiotbál). It was invented by Czechoslovakia's 1962 goalkeeper Johan Cruij/yff, who would for inspiration stare for hours at paintings by the old Dutch goalkeeping masters: Vermeer, Mondragon, van der Saenredam, &c. Sexy Football involved players running around all over the place and kicking the crippins out of the other team.

In the final, the Dutch do it so astoundingly magnificently that after 22 minutes the Germans concede defeat. The Germans' captain, Franz 'The Director' Peckinpah, personally hands over the new cup, bought in a trophy emporium in Munich because Brazil had left the old one under the bed from the Mardi Gras. But Cruy/ijff isn't satisfied and holds out his hand again, whereupon Peckinpah gives him the European Nations Trophy cup the Germans had somehow accidentally won two years earlier.

Crui/jyff moves to Spain where he assassinates Franco and retires to stud, siring a master race of footballers with some very short women.


1978

In the last minute of the final, a goalbound shot by the Dutch's Derek Manninger is stopped short of the line when an Argentinian general runs onto the pitch and shoots the ball. The ref waves play on, and Argentina win in extra time. Buoyed by this boost to national confidence, Argentina immediately invade Derrylondonderry but are trampled by a herd of plucky British sheep.


1982

The first ever official World Cup anthem is recorded by The Fall. It is a searing commentary on recent FIFA history: "Put the blame into FIFA Haus, go round there and kick out Rous ... Rous rumbled, Rous rumbled ... I'm João Totale, the yet unborn son ... PELLE'S COBWEB EYES!!!!!". Called "The Goal of Love", its b-side is a reworking of "Bingo Master", telling the story of Sepp Blatter's impeccable handling of the draw for the '82 finals. The single is a global smash in several German cities.

1986

Uruguay's José Batista sets a new World Cup record by getting sent off against Scotland before the draw has even been made. Sócrates refines his penalty technique to the point where he doesn't even have to score anymore. Bryan Robson's sling and Gary Lineker's cast make arm injuries a hip new trend for English kids bored of stealing VW badges. Peter Shilton is outjumped by a tiny man and is quite rightly still unhappy about it to this day. Said tiny man, Diego Maradona, waltzes his way through the knockout rounds, but his effectiveness in the final is blunted as he is marked out of the game by Pelle.


1990

The 1990 edition is filled with cynical, negative football, if football is indeed the word. Tactics are horribly defensive. Goals are almost impossibly hard to come by. Games are a stop-start travesty of fouls, dives and whines. Claudio Caniggia is assaulted by three Cameroon players in quick succession in the opening game. Maradona spends his entire tournament being hacked down or diving to avoid being hacked down. A record number of red cards are handed out. Frank Rijkaard twice spits at Rudi Völler, yet Völler is sent off. Gary Lineker dives to win a penalty that helps to keep Cameroon out of the semi-finals. Argentina drug water bottles they then allow Brazilian players to drink from. Ireland 'arrange' the closing stages of their match against the Dutch to secure qualification from the group stages, and make the quarter-finals despite winning no games and scoring two goals. Argentina finish as runners-up after winning just two games. The Germans win the tournament scoring three goals in their last three games: two penalties and a heavily deflected free kick. Not one but two players are sent off in a terrible final. This remains the greatest World Cup of all time.

1994

The United States yet again ruin soccer by calling it soccer and going to the matches in huge numbers. After Argentina's game against Nigeria, Diego Maradona is led away for a drugs test by an official who looks very familiar although no one can quite put their finger on it. The Germans merge with the East Germans to form superteam The Germans. This somehow makes them worse. Stefan 'Effin'' Effenberg is sent home by manager Berti Vogts because you would, wouldn't you. Many games are played in temperatures that are blatantly discriminatory against teams from northern Europe. Sweden finish third.


1998

Adidas claim that their official World Cup football, the Obélix, is the roundest ever, thus solving a great problem that has long bedevilled the game. Dennis Bergkamp does not stamp on Siniša Mihajlović. Zinedine Zidane turns up fashionably late and steals the plaudits as France win. Fontaine, and just Fontaine, presents the Raymond Kopa to Didier Deschamps. Lilian Thuram, Marcel Desailly, Laurent Blanc and Bixente Lizarazu are dismantled, shipped to China and reassembled brick-by-brick to dam the Yangtze.


2002

The World Cup is awarded to the sci-fi technotopia of Japan/South Korea. To celebrate, the organisers decree that it will be the first tournament ever to be staged in the future. Unfortunately, the confusion over dates leads to many of the favourites not turning up. The official ball of the World Cup is made of pure neon, making it the most visible football ever. Keepers still complain about it.


2006

Swarthy Latin Cristiano Ronaldo grabs Wayne Rooney's foot and stamps his own gonads with it, thus getting the greatest player in the world sent off. Ronaldo finds his camera and winks, taunting the English by slyly referencing the derivation of the word 'connive' from the Latin for 'wink'. The next day he reveals his nefarious plan in a tell-all memoir called How I Got The Greatest Player In The World Sent Off.

To celebrate the 500th anniversary of the World Cup, a special re-enactment of the first ever World Cup game is held. Everyone goes home happy with no lingering bitterness or recrimination.


2010

I don't know?


2014

The world is plunged into mourning as Neymar is shot dead by top bad Colombian Pablo Escobar. The World Cup is cancelled in what many suspect to be an elaborate Brazilian conspiracy to deny Lionel Messi the chance to win the World Cup on his own. As part of Neymar's funeral, a game is held between Brazil and the Germans. Brazil honour Neymar's memory by being completely shit at football without him.


2018

Croatia win the final on penalties after a 1-1 draw with France.


2022

The FIFA controversially decide that the World Cup will be held in catarrh. The tournament is moved to the winter to allow more catarrh to be produced.

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The Past of Football: NASAL and the New York/New Jersey Cosmos

The man they will try to stop once they've heard of him, Dr. Frank Lazarus, professor of football history at Frank Lazarus University, pieces together the scant remains of history and teaches us about that great enigma of world football, the United States of America

Back in the sixties, the whole world watched agog and non-north-Walian alike as Buzzward Aldrin, Stretchford Armstrong and a third man whose name is lost to history heroically fought off space communists trying to appropriate the United States of America's rightful claim to the moon's Teflon deposits. As the moon's eerily lunar landscape lay strewn with the corpses of America's enemies, Armstrong swung a bebooted foot at the head of one of them, and he uttered those now-famous words: "That's one small step for a man, one giant boot to the face of this space commie!" The dead red's head detached from its body and described a beautiful arc as it soared through the low-gravity moon sky. With this one act, the course of history changed. America was entranced and exited by the new futuristic possibilities that now stretched out before them. President John "F-word" Kennedy addressed an expectant nation. "We simply cannot wait for the NFL to come up with a better name for their championship game than the ludicrous 'Super Bowl'," he said, "and with the designated hitter rule, baseball has committed an unconscionable assault on the double switch, the most exciting move in all of sports. Stretchford — along with Buzzward and, I believe, some other guy, although I'm not sure about that, Ralf, check that one out for me — has shown us that soccer is in fact as American as an apple pie wearing a cowboy hat that has a detailed knowledge of anti-anxiety medication. I therefore proclaim that by the end of the decade, soccer will be our one true national American sport, game, or pastime."

And so, in a country with absolutely no history in the game whatsoever full stop period end of story move along nothing to see, soccer was invented for the eleventh time. Would this number prove auspicious?

No. In response to the President's decree, a league was hurriedly formed which, to tap into America's mania for all things spatial, was named NASA League, or NASAL (never the NASAL). The NASAL decided to inject some zeitgeisty narrative into proceedings by creating a league consisting of two teams: the patriotic, red-white-and-blue-clad Hero Legend Eagles, and the tie-dye wearing Super Freaky Electro Acid Commie Draft-Dodging Sunshine Gang. Without a dedicated soccer stadium, however, the league had to make-do with using other sports' facilities. Games were played on an iced hockey pitch, a stocked car pitch and a drained swimming pitch. In desperation, they tried playing on a baseball pitch, which worked perfectly well for several milliseconds until they were propelled from it by jealous baseball forces. Even after they found a more settled home on the infield of a go-kart track near Piddlesboro, Wyoming, the league struggled. Nervous about the American public's desire to sit through a soccer game, organisers stretched out the halftime entertainment — an incredible four-legged horse called Horse — until it became the main event and the soccer the halftime show. Horse became a star and is still sorely missed to this day. There was a new star in heaven the day he died.

Nothing the league tried seemed to work. The owners came up with a plan: win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people. This didn't work. Then, realising that any American sports league needed a strong New York team in order to thrive, they tried to create one: the New York Vets. But cynical New Yorkers were too busy stylishly injecting drugs in an abandoned factory or moving to Hollywood to bother watching. In trying to salvage things with a desperate series of name changes — the Gets, the Yets, the Let's, the Stets, the Quets, the Prets, the Regrets, the Lil-lets, the Alphabets, the Capulets, the Letrasets, the Marmosets, the Sobriquets, the Peat Briquettes, the New Marvelettes, the Pair of Quintets (Plus One), the Xkblsgfvhstdffqkhets — the owners only made matters worse.

With NASAL gaining no support but life (life support), a miracle was needed. It came in the form of two of the entertainment biz's primary Italian-American supernovas: Sylvester Stallone and Foghorn Leghorn (né Fabiano Livorno). Eager to bring a taste of the old soccering country to the United States of A, they purchased the ailing Ets, promising to use their showbiz lure (money) to transform the fortunes of America's new obsession. They started with a new name for their team: in honour of America's brave space fliers, they were to be called the New York Cosmonauts. Then they gave the team some brand new kit to wear, and commemorated this special event by changing the team's name again: they were now the New York/New Jersey Cosmonauts.

Then it was time to sign some players. Reasoning that Brazil was the greatest soccering nation, they asked around trying to find out who the greatest Brazilian soccerer was. And so it was that Leônidas became the second NASAL superstar (after Horse). The 84-year-old ran riot against NASAL's cadre of Americans who, remember, didn't even know what a soccer was until five minutes before kick-off. Suddenly, NASAL became the go-to destination (as opposed to the go-away-from destination) for aging soccerers seeking a dose of HRT. In came one-man Mannschaft Franz "The Director" Peckinpah, destroyer Johan NeeskinleftonyourshinsbythetimeI'mfinishedwithyou, Carlos "Charlie" Alberto, Dennis Stewart, Sweden's 1958 World Cup hero Pelle, England's forgotten 1966 World Cup hero Stanislaus "The Manislaus" Carter, and Billy Meredith, plus coaches of the calibre of Ken Furphy, Billy O'Smelly and Ulick McGee.

But even these greats were complete fucking dogshit compared to the majestic Iolo Cynallia, a striker hailing from the part of the Welsh Valleys that mysteriously hasn't really got any valleys, probably because druids hid them or something. After travelling to Rome to grant the Pope an audience with him, Cynallia signed for Lazio, where he became part of the legendary team that took the prime minister hostage and secured the Scudetto as ransom. After six months spent as an aid worker in Biafra, he headed Stateside to resurrect soccer and, perhaps, the American nation itself. He was a greater goal machine than even the legendary Rasputin. He often won games entirely on his own, which was necessary given his penchant for physically assaulting teammates who wouldn't pass him the ball, especially if it looked like they were going to have a shot themselves. Should this course of action fail, a quick signal to the sideline would see the errant colleague hauled off and sold to Canada, Cynallia's immense charisma and intelligence having seen his effortless rise to the positions of special assistant to the coach, executive co-general manager, Owner-in-Spirit and Honorary Founder of the Cosmonauts. Between games, he liked to relax by shooting people in the streets of New York/New Jersey, which people liked because it was edgy.

The Cosmonauts were a great success, but America still needed one last push to be fully awoken to the joys of soccering. To that end, many rules were changed and gimmicks devised to reflect the unique American sportsing mindset. The game was divided into four quarters, the third being the "cocaine quarter". A 35-yard offside line was introduced (reputedly the "cocaine line"). Ties were abolished, broken by force if necessary. Defending was made illegal between the 15th and 75th minutes (the "NASAL Power Hour"); permission to defend outside that time was conditional on the collection of special tokens hidden around the stadium and surrounding neighbourhoods. The coin toss was replaced by the "NASAL Header-Off", wherein the ball was thrown up between two opposing players, the first to head it winning for his team the precious right to kick off first. (Far fewer careers were ended by this than predicted by the usual mongers of doom.) Goals scored by goalkeepers would count as fifty goals (Stallone's idea). One round per season was designated as "NASAL Pinball Week", wherein the pitch was transformed into a giant pinball machine, ball and players alike subject to the tyranny of the flipper.

A new halftime entertainment called "March Madness", in which a marching band were forced to keep marching until they went mad, finally and irrevocably tilted the balance. America experienced something like soccer ecstasy. Teams sprang up all over the land like soccer-shaped flowers in a desert of meaninglessness to welcome the godlike Cynallia and his troupe of Cosmonauts to their town, in the hope that their magic would liven up the dullness of living in a place full of right-angle intersections. NASAL welcomed the Tallahassee Uncontrollables, the Wichita Fuzzy Bunnies, the Des Moines Anxiety, the Kansas City Subsidence, the Carolina Plague of Frogs, the Portland Tax Day, the Philadelphia Kickers, the Seattle Kickers, the Albany Kickers, the New Orleans Kickers, the Boston Kickers, the Austin Kickers, the Cleveland Serial Killers, the Arizona Serial Kickers, the South Dakota Straight-Line-Border-Drawer-Uppers, the St. Louis Obesity Time Bombs, the Washington Plausible Deniability, the Los Angeles Aztecs of Anchorage, Team Amazing, Young Boys Poughkeepsie, the Houston Assault Rifles, the Pittsburgh Paranoia, the Bay Area Delightfulness, the Albuquerque Albuquerquians, AFC Indiana United, the Soccer Stars of Northeast West Virginia, People You Think Are American But Are Actually Canadian, the Cincinnati Loan Sharks, the Atlanta Go-To-Hecks, the Garkos Gorgons and the Chicago Shitehawks. President Kennedy's promise had been fulfilled, and the world wept in gratitude and awe.

Reigning supreme, however, were the mighty New York/New Jersey, now renamed Cynallia and His Cosmonauts. They smote their enemies with a swashbuckling style of soccer universally known as "Cynalliaball". "Give it to Iolo!," even opposition fans would scream. Eventually, the Cosmonauts made it to the championship game, where they faced a scary black-clad Iceland team coached by the fella from the Statoil ads. A tense match went to a shootout, with Iceland's final shot to be taken by Gunnar Stahl, who was so fearsome his parents were afraid to give him a normal Icelandic name. Cosmonauts coach Gordon Bombay (shortly afterwards renamed Gordon Mumbai) cleverly swapped out goalie Greg Goldberg for Julie "The Cat" Gaffney, who made the vital save. "Quack! Quack! Quack!," they all chanted for some reason. The Cosmonauts had won the big game!

As usual, the Cosmonauts' victory party took place in Hot Shit, the second happeningest club in town (after the Cosmonauts). Soccer-crazy funk monarchs Chic (named after Chic Brodie) headed down hoping to celebrate the championship win and the success of their latest single "Nile Rodgers' Disco Pants", but were refused entry, even after they said they were best friends with Billy Meredith. Fuming, they went home and immediately wrote the scathing anti-Cosmonaut anthem "Kill A Cosmo (For The God Of Happiness)". The song was so damn catchy that it inspired anti-Cosmonaut feeling all across America. The Cosmos Suck! movement was born. A Chic concert turned into a giant rally, wherein fans created a giant bonfire out of Cosmos jerseys, memorabilia and players, thus destroying yet another perfectly good Madison Square Garden.

But America loves a winner, and as long as the Cosmonauts kept the W's (win's) a-rollin' in (rolling in), they could hold on to their position as the kings of the republic. And win they did — until they didn't. With the scores level in a tense, decisive game 17 of the Teflon Earl of Football World Supreme Championship Series against the Rochester Rambunctiousness, a power cut plunged all of New York/New Jersey into darkness. Naturally enough, the entire crowd started to riot. As giddy fans spilled onto the pitch, looting mascot costumes and barrels of Gatorade, Cosmonaut keeper Sheep Messing sprinted from his goal to join his teammates in the sanctuary of the locker room. But eagle-brained Bunc ace Hank Schtrumpfsteiger V noticed that the referee had not blown his whistle and that the game was in fact still in progress. He kicked the ball into the net, and vigorously and repeatedly repeated the act to make sure the ref saw. The ref saw. With no Cosmonauts left on the field to restart the game, the ref blew for full-time. Rochester were/was world champion(s) (of America (and Canada)). The invincibles had been vinced.

The Cosmos were now big, fat losers. America, still desperately waiting for Who's the Boss? to be commissioned and craving certainty, lost all faith in the credibility of the team and therefore of NASAL as a whole. Attendances and TV figures were sent into a funk, which you'd think would be a good thing but was actually considered bad, so confused was America at the time. With the tide having turned so violently against soccer, and with the league on the brink of extinction ("NASAL Brinkstinction"), top lawmaking body Congress staged an anti-Cosmonaut witch trial to root out the evil in their mid. The nation was gripped. "Are you or have you ever been a member of the Cosmonauts?" became a catchphrase beloved of people who like pop culture. All Cosmonauts were tortured, including, tragically, members of long-defunct doo-wop group The Cosmonauts. Even the Horse Memorial in Washington was tortured. Stallone and Leghorn had had enough. They sold the Cosmos to a museum of taxidermy in Tickling Gulch, Colorado, and put all their energy into making Defeat from the Jaws of Victory, a feel-good buddy flick set in a prisoner-of-war camp, starring Stallone and Leghorn. NASAL folded and soccer was banished from America's shores, only returning when OJ Simpson (an old pal of Leghorn's) pretended to be a murderer, thus providing enough of a distraction for the World Cup to be smuggled into the US by Marco Etcheverry, who departed the field in triumph four minutes later.

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The Past of Football: Statistics

Continuing our series wherein primo footballologist Prof. Frank Lazarus gets a giant telescope on a mountain in a desert just like in one of those BBC Four documentaries and trains it on the past before joining together the gleanings of history fished therefrom so as the better to illuminate our own bleak age

Statistics was invented in the 1990s by American baseballing legend Barry "Billy" Bonds (not to be confused with West Hammer legend Trevor Brooking). When Bonds was a child, everyone told him what a great baseballer he would be when he grew up. But when he grew up, it turned out he was awful. This crushing blow set Bonds off on his true course in life. Firstly off, he became a manager, his awfulness as a player making him ideally suited. Then, he embarked on a quest to prove with mathematics (or, as the Americans call it, "mathematic") that when you really look into the real reality of things, every baseballer is awful. Thus did he hope to demoralise every player in baseball and allow the team he bought, the Hartford Strepthroats, to win everything. This failed miserably. However, his efforts attracted a shadowy army of acolytes who founded a movement called "cybermetrics" owing to their desire to turn baseballers into robots with a slot on their back that computer paper with loads of stats on it would come out of to save the poor geeks the bother of having to actually watch any baseball. The cybermetricians infiltrated the media and ensured that Bonds's' method-detailing book, How To Win Ball Games Except The Ones That Actually Matter And Influence People Who Secretly Hate Sports And/Or Are Willing To Pay $20,000 For A Presentation On How Everything Is Actually Awful And Here's How You Can Make Loads Of Money Off It, literally became gospel.

Having conquered the world of baseball (basically America and that bit of Canada that looks like it's straining at the membrane of the American border like a spermatozoon politely trying to fertilise an ovum), Bonds looked around to see what other sport he could destroy. He settled on soccer, very much the polo of America. He and some cybermetricians founded statistic company OPTEM (named after the Latin for "eight" which is infinity on its end thus proving the universality of stats). OPTEM came up with a formula that gave every footballer a score out of 1,024, which proved scientifically that the best player in the English Premiership League was actually Julian Dicks. This was called "being counterintuitive". The great soccering public rejected OPTEM's work, mainly because people were still scared of Americans in those days.

The cybermetricians needed a new weapon in their War on Sport(s). For a time, they tried shoving scrunched-up computer paper with stats on it down people's throats, but success was limited. Then someone discovered that you could tell who the better team in a game was because they had more possession of the ball. This worked for a while, but then someone pointed out that there was a game that happened where a team had more possession ... but LOST THE MATCH. Instantly, years of hard cybermetricianalist work was smashed to bits, bytes and so forth. The movement was in disarray until the Whistle Test's Richard "I Don't Believe It, Jeff" Wilson, an expert in tactics (a branch of statistics), wrote in the Guardian those three fateful words:

GOALS

ARE

RUBBISH
Cybermetrics was suddenly given fresh impotence. After seeing a doctor, it then got some impetus. Its theories now proven to constitute the only accurate way of looking at football, it spread through the game like Japanese not-weed (which ironically actually is a weed). Three-points-for-a-win was done away with in favour of Expected Goals. Crowds began to admonish and shame spectators who got excited at a bit of skill. Supporters were ejected for celebrating goals. A PA announcement announcing that the outcome of the game had been predicted with 96.7746% accuracy would be warmly applauded. Match magazine replaced their league ladders with regression analysis kits.

Thoroughly widdled off with this spoiling of the purity of the Beautiful, Beautiful Game, comedy terrorist pranksters Jimothy, Hobart & Kedge from E4 satiric banter show Wotcha Shitheads decided to do something about it. They broke into the basement of the home shared by Bonds, Wilson and Zonal Marking, wherein lay the beating heart of the cybermetrics movement: an enormous supercomputer that churned out reams of stats and tactics intended to explain and thus ruin football. JH&K had intended merely to throw stacks of computer paper around, do some swearing, and maybe have a bit of an ol' defecation on a hard drive if they timed it right. However, what they discovered was shocking. The computer vomited out a strip of ticker tape that contained a formula that, if implemented, would finally solve football. Grasping the horrific implications, Jimothy said that this must immediately be destroyed. But Kedge, the silly sausage, had already tweeted out a picture of it along with a meaningless string of emojis. Football was instantly rendered pointless and everyone realised that snooker was in fact the one true sport, which was confirmed in a handover ceremony at the Maracanã (later renamed the Estádio Matthew Stevens).

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The Past of Football: England win the World Cup

Introducing The Past of Football, a new magazine devoted to football's past. In each issue, Professor Frank Lazarus, famous football historian from the future, brings to life a great name or memorable episode from football history. PLUS with each issue you get a FREE part of the body of Herodotus. With all ten thousand parts, you can create a full-scale working model of the Roman god of football history! First issue 99c. Each subsequent issue €99.99.

In 1953, genial gentleman amateur football side England sportingly allowed genial Communist amateur football side the Magical Magyars to beat them in a game at Wembley. This would have been no big deal, you would have thought, especially since crack waterpoloists the Wolverhampton Wolves sportingly assaulted the nonsense out of the Magicals in Melbourne later that day, this being the times when men were men. But no! Radical young progressive journalists such as Geoff "Love Machine" Green and Brian Granville (whose father may have been Hungarian, so he was probably biased) argued that it was all very well exchanging the limp handshake of Corinthianism when out foreign, but that when in the home of football (the one that isn't Scotland or Chirk), visitors should be thrashed for their arrogance in challenging one of the finest elevens in all the Home International Championship. England, said foreign gurus like author of Soccer Revolution in the Head Jimmy Hogan, must beat everyone all the time and do fancy flicks and shit. The very next day, a cadre of revolutionaries interrupted the coronation of Queen Of England of England and demanded change very politely. They were swiftly arrested and hanged, but many common Englanders watching the proceedings on their brand new flatscreen wirelesses started to wonder whether those plucky young dead people might not have had a jolly good point. Meanwhile, Africa took advantage of the confusion to declare independence. England went totally rent-a-sunder! If it had had had a constitution, it would have been in crisis!

Then nothing much happened for a few years. Then Winston Churchill said to Watney, Earl of Football, chairman of the Football Association, "Good Gertrude, have you noticed that the manager of our great English football side has the word 'bottom' in his name?". Watney had someone check, then slovak. That out of the way, he bought a copy of Rothmans and discovered that it was indeed true. How Nate "Bottoms" Keister-Pratt had been allowed control of the Queen's footballers for so long was a mystery, especially considering the well-known fact that no one with a name hinting at the human fundament could succeed in management (which was proven true three decades later when Monaco sacked Arsene Wenger). The matter was swiftly dealt with, but the matter of how to wipe Bottoms from people's memories was another matter.



To clear his mind, Watney decided to embark on one of his occasional crime sprees in remote parts of the kingdom. This time, he opted to take a hovercoracle to the Isle of Man, where to his dismay he happened upon a game of that horrid business, league football. Watney had inherited his loathing of professional players all the way down the line from his great-great-grampaps, the first Earl, who was in favour of punishing them by forcing them to spend the winter lying on football fields to ward off frost, and he would have had the men and the firepower to get it done too if that lightweight Wellesley hadn't chickened out by dying that time. Still, the second Earl had legalised the ghastly business and more or less signed the game's death warrant, so it was Watney's grim duty to bear witness to its ongoing bemaggoted putrefaction.

This, at least, was one of the better matches of the English BPL (or the Barclaycard Old Old First Division as it was known at the time): a title decider between local Manx heroes Peel Inconsequentials and the mighty Town United from a town somewhere. As it was, it was, it was the Quentials who took first prize after a cat with no tail and three legs ran onto the pitch and licked visiting goalkeeper Chic "Chick" Chikk's knee, tickling him into a distracting cardiac arrest which allowed hot scoring ace Kermit Hogsquhart to tap the historic winner into an empty goal.

The Consequs were a revelation. They exhibited the perfect balance between modernity and tradition required for the new setup of the Three venerable old Lions. On the one hand, they represented the vigour of the go-go-go twentieth century by sometimes apparently playing as many as three backs. On the other hand, they were astonishingly boring. Upon further investigation, Watney discovered that they were bossed by none other than good old Alfbert, Lord Ramsey: crofting magnate, player in that 1953 game everyone overreacted to, and all-round reliable chap. Surely he could take charge of the national side! Watney immediately had a local orphan boy dispatch a handwritten note personally to the Queen Herself in London: I HAVE SEEN FOOTBALL FUTURE AND ITS NAME IS ALFBERT, LORD RAMSEY DO YOU REMEMBER MA'AM HE PLAYED IN THAT 1953 GAME EVERYONE OVERREACTED TO PS I STILL LOVE YOU OH DO PLEASE LEAVE THAT GREEK NIT MEET ME IN THE STABLE AT LANCASTER GATE AT DUSK TOMORROW

As it turned out, the boy couldn't swim, so Watney had to use the telephone, which is so much less personal wouldn't you agree. He then got down to the business of negotiating with Lord Ramsey, which nearly foundered on Ramsey's outrageous demands. First, he insisted he be allowed to pick the team. Such radicalist nonsense was a step too far for Watney, and he pointed out that England's innate superiority had allowed them to win many games without picking any players at all. But Ramsey was firm, and he also demanded that Watney get the FIFA, to who'm the FA had subcontracted the running of the game outside the United Kingdom and her Dominions, to stage their 1966 World Cup competition in England. The World Cup was designed as a sop to underachieving foreign teams, but had for some reason become quite popular amongst the la-dee-da so-called offioncianandos of the hip new swinging football. "If you want to shut them up," Lord Ramsey explained, "bring the World Cup here where we simply cannot be beaten unless we play Hungary (or possibly Eire, although we've kept so quiet about that game that I'm pretty sure everyone has forgotten about it, thank the Lord for sparing us from such embarrassment)." It, said Ramsey, was, as it were, the, so to speak, only, he continued, way, full stop.

Reluctantly — his mind filled with a vision of the enormous portrait in his office of the first Earl becoming animated: the jowls quivering disapprovingly, rage turning the cheeks from a deep shade of purple to a deeper shade of purple, rivulets of pure giant tortoise gravy streaming from his baggy eyes — Watney bowed his head in what seemed to him to be some kind of defeat, and shook Lord Ramsey's hand.

The story of England winning the World Cup continues after this picture. Who will win the World Cup?


So Lord Ramsey got on with the task of assembling a crack squad. That out of the way, he picked his team. And what a team! It was built around the noble Sir Bobert Moore, who could win a tackle using only the power of his mind. Then there was Nobert Wilde-Styles, who could also win a tackle without touching the ball. Ramsey recruited fearsome defender Wor Jackie, as well as his brother, the gentle genius Peace Jackie. Jim Greavsie was the absolutely unquestionably indispensable sharpscoring spearheader. You knew Stanislaus "The Manislaus" Carter was an amazing player because his quiet, dutiful work went practically unnoticed. The team was given an element of danger by goalkeeper Banksy, a loose cannon whose graffitos had brought down the Macmillan government. There were also other players, plus some full-backs.


Watney having successfully bullied the FIFA into handing over their pitiful World Cup tournament, the stage was set for England to establish itself once more as the undisputed bestmost country out of those who footballed, which was all of them except the usual few who didn't matter. So confident were they of making the World Cup a triumph that they entrusted custody of the trophy to a great British dog called Pickle. The border collie, 4, even recorded a rousing World Cup theme song: "Back home, the World Cup is back home, and I don't mean Scotland or Chirk, thirteen years of hurt, it's L.S.D. for 'longstanding soccer dynasty', ie England..." (In a sad coda, Pickle found himself unable to cope with his new fame and later hanged himself.) The newspapers called for the entire team to be knighted in advance. They knew that England's tactic of kicking the football into the opponents' goal more often than the opponents kick the ball into their goal could surely outfox even the wiliest of contintental foes such as Cyprus or Mexico. Nothing could go wrong. Nothing could go wrong. Nothing could go wrong. By which I mean

All was set for the opening game against some glorified parish that didn't even have a name until they had to think of one for the World Cup — Switzerland or France or one of those. However, tragedy struck as England lost 0-0. The nation was devastated at the apparent death of England's World Cup dream. The London Times of London printed a front page bombshell headline YOU DAFT ROTTERS with a picture of Lord Ramsey's head superimposed on what might have been a rotting apple only it was hard to tell given the quality of image reproduction in newspapers of those days. Nevertheless, the message rang through true threw loud and clear. Riots ensued. Thousands were killed. People even said nasty things about Peace Jackie!


Something had to be done. Luckily the FIFA were the numero number one at doing scandals. The English head of the FIFA and member of shock rock outfit Cerberus & The Purple-Headed Bishop, Sir Stan Aroused, decreed that England should get two more goes at qualifying for the knockout rounds. Such a move was almost certainly unprecedented. This appalling decision has never been revealed ... until now.

So England made the quarter-finals after all, where they would play the fearsome Argentina. Knowing his side had had a lucky escape, Ramsey disappeared for a couple of days to contemplate how to proceed. He returned with two boffo ideas. Firstly, the undroppable striker Jim Greavsie would strike no more, his place to be taken by Paul Warhurst, a defender who had never before strucken. (Greavsie was inconsolable, but found comfort in the arms of Ian St. Greavsie, with whom he would go on to form powerhouse Vegas magic duo Greavsie & St. Greavsie.) Idea number two was to talk up the Argentines' brutality and then knock it down like a piddling skittle. After the anthems, he raced towards the Argentine players screaming "COMEANDGETMEYOUHORRIBLEANIMALSI'LLTAKEYOUALLONIDON'TCRRRNNGNGAANGRNG", and as he slid into incoherence, he attempted to rip the striped jerseys from the player's' backs until restrained by the tournament mascot, a lion-shaped genital called the World Cup Willy. Thus inventing mind games, Lord Ramsey inspired his team to a magical 1-0 win during which no England player committed any fouls whatsoever.

Inevitably, England lost the semi-final on penalties to the Germans. Yet when the draw was made for the the final, England were yet again paired with the Germans. No one quite knows what went on closed doors to bring this about, although the FIFA are naturally suspected. This is thought to have been one of the causes of the Falklands War.


Little is known about what happened in that final. Only two pieces of footage survive. One shows a failed attempt on goal by Warhurst; the other has Warhurst striking the ball into the goal, although it was presumably disallowed owing to the pack of rioters by then streaming from the stands onto the field. What is known, however, is that Stanislaus Carter's winner gave England the World Cup Winner's Trophy as World Cup Winner's Trophy winners, their status never to be challenged again.

And there Lord Ramsey should have left it. However, driven by a lust for glory, he had his eye on the ultimate prize: the 1967 Home Internationals. But on the eve of the Scotland game, Scottish paper the Daily Wrecker published a revelating devastation. Under the headline WINGLES WONDERS, they claimed that Ramsey had gotten most of his ideas about managing from one Spencival Wingles, a self-styled spiritual guru who lived as a tax exile in the sky above Rowton, Shropshire. Mr. Wingles claimed to commune with the ancients through a gnome called Eric who was visible only to him. He also believed that anyone who was unkind to him would be reincarnated as a big baldy twazzock. The Wrecker alleged that far from being the management genius of newly-minted legend, Lord Ramsey had actually received his tactical ideas for the Argentina game from 6th-century theologian Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, as relayed to Wingles via a gnome Ramsey couldn't see who seemed to say things like "gottle a geer" and "grok at gas'ard Greezy" a lot.

Ridiculed and demoralised, England succumbed meekly to the Scots. The Tartan Army occupied Wembley and refused to leave until the Queen brought them some scones, although when they got home they discovered them to be made of stone. Lord Ramsey was immediately hounded out of office seven years later.

In 1977, The Clash released a song, "1977", about 1977, the year of the song's release, 1977, in which they sang of how everything in 1977, the then-current year, was rubbish. In it, they counted backwards from the eponymous year, 1977, until they got to 1966, at which point the song came to a dead halt. Critics agreed that it was probably highly symbolic of something.

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