In conjunction with the launch of SoccerAmerica.com's new Book & Video Source, we are pleased to present the following two-part interview with Paul Gardner. At the end of Part II, you will find out how to order this book, how to post your own review of this book if you've already read it, and how to submit your questions to Paul Gardner.
''It is, we are told, simply twenty-two men kicking a ball around. Yet to the aesthete it is an art form, an athletic ballet. To the spiritually inclined it is a sort of religion. To the sociologist it is an escape from the boredom of everyday life. To the Marxist it is a capitalist trap for holding down revolution. To the cynical it is a big business, to psychologist it is a catharsis, to the social worker it is a way of keeping kids out of trouble, to the uninterested it is a bore. And so on, and so on.
''I suppose each one of these tells us something about soccer, but even the sum of them falls lamentably short of the whole picture.'' ù From The Simplest Game by Paul Gardner.
The Simplest Game shows, as well as a book possibly could, the whole picture of the world's most popular sport. First published in 1976, it is now in the second printing of its third edition.
The first edition coincided with the emergence of the North American Soccer League and the arrival of Pele in the United States. Since the first edition of ''The Simplest Game,'' the NASL folded but left a profound legacy. The 1994 World Cup came to U.S. shores and spurred the arrival of Major League Soccer. Soccer has grown at all levels, and the book's latest edition describes and assesses the current state of the game in the United States.
It also takes you through the entire world of soccer. No other American soccer book has stayed in print as long as the The Simplest Game. On the occasion of its latest printing, author Paul Gardner offers insights into the book that prompted Pele to write, ''When you have read all that Paul Gardner has to say, I think you will have a new and deeper understanding of soccer.''
How did you enter the field of sportswriting?
I came to the United States in 1959 from England, and while working for a medical magazine in both New York and Montreal, I started submitting free-lance stories to the London Observer. In fact, my first story relates to something that's in the news today ù I covered the Mickey Mantle-Roger Maris home run race in 1961.
When did you start covering soccer?
I moved to Italy for two years and my first soccer stories were from Italy, to World Sports, an English magazine which doesn't exist anymore. That would have been in 1965. When I came back to the USA in late 1966 the pro league was just starting up. That was sheer chance because, having been in Italy, I'd sort of lost touch with what was going on in the States.
On my way back here, I spent a few days in England and I had lunch with the guy who had been my editor on a pharmaceutical magazine in London in the 1950s. He wasn't a big soccer fan at all, but he said, ''Oh, it's perfect timing for you going back now …'' I didn't know what he was talking about. He told me about this new league that was starting up. So when I got back to New York I made it my business to find out a thing or two about it. I got in touch with various people. And it all developed from there.
Your first book was Sports Illustrated's ''Soccer,'' written with Phil Woosnam in 1972 …
Yep ù I was the co-author of an instructional book, along with Phil Woosnam, a former Welsh international player who was then the Commissioner of the North American Soccer League. Not a book for coaches, it's aimed more at the players. It's more a teach-yourself type book.
What was your role with the movie, ''Pele: The Master and His Method''?
I was down in Brazil for six weeks in 1972, doing the filming. I wrote the script and was one of two technical advisors. Having done the filming, in a sense the real work started when we got back to New York for the editing. I was very involved in all the editing.
I thought your 1975 book ''Nice Guys Finish Last: Sports and American Life'' was a fascinating account of American sports. That was intended for a British audience?
Yes ù a ''by their sports shall ye know them'' approach. It was a sociological look at America by investigating the sports Americans play and watch.
What prompted you to write The Simplest Game?
It seemed to me that, in 1976, there was a void to be filled. Pele had arrived, the NASL seemed to be on the point of taking off, there was widespread interest in the sport … but there was a lack of knowledge and understanding about the background of the game.
There was an ignorance about the tradition, the culture and the history of the game. I missed that aspect. I missed those ''hot stove league'' conversations ù to use the baseball phrase. I missed all those anecdotal discussions. The knowledge wasn't there and I thought I would try to correct that.
The book includes details and anecdotes from soccer history that must have been difficult to dig up. How did you gather information on early U.S. history?
I had been living in New York for most of the previous 15 years. I had met quite a lot of soccer old-timers. They told me stuff about the old American Soccer League, and the indoor games at Madison Square Garden.
There weren't any books around at that time, that was the problem I was trying to correct. So I had to spend a lot of time ruining my eyesight looking at old newspapers on microfilm. You do a lot of squinting ù but it's fascinating. And I had got to know a lot of U.S. Soccer Federation people ù the Federation offices were in New York in those days, where they should be now. So were the offices of the North American Soccer League.
In addition to the detailed World Cup chapters, you also trace the origins of the game and pre-World Cup history. Was that difficult to find?
I found it mostly in English and Italian books, because those were languages I could deal with.
How many languages do you speak?
English, Italian pretty well, Spanish less well, French with difficulty, and Portuguese very badly.
How difficult is it to go through the research material and decide what is accurate and pertinent?
It's not difficult at all ù as the author, it's your book and you make the judgment as to what you think is interesting, you leave out what you think is dull and try to decide in your own mind what's accurate.
The World Cup chapters do more than just describe the tournaments …
The World Cups present a marvelous shortcut in describing soccer history from 1930 onward. They take you not only through the time dimension but through the geographical dimension as well. They bring in the global aspects of the sport, you can see it spreading and you can see it developing.
I find that one can also get a bit of a general history lesson reading The Simplest Game. For instance, the 1978 World Cup recounts the controversy of Argentina's military government, of the mothers of the Plaza de Mayo etc…
I had attended a number of games during the 1966 World Cup, but as a spectator. 1978 was the first World Cup I covered, so from there onwards all the World Cup chapters were based on personal observation. So for the sake of readability and bringing the event to life they are going to include things that impressed me, had an effect on me in the general atmosphere surrounding the tournament, not just on the field.
The brutal war between the military government and the guerrillas was very much part of the atmosphere in Argentina and it seems to give a better impression to include some of that stuff. Obviously, there are no rules about what you put in and what you don't put in. And I'm not necessarily someone who thinks, as far as sports are concerned, that you have to include all the sociological or the whatever background.
But the The Simplest Game has a good balance of off-the-field atmosphere that enhances the soccer story …
That's the writing part of it, I suppose. What your own instincts are. I'm not going to say that in those things it calls for a lot of thought. It is largely a matter of feeling and instinct. Well, it is for me. My feeling would tell me that this is what the sum, the whole picture of a tournament is and it has to include this, and this, and this … then I weigh up how much of this and how much of that, looking for balance. With the usual constrictions of space and deadlines.
Was it a challenge to write an informative, yet entertaining book?
Going back to those Pele films: Pepsi [which produced them] decided at one point that they wanted to get the opinion of a well-known English soccer film-maker on how we were going along with the films ù we were at the rough-cut stage. So they flew this guy over. He looked the rough cuts over and made all sorts of dopey suggestions ù the dopiest being that he found the films too entertaining. In other words, he thought they weren't serious enough.
We had a lot of discussions about this at the time, where I was insisting it was not a bad idea for them to be entertaining. In fact, I thought they had to be entertaining. I had to be rather cautious, though. The original idea of the films was that they were to be for coaches. In my scripts, I had ignored that, and aimed them at kids, without telling anyone. The thing was, that no one seemed to notice the change in direction (maybe no one read the scripts!).
The English guy didn't either, he thought they were for coaches, and should therefore be more technical. I won that battle, because to their credit the Pepsi people didn't pay much attention to this guy. Later I wrote a book ù a sort of manual to accompany the films, and that was designed for coaches.
Anyway, to return to your point. That seemed to be the mood of the time. If you're taking the sport seriously, you shouldn't try to entertain. The two were incompatible. I didn't see it that way, and I don't now. I think all learning would be a lot easier if it were entertaining. It must have some light-heartedness in it, it must have some jokes in it, and it must have some auto-criticism in it as well. It's got to show some warts.
The Simplest Game has developed from being a primer for people who didn't know soccer to much more of a portrait of the whole of soccer ù but warts and all, with everything in it. A portrait not just in the two-dimensional painting sense but a bit of the psychological, and the sociological background (and, increasingly, the financial angle) thrown in to round it off.
You ain't going to separate life from soccer, or life from sports, or politics from sports or politics from soccer. To me they're all mixed up together. These people who go around saying you've got to keep politics out of sport ù they might as well say you've got to keep life out of sports.
This is the first part of a two-part interview. Click here to go to the second part.