World Cups produce a multiplicity of publications, varying in scope, size and merit. From the ghosted autobiography, via the literary anthology to the lavish picture book, this year’s competition in Germany has produced a plethora of such books. The Thinking Fan’s Guide to the World Cup (Abacus £9.99), edited by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey, is nothing of the sort; though, with its array of literati, this anthology of sometimes discursive essays by 32 different authors about the 32 teams in the finals is much the best written and most readable of this year’s selection. It was good to encounter again the American writer, Robert Coover, whose novel, The Universal Baseball Association, Inc, with its skilful evocation of a fan’s obsession, is one of the best and most original of all sports books. He writes perceptively and entertainingly in his essay on Spain of the bitter rivalry between Barcelona and their smaller city rivals, Espanyol, focusing on a passionate local derby between the two: and of the classic 1982 World Cup match at Espanyol’s stadium when Italy so surprisingly beat Brazil, and then went on to win the final.

Evocative, too, is Tim Parks’s recollection in his piece on Italy of the 1994 World Cup, which he watched on television in his father-in-law’s house in Pescara — Parks’s son cheering on Italy, he himself detached and indifferent. But he is seriously unfair to the splendid little Sardinian, Gianfranco Zola, beloved at Chelsea, who was sent off against Nigeria for what Parks calls “a bad foul”, when it was, in fact, a trivial offence, punished by an inept referee. The injustice haunted Zola for years.

Nick Hornby is characteristically pungent and sceptical in his piece about the English game today, transformed by the influx of foreign stars and the exponential growth of money. “We’d still prefer to be bombing the Germans; but after 60 years there’s a slowly dawning suspicion that those days aren’t coming back any time soon, and in the meantime we must rely on sarong-wearing multimillionaire pretty boys to kick the Argies for us. We’re not happy about it, but what can we do?”

One of the liveliest pieces is Alexander Osang’s reminiscence of an East German boy’s first experience of football, and his joy when East Germany beat West in the 1974 World Cup. But that excellent journalist, Isabel Hilton, has nothing to say about football in her piece on Paraguay. Much the same may be said of the contribution of Jorge Castaneda, former foreign minister of Mexico, and of Geoff Dyer’s take on Serbia and Montenegro.

In England Expects: A History of the England Football Team (Aurum £20), James Corbett has bitten off rather more than he can chew. There is no harm in using secondary sources, but he doesn’t seem to know enough. If he wants to delve back into the early years of the England team, why no mention of Germany’s disastrous visit in 1901, when a team of crack amateurs thrashed them 12-0 at Tottenham, and a team of pros 10-0 in Manchester? Writing of the notorious Battle of Highbury in 1934, when the Italian team ran riot against England, he makes Cliff Bastin, that prolific outside left, an outside right, praising the display of the actual outside right, the celebrated Stanley Matthews, who, as a shy 19-year-old, was terrorised out of the game. And he calls the inside right, always known as Ray Bowden, Edwin.

Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters were West Ham United colleagues who played a crucial role in England’s 1966 World Cup triumph, Hurst heading the vital winner against Argentina in a bruising quarter-final from Peters’s left-wing cross, Peters scoring England’s second in the final against West Germany at Wembley when Hurst himself scored his famous hat-trick, the second of which remains eternally contentious. With the score at 2-2 in extra time, Hurst met a right-wing cross from Alan Ball with a thundering right- footer that smacked the underside of the bar: but did it cross the line? Hurst still had no idea (he’d fallen when scoring) and isn’t certain even now. His book, World Champions: Relive the Glorious Summer of 1966 (Headline £20), is far the more handsomely produced, but contains too many irrelevant pictures of people, posters and events quite foreign to football. We learn of the tense wait before Hurst knew he’d be preferred to Jimmy Greaves in England’s World Cup final attack; and it’s good to see him give credit to the influence of England’s team doctor, Alan Bass. Ramsey, of course, was revered by both men. But it’s strange that Peters, in The Ghost of 66: The Autobiography (Orion £18.99), has nothing to say about his switch as a right-footed right-half to the left wing.

Mark Perryman’s book about peripatetic England fans, Ingerland: Travels with a Football Nation (Simon & Schuster £10.99), is less a sports book than a travel book. But he is being disingenuous when he rebukes myself and others for failing to report how well the England fans behaved in Japan during the last World Cup when so few of them actually got there. 1966 Uncovered: The Unseen Story of the World Cup in England (M Beazley £ 25), with a text by Harry Pearson, is a handsome coffee-table book that features archive images put together by Doug Cheeseman and that experienced photographer, Peter Robinson. The book has a surprising if beguiling afterword by Alan Bennett, in which he predictably evokes the memory of his parents. The pictures are outstanding.

THE GREATEST

It’s not all England in this year’s World Cup books stakes. Pelé has a mythical status in football, and he adds to it in Pelé: The Autobiography (Simon & Schuster £18.99), which, in typically respectful style mixed with a touch of magic realism, charts his rise from poverty — “I was born . . . in a small house built from second-hand bricks” — to the world’s greatest footballer. Pelé also makes it into Richard Williams’s The Perfect 10 (Faber £14.99), which includes Puskas, Platini and Maradona in its list of “dreamers, schemers, playmakers and playboys” who have made the no 10 shirt their own.

Andrew Holgate

READ ON...

websites:
fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/
The official World Cup site

Brian Glanville writes about this year’s competition in the Sunday Times World Cup 2006 supplement published June 4, 2006. His The Story of the World Cup: The Essential Companion to Germany 2006 is published by Faber. All titles available at Books First prices (inc p&p) on 0870 165 8585.

Explore Books

• Book Extracts

• Book Reviews

• Books Group

• Audio Books

Times Recommends

• Superfreakonomics by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner
• The Times picks the 50 best paperbacks of 2009
• Vincent van Gogh’s letters show the soul of the artist