The Football Tragic

A brief perusal of Pittsburgh sport forums is enough to confirm that "Stan" Terlecki became a beloved idol during his time playing for the Pittsburgh Spirit. The parochial Pennsylvania mining town had always cherished its sporting teams, and the slender Pole with his machine gun of a right foot provided some memorable moments in between the (American) football, basketball and ice-hockey.

But with glasnost and perestroika offering hopes of greater political freedom in Poland, and his wife Ewa missing her homeland dreadfully, Terlecki decided to head home in 1986 after his final season with the Spirit. It was too late to make a claim for a spot in the 1986 Polish World Cup squad, but Terlecki's old club LKS Lodz welcomed the former rebel back for two more seasons.

Now past 30, Terlecki might have been expected to settle down in his old digs. But the restlessness that had characterized his life kept him on the move for the next few years, first to Legia Warsaw where he won two Polish cups, then to America again for a season with St. Louis, then back to LKS, and finally to Polonia Warsaw where he ended his career. Touchingly, he hung on long enough at Polonia for his son Maciej to join the squad, and father and son briefly shared the field in the father's last season.

Post-football, in the uncertain years following the break-up of the Soviet bloc, Terlecki turned to business, using his American connections to secure a job as the representative of an American concern in Poland. But when the company went bust, Terlecki was left in the cold. He started a business venture of his own, which ended in disaster.

The former student activist ran for politics as well, but unlike his erstwhile national-team colleague Grzegorz Lato, he experienced no success in that arena. The expense involved in a political campaign, on top of his earlier business disappointments, had its inevitable financial effect. Terlecki had returned from the United States a relatively wealthy man, but the money dried up as this restless stone kept on rolling. He returned briefly to football, running an academy of sorts, but again without success.

Health problems began to appear as well, as Terlecki approached his half-century. Friends indicated that the former international preferred to treat his ailments with alcohol rather than the heart medication he needed. 

Terlecki's final years were difficult ones. Holding a mundane municipal job at a sports centre in Lodz while collecting a meagre state pension, in between stints in hospital, he was a forgotten figure. His cardiac troubles worsened, and his heart finally gave out on December 28, 2017. Stanislaw Terlecki, once a hero on two continents, a man who played with Franz Beckenbauer and against Diego Maradona, who befriended Pelé, and who played a small part in the series of revolts that helped to break up the Soviet empire, passed away in his sleep at the age of 62.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 9:21 AM 0 comments

Stanislaw Terlecki's blistering form in the indoor game secured him a move to the headline club of the NASL, the New York Cosmos, in the winter of 1983. He had managed to remain active in the outdoor game with the Golden Bay Earthquakes earlier in the year, and the Cosmos used him in both their indoor and outdoor teams.

Although the Cosmos's most glamorous days were behind them, they were still the biggest draw in the competition, and the playing roster was an interesting mix of ageing European heavyweights and promising younger players. Johan Neeskens, still a force to be reckoned with, played in defence, while the attack featured the young Paraguayan star Roberto Cabañas, among others.

Pelé was still involved with the club, and Terlecki struck up an acquaintance with the Brazilian legend during his time with the Cosmos - hence the title of his eventual autobiography. In it, he stated that Pelé had outlined to him the "three pillars" of true football mastery: running with the ball without looking (at the ball), picking a pass without looking, and shooting without looking. Indeed!

Playing with the Cosmos enabled the Polish star to encounter some international opposition as well in the "Trans-Atlantic Challenge Cup", a four-team summer friendly competition pitting NASL clubs against some of Europe and South America's finest (well, finest available). In 1984, the Cosmos were the only American participants, along with Barcelona, Udinese and Fluminense of Brazil.

In the "semi-final" against Barcelona, Terlecki lined up for the Cosmos against none other than Diego Maradona. It was not the first time the two had faced each other: an under-strength Polish team had met Argentina in a friendly in Buenos Aires in 1980 (just prior to the Okecie airport incident), and Maradona had put on a superb display, securing a 2-1 victory for the then-world champions with a trademark free kick. Terlecki was probably Poland's best player on the day, but there was little he or the others could do about Maradona's sublime passing and surges from midfield.

Less than four years later, a great deal of water had passed under the bridge for both players. The Challenge Cup clash was an exciting and vibrant game, perfect summer entertainment for the crowd at Giants Stadium. Although Maradona's compatriot Armando Husillos scored a hat-trick for the Spaniards, they ultimately went down 5-3. Maradona even missed a penalty in the second half, after which two fine crosses from Terlecki, who played excellently throughout, set up the Cosmos's final two goals.

In the final against Udinese, the Cosmos won 4-1. Again Terlecki was prominent, scoring with a beautiful glancing volley on the run (quite reminiscent of Johan Cruyff's famous goal against Brazil in 1974) to put his side 3-1 ahead.

Buoyed by his American form, Terlecki began to harbour hopes of returning to the Polish national team in time for the 1986 World Cup. The political situation in his homeland was thawing, and his family was keen to return. After one more (slightly less prolific) season with the Pittsburgh Spirit, he decided to head home. Okecie was now a long time ago, and he could start with a clean slate.

To be concluded in Part 5.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 7:55 AM 0 comments

To say that the history of professional soccer in the USA is somewhat complicated would be a considerable understatement. After the long period of mid-century amateurism, there were many competing attempts to make the sport commercially viable. The original North American Soccer League, formed in 1968, was in fact a merger of two competing leagues whose earlier battles are worth an article in themselves. Nevertheless, by the mid-seventies the NASL had stabilised, and a galaxy of fading stars decamped to the Land of the Free, the most prominent among them being Pelé. 

But there was another competition that became very successful at the beginning of the 1980s: the Major Indoor Soccer League. The indoor game, with its similarity to basketball, had long been popular in the States, and there was sufficient interest in it to run a competition in tandem with the glitzy NASL. It was at one of the new MISL franchises, the Pittsburgh Spirit, where Stanislaw Terlecki's football career was to reignite.

Frozen out of Polish football after his political indiscretions, which included an abortive attempt to form a Solidarity-esque players' union, Terlecki initially headed to Holland in search of a club. Now 25, and with a young family to support, he needed to find work quickly. He was unable to secure a contract in Holland, but while there he made contact with John Kowalski, a young Polish-American coach only a few years his senior, who had managed the Pittsburgh Spirit in their first stint in the MISL in 1979. The club was now re-forming, and they needed an overseas star player.

It was a good fit. Pittsburgh has a Polish community of long standing (it even boasts a suburb called Polish Hill), and Kowalski hoped that the sensitive and potentially homesick Terlecki could make a home away from home in the city...and score some goals in the process.

On the latter score, he certainly succeeded. His two years at Pittsburgh saw him score an avalanche of goals in the unfamiliar format. With 74 (!) goals in his first season, he was second only to another former international from Eastern Europe, the Yugoslav Slavisa ("Steve") Zungul, on the scoring charts. A local star was born. Stanislaw became "Stan the Fran" (for "franchise"), and the correct Polish pronunciation of his surname became an all-American "Turr-lekky". All in a good cause.

On the personal front, there were, perhaps inevitably, a few problems. Not yet proficient in English, the prickly Pole did not always get on well with his team-mates, and sometimes took simple miscommunications as personal affronts. "A great player," recalled one of his Pittsburgh team-mates many years later, on an internet forum. "But a total wacko."

A TV report early in his second season gives a good impression of Terlecki's state of mind in his first couple of years in America, and of Kowalski's efforts to integrate him into the team and the society. Terlecki had another successful season with the Spirit in 1982/83, and he and his family were starting to feel more at home in America.

But the next year came the call from the NASL's glamour club...and the lure was impossible to resist. Rubbing shoulders with Franz Beckenbauer, Johan Neeskens, and even Pelé - what more could a footballer ask for? More in Part 4.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 10:34 AM 0 comments

Like his close contemporary Andras Torocsik, Stanislaw Terlecki showed impressive determination in regaining his best form after what might have been a career-ending injury. Back in the national team for the 1980 Nations Cup qualifiers, he played perhaps the best game of his life in September 1979, ruling the field and scoring a decisive brace against Switzerland in Lausanne. Poland failed to make it through a very tough qualifying group - they were pipped at the post by the Dutch, as indeed they had been in 1976 - but there was every reason for confidence ahead of the 1982 World Cup.

Again, Terlecki would not be there. And this time it was not fitness but politics which prevented his attendance.

The Okecie airport incident, known as the "Okecie Affair" in Poland, was an event with enormous ramifications. It was perhaps the most serious confrontation between footballers and the authorities that ever occurred behind the old Iron Curtain; the seeds of the rebellion which began with the famous Polish Solidarity movement sprouted with a vengeance on that late November morning in 1980.

The beginning of the story was a tawdry one. The Polish squad was assembled for a trip to Italy, prior to a World Cup qualifier in Malta. The first-choice goalkeeper Josef Mlynarczyk - later a European Cup winner with Porto - had been out on the town with a journalist the night before, and night turned into morning. When the time came for the team to head to the airport, Mlynarczyk was, well, not functioning terribly well. Polish officials ordered the indisposed keeper to stay behind; his team-mates, however, had other ideas.

The incident itself was relatively trivial, but it served as a touchpaper in the midst of a number of frustrations, ranging from the perennial issue of proper remuneration to more mundane concerns (apparently one of the reasons Mlynarczyk escaped for the evening was that the hotel food was inedible). 

Terlecki, the perpetual rebel, was immediately in his element. He promptly drove Mlynarczyk to the airport in his own car, and assumed the leading role in the subsequent confrontation with the Polish officials, which almost turned physical. Not content with stopping there, the young winger also began harassing the reporters covering the team's departure, whose morning had suddenly become a little more interesting. Team-mates later complained that the incident would never have become a scandal of such proportions had Terlecki not indulged in such antics.

In the event, the Polish coach Ryszard Kulesza was eventually persuaded to relent and restore Mlynarczyk to the squad. The establishment press, however, mercilessly attacked the players, and Kulesza found himself under intense pressure. To make matters even worse, Terlecki had organised a meeting in Italy with the stridently anti-communist Pope John Paul II, born Karol Wojtyla in a small Polish town and a hero to Polish Catholics. This was too much for the Polish authorities, and Terlecki and Mlynarczyk, along with Zbigniew Boniek and the veteran defender Wladyslaw Zmuda, were banned from the team for a year. To cap off a perfect trip, the eventual qualifier in Malta was abandoned after locals began throwing stones at the Polish team. (FIFA eventually awarded the match to Poland, who were 2-0 up at the time.)

Kulesza resigned in protest, and it was left to his successor, Antoni Piechniczek, to intercede with the authorities for the lifting of the bans on the "Gang of Four". Mlynarczyk, Boniek and Zmuda were all eventually restored to the side after expressing some suitable remorse, and all made notable contributions to Poland's third-place finish at the 1982 World Cup. But Terlecki was a different matter. He had been a thorn in the commissars' side for too long already. He had earned their ire on a number of previous occasions, firstly with his unapproved transfer from the military-aligned Gwardia Warsaw club to Lodz when he was still a teenager, and later with some barbed comments when he was called in to assist with radio commentary on the 1978 World Cup.

Fired from his club LKS Lodz as well at the start of 1981 after joining in student strikes in the city, Terlecki decided it was time for a new start in football. And where else would a fiery anti-communist go but to the United States of America?

Stay tuned for Part 3.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 10:47 AM 0 comments

A degree in history, with a bit of student activism thrown in. A brief but prominent role in one of the finest international teams of the era. A head-on clash with the Communist authorities. An attempt to re-create the famous Solidarity movement in the football arena. Stardom, and a mountainload of goals, in America. Becoming a team-mate of Franz Beckenbauer and Johan Neeskens, among others. Two on-field encounters with Diego Maradona, in very different circumstances. An autobiography entitled "Pelé, Boniek and Me".

You certainly couldn't say that Stanislaw "Stan" Terlecki had an uneventful life. And yet few remember him nowadays, outside of a proud mining town in America which once boasted an equally proud football team.

The son of two university academics, Stanislaw Terlecki (pronounced "Terletski") was born in Warsaw on November 13, 1955. His father was a history professor and the young Stanislaw followed in his father's footsteps in that respect, gaining a degree in the discipline, and a student's taste for rebellion. He was a dissident from a young age. He came from a family of Kresowiaks - "borderlanders" from the former Polish territories which were subsumed into the Soviet Union after the invasion of 1939 - and his father had vivid memories of the mass deportations that accompanied that very dark period in Polish history.

But young Stanislaw also had a notable talent for football, and was playing in the Polish first division at the tender age of 18. By 1976 he had graduated to the national side; no small feat in an era when Polish football was at its peak. He was that rarity, a footballer with a reputation as a genuine intellectual; in interviews, he would name-check James Joyce in between talking about the game. Apparently his footballing peers considered him a little, well, stuck-up. Not to mention disrespectful towards his elders. But no-one doubted his talent: a left-sided midfielder with superb ball control and a fine shot, he was being lined up as the replacement for the renowned Robert Gadocha. He was tipped to shine at the 1978 World Cup, along with other young Polish stars such as Zbigniew Boniek and Adam Nawalka.

Terlecki scored twice in the qualifying series for 1978, including a memorable goal against Cyprus. Moreover, the new Polish coach, Jacek Gmoch, believed that Terlecki's domination of the highly-rated Benfica fullback Artur was a decisive factor in Poland's crucial win away to Portugal in the qualifiers. Gmoch was well aware that he had a major talent on his hands...but a delicate flower as well. "You had to have a lot of patience with Stas. He liked to be listened to, you had to let him express his opinion. An intellectual, you know..."

Gmoch's patience eventually won the youngster's loyalty, and Terlecki was an integral part of the coach's plans for Argentina in 1978. But he missed out on the tournament itself - and thereby hangs a tale. A tale of the cockiness which went with Terlecki's rebellious nature, and which often got him into trouble.

Playing for his club side LKS Lodz in a late-season dead rubber against Polonia Bytom, Terlecki was, well, making life a misery for his hapless marker Czeslaw Brylka. Unfortunately, he decided to taunt the Bytom defender as well. Incensed, Brylka launched into a horrendous tackle which landed the 22-year-old Terlecki with a serious knee injury, and ended his hopes of going to Argentina. "I cried like a baby, like a boy who'd had his favourite toy taken away," recalled Terlecki many years later. "I'd sacrificed so much for that trip to the World Cup."

Terlecki recovered well from his injury, and quickly found his way back into the national side post-1978. But within a couple of years he was out of reckoning for the national team for good - thanks to his leading role in an infamous incident. More in Part 2.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 2:02 PM 0 comments

Nando Martellini was, of course, most famous as a football commentator. He provided commentary for other sports as well, notably cycling, and in his early days he reported on politics too. But why does he have a moderately substantial entry on IMDB?

With his unmistakable voice and his popularity in the football world and beyond, Martellini was a very frequent cameo guest in films, even early in his career. His deadpan delivery often proved a good fit for comedy; one of his earliest and most lengthy film appearances was in the typically Italian screwball comedy The Twelve-Handed Men of Mars, in which a penalty for Santos in an exhibition game against Lazio turns to farce thanks to the Martian in the crowd. On a less frivolous note, he also lent his voice to the Italian version of the excellent film of the 1966 World Cup, bringing to Italian ears the stylish narration penned by his friend Brian Glanville.

In 1984, he appeared in what one might call the "calciosploitation" film The Coach in a Muddle, which features a clueless journeyman coach suddenly catapulted into Serie A. The film was designed to capitalise on the enormous popularity of the game in Italy following the 1982 World Cup triumph, and featured cameos from a number of players past and present, including Carlo Ancelotti, Francisco Graziani and the venerable Nils Liedholm. But there was a lovely tribute paid to Martellini just after his brief on-screen appearance: the hapless coach's team has just conceded their third goal, and he complains to his assistant, "And it's three! And it's three!" - Martellini's well-known call on the occasion of Italy's third goal, and imminent third world title, in the 1982 World Cup final.

Perhaps the most delightful Martellini cameo of all was in the Italian version of the French animated series Zoo Olympics, which was released to coincide with the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992. Martellini played the role of the snake commentator, named Nando Serpentini (of course), giving the viewers a play-by-play account of the animals' various maladroit athletic contests. What could be more Martellini-esque than keeping a straight voice while introducing the Italian pig fencing champion Prosciutto Parmigiano?

Martellini gradually wound down his broadcasting commitments following his health scare in Mexico in 1986, but remained a popular guest on football talk shows. He was happy to spend most of his declining days in the company of his beloved wife Gianna - formerly the secretary of his first radio boss, Vittorio Veltroni - and his children and grandchildren. His daughter Simonetta proved a chip off the old block, becoming a respected volleyball commentator on Italian radio.

Nando Martellini passed away in 2004, aged 82. His funeral was attended by a who's who of not just Italian sport, but Italian politics and entertainment as well. If you visit the Terme di Caracalla region of Rome today, you can find an athletics track which was originally used as a training ground during the 1960 Rome Olympics. It is known as the Nando Martellini Stadium.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 9:52 AM 0 comments

In the wake of the 1970 World Cup, Nando Martellini succeeded his much-admired colleague Nicolò Carosio as the undisputed voice of Italian football. His was the commentary that accompanied the azzurri's fortunes from then on, from the promise of the early seventies through the lean period in the middle of that decade, as the generation of Riva, Rivera, Mazzola and Facchetti came to a close. Then into the Enzo Bearzot era, with a new crop of young players promising much but falling at the penultimate hurdle in 1978, and disappointing their home fans in the 1980 Nations Cup.

Martellini's bread and butter, of course, was the domestic game and the Italian clubs' forays into Europe, and his commentary in these matches was just as steady, informed, witty and memorable.

Before we get to the triumph of the 1982 World Cup, it's worth quoting a few of the dry witticisms for which Martellini was so well-known. Delivered with barely a quiver in the voice to distinguish the remarks from the ongoing, unfailingly accurate play-by-play, they must have made the viewers doubt their own ears at times. But, as a colleague put it, Martellini always knew what he was doing.

In 1973, in a friendly against Brazil in Rome, Fabio Capello scored the second goal in a 2-0 win for the Italians. The replay showed, however, that the ball had struck the bar and landed well over a foot outside the goalmouth. Martellini: "As you can see from the replay, the goal was not an entirely obvious one."

1978. A Coppa Italia match between Inter and Monza, in which the Inter midfielder Giuseppe Pavone (the surname means "peacock") was replaced by the veteran Claudio Merlo (whose surname means "blackbird"). Martellini: "And Pavone goes off, Merlo comes on. Inter's ornithological situation remains unchanged."

Also 1978. Juventus are struggling to overcome the naggingly effective offside trap of the Belgian side Bruges in the European Cup semi-final. The bianconeri have already been caught offside countless times, and when the Belgians surge forward again and the whistle goes, Martellini has his comment ready. "Offside. Just for a change."

It was the 1982 World Cup, and the final in particular, that turned Martellini from a beloved figure into something of an icon. He had called Italy's games in the first round of the tournament with gently veiled frustration, declaring after the plodding draw with Cameroon that the Italian performances in the second half of the games had been "questionable". It was a regular gripe of Martellini's; after their loss in a Nations Cup qualifier to Holland in late 1974, Martellini pointedly remarked that Italy had only shown "45 minutes' worth of heart and legs".

That was all to change in the second half of the tournament, when Italy suddenly came to life. Beating first Argentina, Maradona and all, then the dazzling Brazilian side, then a surprisingly listless Poland in the semi-final, Italy reached the final against West Germany in Madrid against all predictions.

Martellini began his call of the final by acknowledging that he was in a state of "great emotion", and his commentary was certainly a little more charged than usual. The play-by-play was as accurate and comprehensive as ever. But the pain was quite evident in his voice when Antonio Cabrini sent Italy's first-half penalty wide of the post. 

This time, ironically, it was in the second half that Italy took hold of the game. Paolo Rossi scored another of his poacher's goals; Marco Tardelli lunged to whack a cross-shot past Toni Schumacher, before wheeling away in a famous celebration. And Sandro Altobelli scored on a breakaway to make it...three. More on that in a moment.

At the conclusion of the game, Martellini simply cried "World Champions!" three times. But, as always, he knew what he was doing. It was Italy's third conquest of the World Cup (as he reminded the viewers straight afterwards). Three times World Champions.

Personally, I think that there was even more to it than that. When Altobelli slotted the ball past Schumacher on 81 minutes, the game was clearly beyond the Germans. Martellini could have commemorated the goal in many ways, but he chose to exclaim, "And it's three! And it's three!" Three goals...or three World Cups? I believe the ambiguity was quite deliberate.

What followed his initial celebratory proclamation of Italy's third world crown was pure Martellini. In perfectly rounded phrases, he praised the qualities of every Italian player, explaining why they were worthy of being a world champion. He even included the bit-part players, noting their achievements. He saved his best for the 40-year-old keeper, Dino Zoff; "I don't know whether we should admire him more as a champion or as a man."

It was a long-awaited triumph for Italian football, and the culmination of a wonderful career behind the microphone for Martellini. Perhaps fittingly, it was his last World Cup. At 64, he was all set for duty in Mexico in 1986, but he fell very ill with altitude sickness just prior to the event, and had to head home. He stuck to the domestic scene from then on. But his place in the hearts of Italian fans was never lost.

And that same popularity had an interesting side-effect. More in Part 4.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 9:08 AM 0 comments

For Italians, it is still the partita del secolo. The Germans call it the Jahrhundertspiel. In the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City, where the game was played, there is a plaque commemorating the partido del siglo. All of these phrases mean the same thing: Match of the Century. The semi-final of the 1970 World Cup, between Italy and West Germany. A game whose frantic, incident-packed extra time period provided one of the most memorable periods of footballing drama ever seen.

It was a match which certainly demanded grace under pressure from the commentators. And Nando Martellini, who wasn't even supposed to be calling the Italy matches at the 1970 tournament, offered that...and then some.

The legendary status of the game somewhat obscures the fact that, for long periods, the football wasn't all that great. After Roberto Boninsegna's early (and somewhat fortunate) goal, Italy fell back in typical catenaccio style, seeking to wait out the ninety minutes. Dangerous indulgence against a German side with many fine attackers. But for a long time the strategy appeared to be working. The tight marking of the veteran defender Tarcisio Burgnich was keeping the prolific Gerd Muller quiet, and the other Italian defenders were at their best as well; Roberto Rosato's magnificent acrobatic clearance from the goal-line in the second half was indicative of the Italian determination to keep the sheet clean.

And Martellini? Apart from his usual crystal-clear, deadpan play-by-play commentary, he was anxiously counting down the minutes, as much for his own benefit as the viewers', in the second half. Not 70 minutes gone: 20 minutes to go. Never hiding his partiality despite his (relative) objectivity, Martellini trod the fine line between commentator and fan expertly.

Martellini's countdown began to consist of smaller units of time ("53 seconds until the end!"). Italy were still 1-0 ahead. But then the clock ticked over to 90 minutes...and the game went on. Added time in those days was a rarity. Now slipping gently over the line into fandom, Martellini reminded viewers regularly of the amount of time that had been added. Amazingly, however, he continued to narrate the play-by-play impeccably.

When nearly two minutes of added time had elapsed, the veteran German defender Karlheinz Schnellinger popped up in the Italian box to drive home the equaliser.

A moment of fury for Italian fans everywhere...and for Martellini. Despite his continued calm delivery, his anger was well and truly manifest in the lead-up to extra time. He harped on the theme of the added time, he insinuated injustice, he subtly excoriated the Mexican referee Arturo Yamasaki (who had in fact refereed appallingly). But extra time it was to be.

Despite his evident cold fury and the waves of drama over the next 30 minutes, Martellini kept his nerve. "Muller has scored. Germany ahead." "Equaliser from Burgnich! A payback for Schnellinger's goal (i.e. coming from a defender)." "Riva! 3-2! A dramatic and unbelievable match." "Seeler has equalised. 3-3." (Actually it was Muller - but his small deflection from Uwe Seeler's magnificent header was difficult to spot in real time.) "Rivera - 4-3! Goal from Rivera! What a marvellous game, Italian viewers." And then, a phrase which became legendary: "We will never be able to give sufficient thanks to our players for the emotions they are providing us with."

When the final whistle sounded, Martellini again had just the right summary, after twenty years of Italian frustration in football's showpiece tournament. "Italian viewers, after two hours of suffering and joy, we can finally announce to you: Italy is in the final of the World Cup."

Martellini, of course, called the final as well, which ended in a heavy defeat for the azzurri. But as he was quick to point out in his astute, reasoned summary at the end, they had resisted well until twenty minutes into the second half. Brazil, he said, had certainly deserved it - but he pointed out that some of their players were not able to frolic as they had in previous rounds, until the Italians ran out of steam in the second half. I think he was quite right.

Italy would have to wait twelve years before another appearance in the final - one which would exorcise all the demons of the past, and provide Martellini with his most iconic moment of all behind the microphone. More in Part 3.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 9:06 AM 0 comments

The English-speaking world has been blessed with some splendid television commentators over the years, and some less-than-splendid ones in more recent times. The voices of John Motson, Brian Moore, Barry Davies and others still conjure up plenty of memories for those of us who grew up watching English football in the 1980s; the polished BBC voice of Kenneth Wolstenholme does the same for those whose football journey started somewhat earlier. But none of these really became a national icon as a result of their off-the-cuff chronicling of the fortunes of their national team. Unlike probably the finest TV football commentator of them all: Nando Martellini. (Absurdly, he isn't accorded a Wikipedia entry in English, and perhaps this series of posts might encourage someone to remedy that defect).

I have been known to joke to football friends that it is worth learning Italian if only to enjoy Martellini's legendary commentary on memorable football matches of days past. At once warm and level-headed, dignified and witty, shrewd and modest, Martellini set a standard which has, in my view, never been reached since.

Although his coverage of everything, and I mean everything, that was happening on the field was admirably comprehensive, he never appeared either rushed or fussy. He could produce several minutes of steady, utterly factual and objective commentary before coming out with one of the countless tongue-in-cheek bons mots with which he sprinkled his calls. Not that these were delivered with any smugness or pride; Martellini, like Richie Benaud, raised deadpan to an art form.

And although his beautifully-phrased delivery (my Italian is far from excellent, but I never have any trouble understanding Martellini) bore the stamp of an old-style education, he never affected the slight schoolmasterish pomposity of a Kenneth Wolstenholme. Martellini always treated his viewers as equals, not students.

Fernando Martellini was born in the village of Priverno, an hour's drive south-east of Rome, in 1921. Coming of age in Italian football's pre-war glory days, his lifelong love of the game was assured. Although he originally studied to be an agronomist at Perugia University, becoming a lifelong Perugia fan in the process, he switched to journalism towards the end of the war, and was taken on by the Italian public radio broadcaster (later RAI) in 1944. He was initially assigned to foreign affairs, and rose quickly through the ranks. But he eventually became involved with his beloved calcio.

He was first assigned to football commentary by the director of radio, Vittorio Veltroni, in the late 1950s. By the mid-1960s, as Italian club football reached its apogee, he was a seasoned radio commentator and was gaining experience in television as well. Commentary was only one of his roles; a regular presenter, he once had the rare opportunity to interview a frail but still forthright Vittorio Pozzo, the architect of Italy's two pre-war World Cup victories.

Although he later owed much of his fame to his commentary on Italy's most memorable World Cup matches - much more on that later - Martellini's first major "international" assignment was Italy's somewhat laboured victory in the 1968 Nations Cup. Come the 1970 World Cup, however, the commentary was once again entrusted to the legendary Nicolò Carosio, whose career in broadcasting stretched back to those glory days of the 1930s. The donnish Carosio was the undisputed, and much-respected, father figure of Italian football commentary. But an obscure incident gave Martellini the chance to call perhaps the most unforgettable match that the azzurri ever played.

In Italy's frustrating 0-0 draw against Israel from the first round of the 1970 World Cup, Carosio opined forcefully (and rightly) that Luigi Riva had been denied a clear goal by a poor call from the Ethiopian linesman, Sajum Tarekegn. Unfortunately, Carosio was later accused of having used a racially-loaded epithet to describe Tarekegn in a conversation the next day, and a diplomatic row ensued. Later, it was determined that Carosio was quite innocent of this "charge", but the damage had been done, and Martellini was behind the microphone as Italy faced West Germany in the semi-final at the Azteca Stadium.

It was to be quite an afternoon. More in Part 2.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 2:36 PM 0 comments

In the two years after Willy Brokamp left, MVV Maastricht suffered a slump. Relegated from the Eredivisie, they were battling away somewhat unconvincingly in the second division when their old hero returned to the club in 1976.

Brokamp was, in short, somewhat unimpressed by the quality of the football on offer. In typical style, he demonstrated his disappointment in a number of idiosyncratic ways. During one particularly depressing MVV performance, he decided to play with his shirt pulled over his head, goal-celebration style, as if to avert his eyes from the mediocre quality of play. In another match, he registered his displeasure at receiving virtually no service during the first half by having the traditional post-game shower...at half-time.

He too, however, was not the force he once was. A former clubmate recalled that Brokamp didn't go through the usual pre-game warm-up, because otherwise he would run out of puff during the match. Still, he managed a very decent goalscoring record during his second stint at MVV, as usual. After a couple of perhaps less-than-committed years, he threw himself into his real love - the hospitality business. With everything that the word "hospitality" implied. And he made a great success of it, managing several establishments and becoming well-known in the region as an entrepreneur of sorts. 

Football? Brokamp still watched the game, but lamented that modern players had become a little too "robotic", and regretted that kids no longer learned the game on the streets, with all the playfulness and improvisation that implied. Johan Cruyff, interestingly enough, expressed similar sentiments before he passed away. Brokamp did eventually produce the inevitable ex-footballer's book, but rather than the ponderous ghostwritten humble-bragging which tends to be the order of the day, he filled a book with funny anecdotes from his playing days - the sort of stories, in other words, that he would have regaled friends with over a coffee or a beer.

In 2017, the main Limburg TV station caught up with Brokamp at one of his establishments, to commemorate his acquisition of the Aux Pays-Bas in 1973. No longer sporting his trademark blond hair, the mellow veteran reflected happily on his playing days and beyond. "Football was never an aim in itself for me. It was just part of a great life."

"I don't drink too much [any more]. I am someone who in the morning likes to have a coffee and read the paper, and go out for dinner at night. I don’t come as often to the café now, I just turned 71. But I do like spending time here, a bit of socialising, chatting with people. I'm someone who likes socialising."

To this day, the story of Brokamp getting to manage a café as the price for his remaining with Maastricht is a perennial favourite in the region. "A café as part of your contract - what sort of player would get away with that?" asked the Limburg TV reporter rhetorically. "Yes, that's right - Willy Brokamp."

# posted by Mike Salter @ 4:11 PM 0 comments