Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
He has written the definitive history. Not just the games and the goals but what it means all over the world. God knows how long it took him or if he planned for it to be quite this all-encompassing when he started. It really is an incredible achievement. He takes you from how it was played as a working-class sport in Britain in the late 1800s and how the colonialists from Britain, France and Portugal took it with them to the rest of the world, obviously to Africa, but to other parts of the world as well.
The Ball is Round, David Goldblatt.
This book is incredible. I want to show you exactly how big it is. It’s enormous. It’s 1,000 pages, give or take. Huge. Heavy as a brick. It’s a global history of football and it really is as in-depth as that. The thing I love about it is the scale. He could have done a 300-page book on this that gave you a flavour of it and his publishers would probably have been happier about it. Easier to sell. But instead he has written the definitive history. Not just the games and the goals but what it means all over the world. God knows how long it took him or if he planned for it to be quite this all-encompassing when he started. It really is an incredible achievement. He takes you from how it was played as a working-class sport in Britain in the late 1800s and how the colonialists from Britain, France and Portugal took it with them to the rest of the world, obviously to Africa, but to other parts of the world as well. He takes you through the birth of the World Cup in 1930, something the Brits were very unhappy about.
Were we? Why?
Well. It was their game. Other people can play it, but the idea of there being a World Cup that they didn’t organise...
And that they might lose?
Well, yes. When England did finally enter the World Cup in 1950 they then lost to America.
Ouch.
Yes, we don’t like to talk about it, but I’m sure it will get talked about this week because England’s first game is against the US, 60 years on from when they first met. So it’s an epic book. Absolutely epic and deeply, deeply impressive. It’s one of those books it’s always nice to go back and have a little look at every now and then. It’s got so many fantastic stories. And the guy can write.
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Steve Bloomfield has been based in Nairobi since 2006, reporting from 25 countries across Africa. A former Africa correspondent for The Independent, he now writes for a range of publications including Monocle and The Observer and has also written for Newsweek, GQ and Esquire. His book Africa United: How Football Explains Africa (Africa-united.co.uk) is a political and cultural look at 13 African countries through their approach to football.
