What I’m Reading: February 16, 2007

In addition to my regular writing, I will be writing about the most interesting stories I find in my research on the culture of soccer. I hope they are of interest to you as well. And what better way to get a picture of Levar Burton (anybody else grow up with Reading Rainbow?) onto the blog?

Probably the most interesting story I came across this week was from Frank Dell’Appa at Soccernet. Dell’Appa tells the story of Giles Heron, an African-American who played for Celtic (yes, that Celtic) in the 1950s. I had no idea.

From some fellow bloggers, came across two stories that fascinted me. Shourin Roy at SoccerBlog discusses why soccer has not found a place in India. Over at This is American Soccer, Adam Spangler wrote (in 2005 but I just found it) a three part series about the team at Martin Luther King High School in New York City. It is an incredibly successful soccer program made up of students from around the world. Along with more recent writing on the topic of soccer being played by immigrants (see Paul Cuadros’s book A Home on the Field) and refugees (see Warren St. John’s New York Times story about a team made up of refugees in Georgia called The Fugees), Spangler’s work puts paid to the notion of a single, homogenous soccer culture in this country.

The Guardian does the best soccer coverage in the world, in my opinion. They provide the goods again this week. Their Spain corrspondent writes about the fight in Spain between chairmen of Seville rivals Sevilla and Betis. I always thought it was funny that chairmen of opposing teams in Spain sit together at games; now we find out it’s just asking for trouble. Eastern European correspondent Jonathan Wilson writes about why, despite the infusion of rubles from the oil and gas industry in the country, Russian soccer still hasn’t quite made it. And Irish coverage is provided by Barry O’Donovan, who writes about Shelbourne, last year’s Irish League champion who have since gone bankrupt and had to sell off all of their players.

Reuters has a piece about Barcelona’s defender Oleguer, who recently lost his sponsorship deal with Kelme for his controversial comments about a member of ETA, the Basque nationalist organization, who is currently on a hunger strike. Oleguer is known for being a strong suppoter of regional autonomy (he is Catalan) and he told a press conference that, “I wanted to use the De Juana case as an example to question the independence of the judiciary from political power.” When he came on as a sub last weekend, the cameras did a close up on his cleats, which were made by Kelme (perhaps he bought them himself).

Closer to home, the Steven Goff of the Washington Post writes about the fascinating story of Guy Roland-Kpene, an immigrant from Ivory Coast who is currently trying to earn a roster spot for DC United. And the Idaho Statesman of all places, has an article about how soldiers from that state are helping Kurds, displaced by Saddam Hussein’s “Arabization” policy, who are resettling in Kirkuk. Many of them are living, at least temporarily, in and around the soccer stadium in that northern Iraqi city.

And a few snippets to finish off. These are shorter things I came across and which I might look into more in the future and write about more completely. If you’ve got any information on them, please leave a comment.

• There is a team in Pakistan’s Premier League called Afghan FC. I wonder if they are made up of Afghan refugees to that country.
• The US Soccer Foundation lists members of the Congressional Soccer Caucus from the 109th Congress. I’m still waiting to see who joins in the recently begun 110th Congress. Perhaps they’re too busy discussing trivial matters like Iraq (I joke, I joke).
• Emelec, a team based in Guayacil, Ecuador, was founded by an American businessman named George Capwell. Many South American teams were founded by the British, but this is the only one I know of founded by an American. Their stadium is called Estadio George Capwell. Wikipedia says that one of the players on their 1957 “dream team” was named Yu Lee. Where was he from?

Estadio George Capwell

This entry was posted on Friday, February 16th, 2007 at 11:05 am and is filed under What I'm Reading. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.