Note: if anyone cares to do their own version of this in the comments, I’ll turn it into a separate post here.

Just because Desert Island Discs is old doesn’t mean it isn’t tight. Only eight records? And one book? One luxury?

I never felt much like having a luxury, unless that be an unexpected, inexhaustible barrel of Leffe Blonde, and each of my records would turn out to be sets of 78s the size of the multi-volume encyclopedia I am already forbidden by the Plomley Rules. And as for the book - I’d have Philip Larkin’s “Further Requirements”, which includes his Desert Island Discs.

And how dull to be washed up with what amounts to an Ipod and a broken Amazon Kindle. I want to be washed up with books, music and Youtube clips.

Your Football Desert Island “Discs” are EIGHT football clips, TWO football books, TWO football songs, ONE image and ONE moment in football history in which you can intervene.

These are mine in reverse order. Clips first. Cliche alert:

1. Brazil v England 1970

Still, in my view, the best international match ever played, and the best English team performance of all time. It came against the best international side of all time, and they lost. But so well..

2. David Pleat and Luton v Manchester City 1983

At school in Bedford, Luton were our closest First Division side, so a lot of us supported them by extension. None of us cared about Pleat’s shoes then. I trust we would now. But a good man and a good manager and Spurs’ worst mistake of modern times was to sack him.

3. David Beckham v Greece 2001

Do I really have to justify this one? Save to say, given how Beckham has played for England down the years, in contrast to many who are always about to perform, or promising to perform, or expected to perform, he spends rather a lot of time being the fall guy.

4. Newcastle United v Liverpool

Not that one. This one, which is much better:

5. George Best v Benfica 1968

The best player of all time in my opinion, with apologies to Sir Tom Finney. And Manchester United should always play in blue: more tasteful than that godawful red that I had foisted onto my bedcover as a boy.

6. Michael Owen v Germany 2001

I was too scared to watch this game, spending it over the barbecue talking to a German visitor who was in the same kind of mood. When we finally went inside, it just got better and better and better.

7. They Always Score

1999, the last time I watched a match as a pure fan wanting my team to win. It almost bloody killed me. Remember I’d had to sit through England v Argentina only a year earlier.

8. Rahn schiesst..

It’s the commentary: ten years of international shame, of hunger and bitter cold and hard work such as I can’t imagine, all finding release in one glorious moment. It never fails to raise the hairs on the back of my neck. Hungary has never been the same since. In Berlin, I came across George Szirtes’ new book “Metropole” translated into Hungarian by some guy called Karinthy. Not a patch on the original.

Now for the songs.

1. Three Lions (original version)

The 1998 repeat is embarrassingly bad. But this one went straight onto the terraces. Even I like it. And Brooking’s comments in the opening seconds still apply:

2. The Kop

Not my team, but this has gone now, really: the sound so vast that it overwhelms the microphone. The Beatles wrote England’s folk song book alone during this period, and Morris Dancers should be shot etc.

Here’s my image. It would be a video, had anyone had the sense to wield a film camera.

And two books.

1. “Matt Busby’s Manchester United Scrapbook”

This was actually my second book of football history, but the first to really ram home what was lost at Munich. Glorious photographs, great memories and the inevitable reassurances about Dave Sexton bringing back the glory days.

2. Tor! The History of German Football by Ulrich Hesse-Lichtenberger

Pace Simon Kuper and Jonathan Wilson, still the greatest book ever written about the game. German football has had a far more interesting time of it than English. We’ve had the triumphs, but they’ll always have 1954 to look back on.

And, finally, one moment in which I intervene. As a child, I dreamt of playing: running on to that through ball, and so did you. More recently, I find myself dreaming of management! But really, what I want to do is to shoot the tyres out on aircraft so that they can’t try to take off.

Thanks largely to the fortunate survival of the Mitchell and Kenyon archive, the British Film Institute now possesses many hours of Edwardian football footage. A large proportion of this has now been properly restored and the best of it released on two DVDs: Electric Edwardians and Edwardian Sport .

Snippets of this material come and go on Youtube, caught up in the never-ending copyright battle that makes the site so unpredictable, fun and frustrating. But now the BFI themselves have thrown a decent amount up there themselves. Here’s the best of what’s there so far. (The rest of their Youtube collection is well worth exploring, as is the Mediatheque at their beautiful Southbank headquarters in London).

Sunderland v Leicester Fosse 1907

(There’s an amusing drinking story around Leicester Fosse - look it up!)

Burnley v Manchester United 1902

Preston North End v Aston Villa 1905

Bolton v Burton United 1904/5

Preston North End v Wolverhampton Wanderers 1904

Blackburn Rovers v Aston Villa 1904

Bradford City v Gainsborough Trinity 1903

Notts County v Middlesbrough 1902

Everton v Liverpool 1902

Rotherham Town v Thornhill 1902

Newcastle United v Liverpool 1901

(The outstanding film of this set - the only one truly worth watching just for the game)

Sheffield United v Bury 1901

(The United side who lost to John Cameron’s Spurs in the Cup Final take on the Cupholders who defeated George Clawley’s Southern League Southampton in the 1900 Final)

Salford v Batley 1901

Rugby League - with fascinating changing room shots and much “background” detail.

The Ban on Womens’ Football

This is from 1921, and comments on the FA’s impending ban. Eccentric and disastrous behaviour on the FA’s part, even at the time. Genuine mysogyny I suspect, of the kind Rachel Heyhoe-Flint had to deal with at the other end of the century and Jackie Oatley’s putting up with now.

I mentioned Fred Spiksley here yesterday - he was one of the group of Edwardian football coaches and ex-players interned by Germany with John Cameron at Ruhleben near Berlin.

This group, plus Jack Reynolds, William Townley and Jimmy Hogan, pioneered the teaching of football, and had to go abroad to do it. Of these, Fred Pentland (Spain), Jimmy Hogan (Hungary and Austria) and Jack Reynolds (Holland) were undeniably excellent coaches who had remarkable careers and left considerable legacies.

Three out of that group is quite a high proportion. It’s worth bearing in mind that these men were self-selecting: not only did they have to regard teaching football as worthwhile, but they had to have the self-confidence and self-assurance to leave home for years on end, and, in most cases, to stay abroad even after the bitter experience of imprisonment during World War I.

That self-selection doesn’t include any factor about ability to coach. British football was looked up to by Europe’s small happy band of early adopters, and one suspects that any “name” from the Football League would have more than satisfied a club who were simply too far away to perform any kind of quality check upon their new gaffer.

It might be that outside of the great three of Pentland, Reynolds and Hogan, the others were pioneers merely by being where they were and doing what they were doing i.e. creating the idea of football as a sport to be learned and developed. Whether they were any good as coaches is impossible to tell - there are no contemporaries to compare them with, and hindsight is worthless given that they were breaking the ground for others.

But this brief film of Fred Spiksley coaching at Fulham in the early 1930s is interesting nonetheless. We are always being told, for instance, that street football taught skills that coaching cannot reach. Not much sign of that here. And then what of Spiksley himself? Is he any good?

Interesting to note that 1930s Fulham was also home to Jimmy Hogan for a while. They fired him, contemptuously, saying that professional footballers “didn’t need to be coached”, whilst Hogan was recuperating in hospital. For all that, to have both Spiksley and Hogan on board for part of the time hints at something important almost dawning on the club. Craven Cottage has always welcomed players of genuine skill and intelligence: was it close to taking the same attitude with its managers? Vic Buckingham, who discovered Johann Cruyff and almost won the double with West Brom in the 1950s, would be there later, and so would Bobby Robson. Fulham dealt both of them unusually unpleasant sackings too..

Here’s the film. Clearly, the film makers have insisted on an easy-to-shoot scenario, and Spiksley is having to shout for the microphone. And are the players camera-shy? The whole thing is very artificial. What do you think?

I’m still silent, but this isn’t: a fantastic multiparter on Leeds at their Revie height. Thanks due to Leeds4EvEr1992 for posting. I think Part Two might be the same as Part One, but patience will be rewarded:

Arsenal lost at the moment Adebayor turned to celebrate with the crowd, not with the young genius whose lifelong memory of a run created his afterthought of a vital goal. Sven was right to take him to the World Cup, and, but for the fake Sheikh, might have played him.

Enough of such things. Really, do take the time to watch this “fan video” of Germany v Argentina from 2006. It’s far and away the best piece of work of its kind I’ve seen. Let’s face it: they’re normally crap. But this is magnificent - a warm, witty visual essay about the life that still goes on through an often overcommercialised tournament.

Cheer yourself up - here it is:

A group of French film students take one of French football’s greatest heroes up a crane for an interview. The unusual context lowers his guard, which makes for some very thoughtprovoking answers:

Wales enthusiasts might enjoy this clip of Cardiff City taking the open-top bus route through Rhyader.

Link via this BBC website page

Although I’m not the only one pleased to see Beckham make it to his century of England caps, most commentators aren’t. In particular, it’s said over and over again that Beckham isn’t worth the honour when put up against his “colleagues” Shilton, Moore, Charlton and Wright.

That’s my instinctive reaction too. At least it is at first. Moore and Charlton were both World Cup winners, and but for illness might have been twice over. Shilton has Ray Clemence to thank for not passing 150 caps or more in his twenty years as an international. And Billy Wright.. has long been swallowed by the football nostalgia movement.

But add to that the suggestion that Beckham is long past his best, and should make way for a younger man, and add to that the suggestion that Beckham hasn’t been good enough for England for some time, and I part company.

I’m going to address these things in reverse order, beginning with the idea that Beckham is a long time past his best England performances.

The problem Beckham faces in this respect is that his best performance for England was the extraordinary, phenomenal one that it was. There is no doubt, in any sane minds, that Beckham v Greece in 2001 was the outstanding England performance of modern times.

Where’s the fabled John Terry performance? I can think of Sol Campbell ones, and Terry Butcher ones, but none for England from the slit-eyed man with scrub hair. Or the Gerrard one? Do we have to go back to “5-1″ for that? Or the Lampard one? I can think of recent Michael Owen performances, but he’s another man the oafs want to defenestrate. Lampard’s relatively minor annus mirabilis was four years ago.

If Beckham isn’t good enough, who’s better? Which colleagues’ performances have left his so far behind?

What of the other century men? I’ll take them in turn.

Peter Shilton

He, and Gordon Banks before him, stand out not only in English goalkeeping history but world goalkeeping history. But even Homer etc., and Shilton was keeping in both of the matches against Poland in 1973-4 that saw England fail to qualify for the West Germany World Cup. It does feel harsh to suggest, 34 years later, that he might have done better at Wembley once Norman Hunter had missed his tackle, because Shilton was part of a quiet golden age in England’s defence between 1982 and 1990. There is no ball-between-the-legs-against Scotland, no famous flaps, just endless hard work and a reliability that was always taken for granted. Why Liverpool never came for him will always be a mystery to me.

Shilton was worth his caps, and retired from internationals at exactly the right time. Which brings us on to…

Billy Wright

Wright hails from an era that was strange in its giving out of caps. He wasn’t the best defender of his day. He played in both of the gigantic 1953-4 humiliations against the Hungarians, and his most remembered passage of play came in the first of the two, when Puskas sent him flying in the wrong direction. On the other hand, he skippered the best ever England international team, that serendipitous 46-48 group which also boasted Raich Carter, Stan Matthews, Stan Mortenson, Tommy Lawton, Tom Finney and Wilf Mannion. Later, he skippered the 55-58 side of Edwards, Byrne and Taylor that, but for Munich, would surely have starred in the World Cup in Sweden.

But what of himself? It’s almost as though he were captain in the cricketing sense, a fixture purely on those grounds, kept going by avoiding injury and delaying retirement. That’s nothing to be ashamed of, but it’s noticeable that of our centenarians, Wright is the only one who has never been considered one of the greats of the game, whereas he’s the one of the group who played alongside great players the most.

But he married a singer. No, Beckham’s done more, and been through more, for his hundred than Billy Wright.

What about…

Bobby Charlton

Bobby Charlton, of course, scored 49 goals for England, a record that sits waiting for Michael Owen’s next blue streak. Beckham’s only managed 17, the last one coming two years ago in the World Cup. But Charlton’s international goals come in a lump at the beginning of his international career. As a goalscorer, he thrived alongside Jimmy Greaves, not Geoff Hurst or Martin Peters. Charlton’s last 17 international goals took him six years to compile. Nevertheless, it was during this period, comparatively late in the day that Charlton truly came to be accepted as an international. Philip Larkin said of John Betjeman that his greatest achievement was to become Betjeman. Much the same could be said of Charlton, who did it during the 1966 World Cup. After his goals against Mexico and Portugal, all criticism of his inconsistency and selfishness on the pitch, so common before, fell away and were soon forgotten. So complete was his rehab that defeat to West Germany in 1970 is put down in part to his being taken off. Apparently, he’d kept Beckenbauer out of the game (Der Kaiser had in fact scored before Charlton left the field).

Did Charlton hang on too long? Three goals in his last nineteen internationals is comparable to Beckham’s three in his last 25. Charlton was 32 when he was retired by Sir Alf Ramsey, 35 when he eventually retired altogether, something he later felt he’d done too early (he was almost certainly right about this). No, in other words. There’d have been more, had he only realized it. Beckham knows there’s something valuable left in him, and won’t make Charlton’s mistake.

On the other hand…

Bobby Moore

Moore was Ramsey’s skipper as Beckham was Ericksson’s. He was England’s outstanding player in their outstanding performance, the 1-0 defeat to Brazil in 1970 at which international football peaked. He made England’s third goal in the 1966 Final with that last, long, sweeping pass for Hurst to run onto.

But he was only just into the nineties in terms of caps when the real rot set in for England. Moore skippered England against West Germany and Netzer in April 1972, and then there was this the following year - it’s at about 2:40 :-

Moore was dropped after that, only for Norman Hunter to repeat the error in the return match at Wembley. There’d be three more internationals, then an Indian summer at Fulham ending with a Wembley Cup Final. Life could have been fairer to Moore. He’d had to recover from cancer in his early career, which must have chopped years off his best playing days. Had any of the myriad chances gone in at Wembley, he’d have had an appropriate send-off at a World Cup Finals, as Charlton had had. (But for the string of injuries that raddled England in 2005-6, perhaps Beckham would have had his). But nevertheless, there is not the sense of unfinished business about Moore that there is with Beckham. Four months ago, this:

But there’s one piece of history that David Beckham can never claim. Because he wasn’t the first Englishman to score at the new Wembley. That was this man - and on that note..

Youtuber Kimjjj has posted the following COMPLETE MATCHES (and there are highlight reels too!). I know I don’t know where to start - there are many, many more after the jump:

Brazil v England 1970
Brazil v Italy 1970
Brazil v Romania 1970
Holland v Bulgaria 1974
Holland v Argentina 1974
Holland v Germany 1974
Liverpool v Gladbach 1977
Argentina v Italy 1978
Argentina v Brazil 1978
Argentina v Holland 1978
Italy v Germany 1982
Italy v Brazil 1982
Italy v Argentina 1982
France v Germany 1982
Brazil v Argentina 1982 (more…)

It’s difficult to pick on one moment that exemplifies the Dutch moment in football. Two successive World Cup Final defeats were more than they deserved, and perhaps their 1974 demolition of then-champions Brazil is a better choice. Or the evening they ran riot at Wembley. But for atmosphere and feel, step down to the club game, and enjoy this:

Cristiano Ronaldo is the best player Manchester United have had since Best. But George Best wasn’t just skill: there was so much warmth, fun, charisma. Some courage, too, although nothing to what Ronaldo and Beckham have had to come up with to survive the neckless bigots who throng the English game. Best’s greatest moment came in the NASL, of course, and Europe had to settle for his performance in the ‘65 game against Benfica away. It’s hard to find this on Youtube, but it’s here, about halfway through.