Book reviews

Chris Taylor went to listen to a player with radical views on Italian football culture

A lecture called “Money, Politics and Violence: does Italian football have a future?” doesn’t sound a barrel of laughs. As one of the speakers, John Foot, author of Calcio, A History of Italian Football, once wrote: “Calcio is a stinking corpse riddled with maggots.” Foot now admits his outlook, written following the death of a policeman in Catania, was a little pessimistic. Now he compares the game to American televised wrestling – “violent, over-the-top, hysterical and fake” – but he still feels that it has a bright future.

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The sudden departure of the best-known vice chairman in football is likely to prove a case of ‘au revoir’ rather than goodbye. Jon Spurling looks at the long-term fault lines that have broken open and considers what a David Dein comeback on the coat-tails of Stanley Kroenke would mean for Arsenal

“It’s dead money,” claimed Arsenal chairman Peter Hill-Wood, after sugar importer David Dein invested £290,250 in the club in 1983. The Gunners’ former vice chairman, whose stake in the club is now worth an estimated £60 million, has had an occasionally strained relationship with Hill-Wood, who is also chairman of Hambros bank: opposite forces of tradition and new-right economics have effectively been running on slowly converging lines at Arsenal for a quarter of a century.

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Bristol Rovers look to rebuild, reports Steve Menary 

With their discounts and perennially empty pockets, students are not big favourites of cash-strapped football club chairmen, but could that be about to change?

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Israel's new star is held up by right tape. Shaul Adar reports

With the Euro 2008 game against England only weeks away and Israel’s top scorer in the qualifying campaign suspended, you might expect that the domestic league’s top striker would be picked to play. But, not for the first time, Israel has shown itself to be very different from the rest of the football world

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Phil Ball analyses David Beckham's time in the Spanish capital

Back in the mists of time, during David Beckham’s first season in Madrid, Guillem Balagué of Sky was given the privilege of interviewing the great man in situ. They sat together in the Asador Donostiarra restaurant, a regular haunt of Real Madrid’s bons vivants, Beckham looking splendid in his Lucius Malfoy haircut phase and Balagué asking all the right (pre-selected) questions. Becks seemed relaxed and happy, trusting Balagué. As he supped on a glass of red wine, he agreed to show his startling prowess in Cervantes’ tongue, “Tienes un poco de chorizo por favor?” (Have you got some salami sausage please?) He seemed Euroman incarnate, the symbol of a new era. Not only was this a man who could generate greenbacks by the million and play football half-decently, he could also meld into the sophistication of Madrid, a city whose hauteur and social mannerism know few limits. Balagué did to Beckham what Martin Bashir did to Princess Diana – teased him out and appeared to humanise him. It was a weird occasion, during a weird time when Beckham, if you recall, was everywhere – even in M & S.

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