Memories of Munich

On the 19th May at the Fußball Arena München, an unexpected side will lift the Champions League trophy. Given the scale of drama provided by Chelsea and Bayern Munich in the tournament so far, knocking out the cream of Spanish football in a series of epic encounters, the night promises to do justice to a city with a pedigree of stellar finals.

Thirty four years ago, a few miles south of the Fußball Arena München at the Olympiastadion, John McGovern lifted the European Cup when Nottingham Forest defeated Malmö 1-0 in the first final to be played in Munich. When the whistle is blown on the 19th May, McGovern will be watching from the sidelines, a guest of UEFA by virtue of his cup exploits in 1979. I asked McGovern about his memories of the famous night for Forest:

In the build up to the final, it’s more a feeling of excitement that you have rather than nerves. We had a couple of days in Munich before our game against Malmö, no more than that. Brian Clough didn’t want us there any longer; if you stay in the one spot for too long you get bored and the tension begins to build. We spent most of our time in the hotel, broken up with the little bit of training we needed to do. We didn’t get to do any sight seeing...

The only thing that we were worried about in the run up to the match as players was whether we were going to be in the starting line up; to reach such a significant final and go over with a squad that wasn’t really that big, you’re still wondering if the manager will pick someone ahead of you. Working with Brian you had to expect the unexpected. I was just pleased that when the team was announced that I was in it. There was a little bit of a shock though; Martin O’Neill and Archie Gemmill who’d been injured before the final both expressed themselves as being 100 per cent fit. Brian said to them, ‘Well I’m delighted, but you’re not playing.’ The dejection that they suffered must have been horrific.

I remember the Olympiadstadion was a fantastic looking stadium, with a spider-web covering round the perimeter of the roof. For the Nottingham Forest fans it was a new experience to be playing in Europe – it was an adventure for both the supporters and the players. We had tremendous support, and we wanted to reward that loyalty by winning the match. There was a story of one guy in the army who literally deserted in order to get to see us. He was arrested when he got back soon after for deserting.

When we got out there on the pitch all we wanted to do was win. We were very confident, and we knew Malmö had done exceptionally well to get to the final, but they had two of their main strikers missing so we thought that would at least hand us the advantage. When the match started we were on top and dominated large stages of the match without getting the goals to really prove the point that we were a good side.  As it was our first European campaign the media had labelled us as over night wanders, saying that the bubble was going to burst – all these clichés about a second-rate team who were never going to make an impression. We managed to put one over them by not only winning the final but then following it up and doing it again the year after.

It might sound strange, but we came off feeling a little bit disappointed that we’d won only 1-0. I thought we’d go on and get another goal, and then another to make it safe. I think John Robertson hit the post, but that was the closest we came after Trevor Francis scored. We were delighted to get the first goal obviously, as in any match it’s important and can be a major psychological advantage to us. But at 1-0 anything can happen; someone can slip, the goalkeeper can miss a ball – there’s always a little bit of tension if you’re leading 1-0 and it’s getting close to the end of the match.

We celebrated with a few drinks after the match. We were just warned by the manager that when we got back we would be welcomed by all the Forest supporters and the entire media of Britain – he told us to try and look ‘presentable’. He said, ‘You’ve played like a team, I want you to go back looking like a team.’ It still wasn’t going to stop us having a celebratory drink. I don’t think anything was done in excess – we saved that for when we were back amongst our family and friends in this country.

Who's the greatest ever player?

I think Pelé still holds that title. The game is so much less physical now that Messi wouldn’t have survived in the era that Pelé was playing – he would have been kicked from pillar to post. Players like Pelé, George Best and Johan Cruyff were a lot stronger physically. Messi would have still been a great player along side them, don’t get me wrong. But Pelé pretty much single handily won two world cups with Brazil. Messi still hasn’t reached that level on the world stage yet – he has at club level. George Best never reached it on the world stage, though I played against George a few times and I can tell you he was different to anybody else on the football field. Messi is in that class – but you can’t describe him as the greatest ever. He’s the greatest at the moment, and because he’s got a lovely green playing surface to play on and the game’s less physical.

Reading between the lines

While tennis, cricket and rugby have all made bedfellows with the ever-watchful eye of refereeing technology, football has remained stubbornly and fallibly human. An announcement on 2nd July 2012 will reveal if goal line technology will finally make the beautiful game that little bit more... reliable. 

Question: which of the following is the odd one out?

·         Bolton Wanderers vs QPR (Premier League, March 2012)

·         Tottenham vs Chelsea (FA Cup, April 2012)

·         Fulham vs Wigan (Premier League, April 2012)

Answer: Tottenham vs Chelsea – in which a goal was awarded to Chelsea’s Juan Mata despite his shot never crossing the line. Both the other fixtures featured examples of ‘ghost’ goals – goals that, for one inexplicable reason or another, were never awarded.

"I'm in favour of technology. I've said so. But on Sunday I don't think it was about the technology. It's about the referee being able to tell whether the ball was in or out.” Tottenham goal keeper Carlo Cudicini on the goal that never was.

Ghost goals and ‘goals that never were’ have haunted football for many years. England owes its finest footballing-hour to one such goal – the third of England’s 1966 triumph over West Germany, known ever since as the ‘Wembley goal’. A research paper published in 1996 by the department of engineering science at Oxford University confirmed the German’s worst fears, that Geoff Hurst’s shot was 6cm short of fully crossing the line. No English anthem seems to recall that aspect of the ‘66 victory.

Forty four years and eleven world cups later, England found themselves trailing Germany 2-1 in the last 16 of the 2010 South African World Cup. When Frank Lampard’s strike appeared to have crossed the line to level the game, revenge for the Wembley goal was seemingly had – much to Lampard’s confusion, the goal wasn’t awarded and Germany went on to win 4-1. While the immediate effect of this particular ghost goal was to sap a team and nation of hope, the long lasting ramifications are on the cusp of altering the face of football forever.

Sepp Blatter, the Fifa president, had long maintained a stance against the use of goal line technology. A meeting in March 2010 had seen the International Football Association Board – the group in charge of the rules of football, made up of Fifa and the English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh FA’s – vote against the introduction of the technology. The Scottish and soon-to-be-furious English were the only groups in favour of any technology assisting referees. It was a victory for the ‘human element of error’, which Blatter believed was an integral part of the game. “Fans love to debate any given incident in a game. It is part of the human nature of our sport,” he told the collected media.

The joys of human error. Click to enlarge, and cry. 

After England’s ghost goal, Blatter transformed himself from analogue villain to digital hero. “We don't want a repeat of last World Cup,” Blatter assured a press conference after the tournament, stating he ‘would die’ if he witnessed a similar human error. “I think I can convince the IFAB board that we must go forward with technology, we cannot afford to just wait and see what happens.” Fifa apologised to England for the mistake, and by October of 2010, the wheels were set in motion to find a suitable form of goal-line technology for the modern game.

            In 2011, the IFAB tested eight goal line technologies on several strict criteria:

·         A goal must be indicated automatically by vibration and visual signal on the referee’s watch within one second

·         The range of the system must provide full coverage of the pitch and technical area

·         All shots on goal (or ‘no goals’ for near misses or shots into side-netting) must be correctly recognised

·         Ninety per cent of all goal situations must be displayed correctly within a tolerance of -3/+3cm of the goal line

Six of the systems failed to pass the test of indicating a goal to the referee within one second. The only technologies to pass the tests were the German-Danish group GoalRef, and the English based Hawk-Eye system, now owned by Sony. It’s Germany/Denmark vs England/Japan for the future of technology in  football.

The GoalRef system is able to detect a ball crossing the line thanks to a small chip which is inserted into the lining of the ball. Magnetic sensors in the goal frame’s posts and cross bar can then detect if the ball has crossed the line (Lampard) or fallen short (Hurst).

Hawk-Eye’s system uses six cameras to calculate the position of a ball, much like those currently being used in tennis and cricket. The key difference is the lack of delay, with the referee being notified instantly if the ball has crossed the line rather, than waiting for a review as in tennis.

The second phase of testing, currently underway at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, is putting both GoalRef and Hawk-Eye through their paces to ensure that the technology will stand up to all possible scenarios, including variable lighting conditions, muddy pitches, fog and even in the case of sustaining ‘shock’. The delay, as ever, is to ensure that any system cleared for use will improve the game, rather than hindering it.

The results of the final tests will be announced on by the IFAB in Kiev on 2^nd July 2012. Should one or both of the systems make it through the tests, the decision will then rest with the English FA as to which system might make an appearance in the 2012/13 Premier League season. Until then, the world of football must continue to enjoy the debates provided by ‘human error’.

Abell 520 - 2.4 billion light years away

Everything that Scientists thought they knew about dark matter, one of the most abundant yet mysterious substances in the universe, has been thrown into disarray thanks to this photograph. 

When astronomers from Washington observed a series of images from the Hubble telescope of the gigantic merging galaxy cluster Abell 520, they didn’t find what they had expected. What they were seeing was, as far as they understood, quite impossible.

Abell 520, here pictured, presents within its chaos of colours a bizarre mystery which astronomers are now trying to unpick. As multiple galaxy clusters collide in spectacular fashion, a clump of dark matter appears to have been left behind. A ‘dark core’ has formed at the centre of Abell 520, which contains far fewer galaxies than astronomers had expected.

"Observations like those of Abell 520 are humbling in the sense that in spite of all the leaps and bounds in our understanding, every now and then, we are stopped cold," explained Arif Babul of the University of Victoria in British Columbia, the leader of the study team which probed Hubble’s images to ensure that no error had been made.

Previous theories, deduced from observing other colliding galaxy clusters, suggest that all galaxies are anchored to dark matter – a linking which should endure the shock of one galaxy colliding with another. During the collision at Abell 520, the galaxies should have moved with the dark matter, following after it. Most of the galaxies within this image have apparently have sailed far away from the central point of collision, leaving a body of dark matter behind. This single image presents a challenge to the theories of dark matter, and the way in which astronomers understand the fabric of universe.

"This result is a puzzle," said astronomer James Jee of the University of California, leader of the Hubble study. "Dark matter is not behaving as predicted, and it's not obviously clear what is going on. Theories of galaxy formation and dark matter must explain what we are seeing.”

Hubble trouble

Half-a-dozen explanations have been issued by Babul’s team in an attempt to explain how the dark matter and galaxy clusters have become unstuck in such a fashion, but each of them undermines previous explanations of how dark matter operates.

More galaxy cluster collisions need to be found by Hubble before astronomers can find a way out of their newfound darkness.

A matter of fact: What is dark matter?

First detected about 80 years ago, dark matter is thought to be the gravitational "glue" that holds galaxies together. The cryptic invisible substance doesn’t consist of the same kind of matter that makes up stars, planets or people, but can be detected due to its gravitational influence on other matter. A technique known as ‘lensing’ allows astronomers to spot it thanks to the way in which it bends and distorts the passage of light across galaxies. As the team of NASA’s Hubble telescope put it, “It's like hearing the music but not seeing the band”.

#PrayForMuamba

A cold night in north London, 17 March, saw Tottenham Hotspur host Bolton Wanderers in the quarter-final of the FA Cup. With Spur’s season losing momentum, and Bolton’s looking increasingly like it would end in a relegation battle, the must-win cup outing was viewed as a tie that could reignite either side’s championship campaigns.

As usual for an away day, Bolton’s club chaplain Phil Mason had taken the first team’s absence as an opportunity to spend the day with the youth team. As the Bolton squad prepared to take to the pitch at White Hart Lane, Phil settled down to listen to the cup tie on his radio.

Phil took up the role of club chaplain in 2002, having just served at the Manchester Commonwealth Games. “I’d always been keen on chaplaincy,” says Phil. “Football clubs are the new cathedrals of cities in many ways; that’s where many people place the heart of their lives – and it seemed to me to be a Gospel imperative to take up such an opportunity. Some backroom staff who had moved to Bolton from Preston North End asked Bolton to introduce a chaplaincy role as they’d had good experiences of having a chaplain at Preston.”

Although passionate about people, Phil had no interest in the game of football itself, let alone Bolton Wanderers. “It wasn’t a prerequisite to be a Bolton fan – in fact it was suggested that in a sense that was a positive thing because the focus was on the people and the situations, not about glory seeking.”


After ten years of serving with Bolton, Phil had developed a passion for the beautiful game. His part time role soon developed into a full time position, offering pastoral care to the entire first team, reserve team, academy squad and backroom staff, as well as caring for the needs of thousands of Bolton fans. “You do get people saying ‘Oh you’ve obviously not prayed hard enough’ when we don’t win. I have a group of players who meet together and pray before each match; we pray for them and their families, any situations they might have – but we don’t pray for a win. We pray for wisdom, for strength, harmony – but not a win. There are only four lads I know in the first team who wouldn’t claim to believe in a god. In terms of supporters... I talk a lot about displaced spirituality: people’s spirituality used to be focused primarily on the church which was at the heart of the community. That’s no longer the case now but people need an outlet, a vehicle – and that’s been clearly evidenced in the Fabrice story where people felt they needed to make a response.”

Bolton’s early exchanges with Tottenham had Phil listening intently. Through industry and an ounce of luck, Bolton had secured their dream start to the tie as Darren Pratley’s header took a fortuitous deflection off Gareth Bale and lopped in past the Spurs keep Carlo Cudicini. Justice was seemingly done moments later when Tottenham scored a near carbon-copy of the Bolton goal, Kyle Walker rising to meet Bale’s cross, levelling the game after 11 minutes.

But the match wasn’t to be remembered for the football that was played or the goals that were scored. The cheers of the buoyant fans were silenced 41 minutes into the game, as the then 23-year-old Bolton midfielder Fabrice Muamba collapsed to the pitch away from the main focus of play. As several players jogged over to see what had happened, the mood around the stadium gained an edge of intensity. When the players reached Fabrice their reaction compounded the tension, as they turned to the dugout to call for assistance. Referee Howard Webb waved franticly to the touch line for medical support. Muamba’s heart had stopped beating.

“I can only describe myself as being in a state of shock when it happened. I immediately got phone calls from the ground as the club chairman (Phil Gartside) and the communications officer kept me up to date with things. We put a plan together for the club’s response to the incident, and made plans to be at the London Chest Hospital by Sunday. I travelled to the hospital where we met the family and Fabrice, who was in a critical condition. I prayed with them all. I was then on hand to offer ongoing support throughout the week.

“I came back from the hospital on the Tuesday evening to open up the Reebok stadium for fans to be able to come and pray. We held a little service for Fabrice; 300 people came through the doors that night, writing their own prayers for him. We even put a little ‘colour-in’ prayer for the junior members on the club website and got the kids to pin their prayers on the goal post at the following match.” In response to Fabrice’s recovery, Bolton cancelled their next Premier League game and held service in its place.

The sequence of events that followed Fabrice’s collapse has been well recorded – thankfully not as a consequence of reliving a tragedy, but in recounting a recovery that cardiologist Dr Andrew Deaner – a Tottenham fan who managed to make his way on to the pitch to assist medics working to save Fabrice’s life – has described as ‘miraculous’.

Despite having his heart manually operated via a combination of CPR and defibrillators for 78 minutes, Fabrice celebrated his 24th birthday on Good Friday. Less than two months after collapsing at White Hart Lane, he is now at home with his family. His account of the recovery was the subject of an exclusive interview with The Sun, whose front page led with Fabrice’s statement of faith; “I asked God to protect me... he didn’t let me down.” Discussion has even turned to his potential return to the Bolton team.

Within minutes of his collapse, thousands had taken to expressing their concern via Twitter, with the hash tag #PrayForMuamba soon gaining a huge online presence. Yet Phil Mason believes the response of Fabrice’s family is of a far more sober nature than the online prayer campaign or The Sun’s exclusive would indicate.

“Fabrice’s family are committed Christians,” he explains. “I think they would describe his recovery as miracle... I think they recognise the whole sequence of events that took place; the ability of the medical staff and the way that things transpired, along with the support of the wider world and the prayers of so many people – they describe it as a cocktail that has led to a remarkable recovery.”

Fabrice’s account of his recovery, in which he describes himself as ‘walking proof of the power of prayer’, has served as a reminder to Phil of how vital his role is in the life of Bolton Wanderers. “It shows the inertia that exists in people’s spirituality, and how football can kick start something within people. I find it with any bereavement experienced by a supporter, in their desire to come to the ground and record the name of their loved one in the memorial book and scatter their ashes on the pitch. We have three or four hundred people that attend the memorial service each year. It’s events like that, and this recent focus on Fabrice, that shows the spiritual needs that there are out there.”

Why was it that the collapse of a little-known Bolton midfielder brought English football to its knees in prayer?

The answer for Dr Martin Perry – a sports psychologist whose musings and observations make regular appearances in footballing magazine 4-4-2 and on the BBC – isn’t a clear cut one: “I’ll be frank with you, as I don’t have an obvious answer; it needs consideration. I was at a game at Coventry and I noticed that fans there were chanting Muamba’s name. It was slightly odd that such cross team support for him existed in a football community where partisanship is the order of the day.

“What should also be considered is why would people care about someone they wouldn’t give a second thought to: what are the circumstances that lead to people caring about a fit athlete suddenly collapsing in a game? There’s a shock value – but that shouldn’t trigger the degree of care it did in Muamba’s case, that should trigger a degree of curiosity. The shock creates awareness, but that doesn’t answer the question. At a deeper level it’s very hard to pinpoint. I think that Muamba’s story is one that draws attention to a society’s yearning for a different level of empathy between people that doesn’t usually get exercised in daily life. I think you have to look at something much deeper than the story of Fabrice Muamba, and look at people’s deeper need to connect.”

Di Matteo's tactics

Death of the Gentleman

The gentleman is dead, replaced by horde of polite pretenders 

A friend recently caused me to get overexcited about her throwaway use of the term 'gentleman'. It's a frustration that I've had for as many years as my female friends have been dating and getting screwed over by assorted men. The point stood and she agreed with me, but far from being a victory, it was a disappointing indicator that the world no longer contains that many gentlemen - and I'm partly to blame.

The discussion was had after my friend recalled a date she had recently been on with a man she met on a night out. After several hours of clubbing, drinking and all that wonderfully unsightly bump'n'rub clubs are filled with, she ended up going back to his place, where they got to know each other a little better.

I have no problem whatsoever with the matter of my friend partaking in a one-night-stand; I'm not her dad, and she's a fiercely attractive girl capable of looking after herself. I realise that every soul has at some point or another - probably in the depths of a sleepless night or after a frustrating day of being ignored by the world at large - longed for the company and affection of another human being. Should an evening of revelry and drinking provide an attractive suitor who promises such necessities, then clearly, most of us would get on board.

The judgment by which we declare that soul suitable for such an activity varies by drastic degrees, and I for one have never held enough confidence in my own critical eye to give the thumbs-up to a thump-thump with a total stranger - not to mention the fact that it flies in the face of my Christian faith and beliefs as to when sexy time should take place (within the wonderful scenario of marriage). The issue I had with my friend's story was not, as I say, in the fact that she'd bedded a boy of mystery, but in how the narrative continued in a manner which resulted in her labeling this man a 'gentleman'.

After their wild night-of-naughty, the chap decided that - given that he'd had a nice time and she seemed like a psychologically stable kind of girl (and hot to boot) - he'd do the 'decent' thing and ask my friend out on a date. She duly accepted, as a girl's got to eat, and the only individuals I know who'd turn down an evening of probable flirting and flattery are those attempting to recover from some form of emotional turmoil, or have suddenly been overcome by the guilt-laden realisation that they never liked the poor bugger in the first place.

The date commenced in a very predictable fashion. They chatted, they laughed, they discussed the complexities of their jobs, and eventually they finished pretending to be interested in food and went back to his place.

Now, it was the invitation of a date, coupled with standard behaviour and meal-time etiquette, that bagged this guy the title of 'gentleman'. It was here that I had to make my point. This was a display of politeness, of good up bringing, but to declare it the behavior of a gentleman is to kill off all hope that men might make something more of themselves. The gentleman now exists purely by the lowering of our general expectations:

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the gentleman as follows -

noun (plural gentlemen)

1. a chivalrous, courteous, or honourable man: 'he behaved throughout like a perfect gentleman'

• a man of good social position, especially one of wealth and leisure.
• a man of noble birth attached to a royal household: a Gentleman of the Bedchamber

The origins of the word lie in Middle English, deriving from the sense in which a man could be of noble ('gentle') birth. A duty of chivalry, courtesy and honour were bestowed upon such a man. Thus the title of gentleman is both a standard and a marvelous lure: if a man were to aspire to a wealthier, better life, then a man must also aspire to the form of behaviour that went with it - an improvement of character, in which a man might go beyond his social station and assume an ethical fiber of such repute that he is comparable to a man of nobility.

My hope is not that men aspire to nobility - the legitimacy of the Royals is hard to defend in the modern age, and desiring to be like Will or Harry isn't a sensible or practical goal. My desire is that we could recover some sense of three terms that denote the gentleman - those of chivalry, courtesy and honour.

Given that we men have lost a sense of what it is to be chivalrous and honourable, courtesy has become the only hallmark of gentlemanly qualities that remains in (some) of our behaviour - but I would deem it the lesser of the three behaviours we are looking to regain. Good manners aren't something to be lauded with praise - they are to be expected. Should a man take a girl out on a date and act like a normal human being, respecting the independence and humanity of the woman accompanying him, while he also performs the traditions of restaurant etiquette, then he isn't a gentleman - he's just done what a man should always do. Courtesy is required of all men, but as the bare minimum of what should be expected of us - it should not be the most which might be expected of our character.

What then of chivalry? Its true meaning deserves a library of attention. It comes from the medieval knightly system, a code of Christian duty in which a knight must be courageous, honourable, courteous and stand for justice, with a readiness to help those weaker and less fortunate than themselves. Within the Age of Chivalry, a knight rescued the damsel in distress not because he wanted to take her home and show her his jousting pole, but because she - a vulnerable human without the means of helping herself out of a situation of peril - was in a position which required the aid of another.

Today's equivalent would be for a man to take note of any and all humans who are less fortunate or able than himself, and to provide them aid without the need of them requesting it first. The gentleman of the council estate is the man who goes round old Mrs. Stafford's flat once a week to have tea with her and help her with the washing up. The gentleman of the city would not only buy the Big Issue from the street seller, but ask him how his day was, ask if he needed a drink or a coffee, and recognise that the human standing in front of them  has just a legitimate existence as their own. To pursue chivalry doesn't require a changing of your own life, but such an attitude can change the lives of others around you.

Honour makes a suitable bedfellow of chivalry; an adherence to what is right, a nobleness of the mind, a magnanimity. An honourable action will never be questioned or doubted by your peers, such is the 'correctness' of the action. Within the social and business spheres of the gentleman, everyone would know his affairs to be in order, that his actions are to be trusted, and that no amount of hardship would cause him to flout the rules in order to get ahead. Honour doesn't judge a situation in order to strike upon the route which might take a man to the top - honour judges the situation and takes the road that doesn't provoke enmity or greed or jealousy.

For me, men are no longer judged by these standards. We can be allowed to get away with far too much if we smile politely and apologise when necessary. The status of 'Alpha' male is given far more respect than that of the gentleman. I urge you, do not do men a disservice by describing a lesser individual as a gentleman - it brings us all down, or rather, doesn't point us to the heights we should be aiming for. Should you come across a gentleman, treat him with the respect he is due, and hopefully you might force a spike a jealousy into his peers, so that we might all up our game.