The Men Who Made Modern Football #15 - Arthur Rowe

“Keep it simple, keep it quick, keep it accurate” is a phrase most associated with double winning Tottenham Hotspur manager Bill Nicholson, but it was originally uttered by Arthur Rowe the man who had created the environment for Nicholson’s triumph, ten years previously at White Hart Lane. In doing so he not only laid a template for Spurs forever ephemeral footballing aesthetic but also planted the seed for England’s world cup triumph.

A Tottenham man by birth, Rowe grew up with the club spending time with their nursery clubs Cheshunt and Northfleet United in the 1920s. The Spurs coach at the time was Peter McWilliam, a Scot who brought with him the passing tradition of making the ball do the work, for which his native country had been renowned since Victorian times. 

In Rowe he had a willing student, although McWilliam’s departure meant by the time Rowe’s cultured centre half act was on show in the first team in the 1930s he was suffocated by the dominant English philosophy of kick and rush which he translated in these terms:  “I never scored a goal for the first team. They didn't like the centre-half to go too far over the halfway line in those days.”

England recognition followed in 1933 but a cartilage injury restricted his progress and he retired in 1939. Fate then intervened to create a serendipitous invitation to advise the Hungarian FA on developing their national game. The outward looking Rowe accepted and went onto consult with the likes of Gustav Sebes and Ferenc Puskas in a meeting of minds which promised much only to be cut short by World War two. However in being able to discuss and develop his progressive tactics, Rowe was given the confidence to implement his radical philosophy when peace returned.  

This began at Chelmsford City whom he led to the Southern League title in 1946, the Clarets almost following this up with election to the Football League. His success was noted by his alma mater and he was appointed manager at second division Spurs in 1949. What followed was in the words of his Spurs captain Ronnie Burgess, nothing short of a “revolution”.

Rowe saw his ideas as the embodiment of the notion that football was a simple game. Peppering his team talks with aphorisms such as “a good player runs to the ball, a bad player runs after it”, Rowe emphasised the importance of the short pass accompanied by swift movement off the ball as the key to success. The style, to Rowe’s distaste, became known as push and run, featuring a high frequency of wall passes, a term Rowe did approve of given how as a child he had honed his technique by kicking a ball against an actual wall.

By its nature this required players to free themselves of the strictures of their notional position, either to fall back from the forward line to collect the ball, or attack from defence to pursue it.

For what would now be an overlapping full back, Rowe signed Alf Ramsey, with the seeds of the latter’s World Cup winning wingless wonders being planted as Spurs raced to the Division Two title in 1950, leading throughout the season to win by a margin of nine points as the leading scorers and best defence.

Twelve months later, Spurs were champions of all England, winning plaudits for their breath taking football which reached its apogee in a seven goal demolition of Newcastle United. They almost defended their title, finishing runners up in 1952 but from this point on, faded quickly, a demise which led to Rowe suffering greatly from anxiety and depression, resigning his post in 1955 in the wake of an FA Cup defeat to York.

His success in developing instantly, with the addition of Ramsey, an existing Spurs squad into an irresistible force for three seasons created sky high expectations which he couldn’t maintain. However having imbued his philosophy in his players Bill Nicholson and Eddie Baily he had created the management team that would take the club to new heights in the early sixties, winning not only the double and back to back FA Cups, but also England’s first European title. In 1954 he had also signed Nicholson’s captain Danny Blanchflower.

The fifties also saw the flowering of the managerial talent Vic Buckingham (MWMMF 17) at West Bromwich Albion. He had been a team mate of Rowe’s at Tottenham in the 1930s and considered him his mentor.

Rowe returned to football as assistant manager at fourth division Crystal Palace in the late fifties, becoming manager in 1960 and taking the Eagles to promotion in 1961. He again resigned due to the pressure of the job in 1962 but soon reverted back to his assistant role, helping the club to another promotion in 1964 as Palace continued a decade long climb to a first ever season in the top flight.

Granted a Selhurst Park testimonial, an honour not received at White Hart Lane, Rowe drifted around the game into the seventies with spells at Orient, Brentford, West Brom and Millwall. He had become something of a forgotten man, remembered only by those privileged to see his team play in a pre-television era. This proved to be a fleeting glimpse of what English football might have become, as with the exception of the tantalising triumphs of Nicholson’s Spurs and Ramsey’s England, clubs reverted to type.

Rowe summed up this devotion to character rather than intellect saying:  “All you need to remember is that 50 per cent of the people in the game are bluffers. So a decent manager's halfway there when he starts out.”

The Men Who Made Modern Football #14 - Gusztáv Sebes

Having started on a mitteleuropa trail that began with Meisl and continued with Hogan, Erbstein and Guttman, it is inevitable that the last Hungarian to feature in this series is Gusztáv Sebes, the man who coached the magnificent Magyars of the 1950s and changed football forever.

The son of a cobbler, Sebes was born in Budapest, and spent time in Paris working as a fitter for Renault, playing for the works team Olympique Billancourt. However he spent the bulk of his playing career with MTK Hungaria winning three League titles.

Following retirement he was put in charge of the national team as the Deputy Minister for sport. Influenced by the great Austrian and Italian national teams of the 1930s he aimed to draw the majority of his players from one or two clubs. This was made easier following the nationalisation of sports clubs under the post war Soviet regime. The ministry of defence took over Kispest, renaming it Honved. Already containing Ferenc Puskas and Jozsef Bozsik, the team was augmented using conscription, with Sandor Kocsis, Zoltan Czibor, Laszlo Budai, Gyula Lorant and Gyular Grosics. As the army team Honved could become the training camp for the bedrock of the Hungarian national team.

Back at his old club MTK, coach Marton Bukovi pioneered the use of the 4-2-4 or M-M formation, using a deep lying centre forward. With this team providing the rest of Sebes eleven, he then layered on his philosophy of what he called socialist football, and what is now known as total football.

Essentially this required every player to have equal responsibility in attack and defence, and thus able to play in any position on the pitch. In practical terms this meant developments such as overlapping full backs and a false nine. The stage was now set for Hungary to rock the world of football.

Their rise to prominence began at the 1952 Olympics staged in Helsinki. Hungary cruised to the final scoring twenty goals and conceding just two, beating defending champions Sweden in the semi-final. The gold medal was won with a 2-0 win over Yugoslavia, and the watching head of the FA Stanley Rous was moved to invite Hungary to play England.

The fixture was to be played in November 1953. In the meantime Hungary won the Central European International Cup. Sebes planned meticulously for the England game, using the heavier ball favoured by the English, and a training pitch which matched the dimensions of Wembley. He also played training matches against teams using the English style.

With rising star Nandor Hidegkuti scoring a hat-trick, Hungary stunned England with a 6-3 win, the first time England had lost to a non British team on home soil. Also to the fore was the brilliant Puskas, scoring one of his two goals with an amazing drag back to leave captain Billy Wright flat on his back before firing the ball into the back of the net. The fact that the match was important not just for the result but also its introduction of a radical exciting way of playing the game was symbolised by the commentary “here’s the number five and he’s not playing centre half”. A few months later Hungary emphasised their superiority by winning the return match 7-1 in Budapest.

By the time of the 1954 World Cup in Switzerland, Sebes’ team had been unbeaten for four years. They sailed through the group stage and beat 1950 runners up Brazil 4-2 in a quarter-final which became known as the Battle of Berne due to a post match brawl in the tunnel. 

In the semi-final they overcame defending holders Uruguay 4-2 leading to a final tie against West Germany who they had already beaten in 8-3 in the group stage. Puskas had broken his ankle in this win and was absent from the following two matches but returned for the final.

Playing in heavy rain Hungary were two nil up in eight minutes but the Germans had levelled the score only ten minutes later. Hungary threw everything at the Germans hitting the woodwork twice and having two shots cleared off the line but went behind with six minutes to go. Puskas thought he had equalised in the dying minutes only for his goal to be disallowed for offside. In a match mired with controversy there were post match allegations that the Germans had taken performance enhancing drugs.

Back in Hungary the first defeat of the Golden team since 1950 triggered demonstrations which goalkeeper Grosics believed sowed the seeds of the 1956 uprising. Grosics ended up under house arrest whilst Sebes himself came under severe criticism. He carried on in his post for two more years before being sacked. The Soviet invasion of 1956 led to the defection of the team’s stars and by the time of the next World Cup only four players remained.

The spirit of the mighty Magyars lived on in the performances of the players in club football, most notably Puskas at Real Madrid, and Sebes’ place in history is assured as the man who drew together the threads spun over thirty years to produce one of the most exciting teams the world has ever seen. Its fluid and flexible philosophy endured most notably through Holland in the 70s and Brazil in the 80s before finally finding the ability to synthesise the aesthetic of style and a winning ruthlessness in the modern day Spanish team.

The Men Who Made Modern Football #13 - Béla Guttman

Introduced in the last episode of this series as escaping from the Nazis alongside Ergi Erbstein, Béla Guttman was a globe trotting coach who is best known for creating the all conquering Benfica team of the early 60s before cursing the Eagles never to hit the same heights again.

A larger than life character who gave his players great self belief, he was from the same Austro-Hungarian coffee house school of coaching as Hugo Meisl, with his tactical influence most felt in the development of the 1950s Brazilian national team.

His playing career began by winning back to back titles with MTK Hungaria and international caps, but the anti-semitic government of Admiral Horthy led him to leave his country of birth for Vienna. Signing for the all Jewish club Hakoah, he won another title in 1925. Following a post season tour in 1926 he spent several seasons in the USA but having lost a fortune in the Wall Street Crash returned to Europe.

During the 1930s he coached clubs in Austria, The Netherlands and Hungary where he ended the decade winning the title and Mitropa Cup with Újpest. The outbreak of war led to him leading the life of a fugitive, even when he was eventually interned he managed to escape by jumping out of  a transport train with Erbstein.

Post war he flitted between coaching jobs in Romania (where he insisted on being paid in vegetables) and Hungary. His frequent departures were characterised by angry disputes, leaving his homeland for the final time when he fell out with Ferenc Puskas at Kispest.

Italy was his next destination where he worked at four clubs including AC Milan where he was sacked midway through the 1954/55 season with the Rossoneri top of Serie A. From this point on Guttman insisted on having a clause in his contract which meant he couldn’t be dismissed if his team was top of the table.

A tour to South America with Honved led to a job with Sao Paulo where he won the State championship in 1957 and introduced the Hungarian 4-2-4 formation which was subsequently adopted by the winning Brazil team at the 1958 World Cup to herald twelve years of domination.

A lucrative offer from Porto to restructure the club and win the league was accepted in 1958 and by the end of his first season he had met the challenge to win the first of three consecutive Portuguese titles. However the second two wins were with Benfica, the Eagles tempting Guttman into joining them with an even more lucrative package.

Starting the season with an unbeaten run of twenty five matches, the 1960 title followed him to Estádio da Luz, and prompted a demand for a 200,000 Escudo bonus should he go on to win the European Cup in 1961. Such was Real Madrid’s absolute domination of the competition the Benfica chairman increased the bonus by fifty per cent as he thought it an impossible feat.

With a team built around signings from the Portuguese colonies, Benfica duly reached the final in Bern where they faced favourites Barcelona who had inflicted Real Madrid’s first European Cup defeat, inspired by a trio of mighty Magyars in Kocsis, Czibor and Kubala. Despite going behind Benfica came back to win 3-2 with goals from Angolan José Águas and Mozambican Mario Coluna.

Thus Guttman duly collected his bonus and asked for half a million Escudoes for retaining the trophy. To help him do so he had poached a nineteen forward from Mozambique from the grasp of deadly rivals Sporting. He had mythically heard about Eusebio earlier in the season following a chance meeting in a barber shop with a former Brazilian colleague

Benfica reached their second consecutive final after beating the double winning Spurs 4-3 in the semi-final. This time their final opponents were Real Madrid. Before the tie in Amsterdam Guttman highlighted to his team how sport evolved over time, how achievements which once seemed remarkable were now common place implying that the Madrid stars Di Stefano and Puskas were over the hill.

Lining up in typical 4-2-4 formation, Benfica found themselves 3-2 down at half time due to a Puskas hat trick. Guttman continued to infuse his players with belief saying: “Don’t worry. We’re going to win this thing. They’re dead tired”.

Five minutes after the break his captain Coluna, known as the sacred monster for the way he could influence others with a glance, equalised. Real then went down to ten men with no substitutes permitted for injured players. The protégé Eusebio then came to the fore, winning and then scoring a penalty before sealing the win with a second goal.

Inevitably Guttman again asked for a third pay rise, which this time was turned down prompting him to leave for Penarol to live up to his maxim that “the third year is always fatal for as coach”. He also aimed a parting shot at the board saying: "Not in a hundred years from now will Benfica ever be European champion".

This curse has stood to date with Benfica going on to lose all eight of their subsequent European finals, including five European Cup finals. In 1990 the final was played in Guttman’s final resting place of Vienna. Eusebio prayed at his graveside to no end as Benfica lost again, this time to AC Milan.

Guttman continued to move from club to club into his seventies, his fiery nature coupled with financial insecurity creating a peripatetic career sealing his greatness as a coach whose influence lay in its breadth of global coverage and his unquenchable belief in his ability to scale the greatest heights with any group of players.

Not Art - A Story of one woman's football obsession.

The irresistible rise in the importance of the role of women in football, has to date been largely reflected by their participation in the game. This is understandable given it was only in 1971 that the FA lifted their ban on women's matches being played at any affiliated club, a jealous measure originally introduced in the face of crowds of over 50,000 being drawn to watch Dick Kerr's Ladies team in the 1920s.

The lifting of the ban had been preceded in 1969 by the formation of the Women's FA and quickly followed  by introduction of the Women's FA Cup and national team. In more recent years the astoundingly obvious move to introduce the game into schools to replace the likes of hockey has led to the current, more equitable, state of affairs with extensive media coverage.

Increased participation has naturally been reflected by a greater presence in all aspects of the game, with writers such as Amy Lawrence following the trail blazed by Julie Welch, but despite the boom in football literature a paucity exists in telling the stories of women, such as Helen 'The Bell' Turner, who have watched the game throughout it's history, in contrast to the shelves of memoirs detailing the male experience. 

Fortunately, with thanks to blogger Beyond the Last Man, I found one such example, Not Art by renowned Hungarian author Peter Esterhazy. An autobiographical novel, it tell's the author's story of the relationship with his mother who is obsessed, more so than her son, with football. Unlike his preceding work, Journey to the Depths of the Eighteen Yard Line, Not Art has been translated into English by Judith Sollosy, although in line with the Hungarian language's reputation as the most complex in Europe, it is quite a difficult read as the writing jerks jazz style from the narrative to the author's present day thoughts on often unrelated topics.

The novel begins with Esterhazy talking to his mother on her death bed, where she insists on him talking her through the intricacies of the offside rule. We quickly learn though that it's the son who has spent his life as a student of the game, taught by a woman with an epicurean appreciation of the Hungarian footballing values established by the Magnificent Magyars of the 1950s.

With the help of footnotes, the novel paints a picture of life growing up in post war Hungary and its troubled status in the Soviet bloc represented by a father distanced by his relationship with the secret police and an aristocratic mother working in a factory. The latter's dominant voice is constantly projected through the prism of football, peppered with references to the likes of Jozsef Bozsik, Zoltan Czibor and of course Ferenc Puskas who we learn is known ubiquitously in his homeland as Junior.

The joy of the novel is perfectly captured in the retelling of a family anecdote where mother comes across teenagers Puskas and Bozsik playing with a rag ball on a patch of wasteland next to a factory. Spotting the poor state of the ball she insists the boys turn around whilst she whips off her stockings to refashion it, thus demonstrating her absolute commitment to the game which would be rewarded when the boys became prominent members of one of the greatest national teams the game has ever seen.