One of our first series of blogs was all about how football changed and evolved in the twentieth century. Looking at the game, decade by decade we explored the impact of football on different nations - the UK, France, Spain, Italy and Germany. Eventually, as football moved on we recognized the effects of major tournaments and continental competition in the creation of a modern game. As commercialism and consumerism took over, how did some clubs prosper and others struggle to keep the pace? Starting in 1900 - we run right the way through the end of the millennium in 1999. Click the links below to explore!
Military events in the South Atlantic – even at a distance of 8000 miles – had a profound impact on a celebrated pair of international footballers in the 1980s. @RichEvansWriter takes up the story: Ossie Ardiles & Ricardo Villa at Tottenham Hotspur When one thinks of footballers and war, images of khaki-clad figures of yesteryear tend to spring to mind – the kind of ‘moustached archaic faces’ that Philip Larkin details in his poem MCMXIV. However, footballers do not have to be participants to be affected by conflict. Indeed, as with any civilians, they may well be unwitting victims with no stake in political events beyond their control. In certain instances, football risks turning into an extension of the battleground – where players, subject to barbarous words and threats, become targets of abuse. Such was the case in 1982 with Ricardo Villa and Ossie Ardiles – then both of Tottenham Hotspur – whose fates (at least in the short term) were determined by events unfolding on the o