Blizzard Media Ltd, 2021, 157 p.
Wilson has made a name for himself writing non-fiction books on various aspects of football. (See my reviews here and here.) Streltsov is his first novel and takes a subject that at first sight seems a little strange – the career of Eduard Anatoliyevich Streltsov, the Russian Pelé. (An aside in the book has Pelé referred to in Russia as the Brazilian Streltsov.) This is even more of an odd choice when you consider that, at least since Lev Yashin (the only goalkeeper ever to win the Ballon d’Or,) and perhaps before, the quintessential Russian footballing icon has been a goalkeeper, not an outfield player. The narrator of this book Ivan, factotum/dogsbody and also sometime fixer at the Torpedo Moscow club, does not have such esteem, though; he says that Yashin made mistakes and was overblown. But goalkeepers do not tend to stir the heart on the field of play and Edik (as Streltsov was nicknamed) certainly did that.
On the other hand, fictional treatments of football tend to be unconvincing. In this light Wilson’s choice of a country, the Soviet Union, of which his readers may be less than knowledgeable, and a time which they probably won’t remember, the 1950s and 60s, might be shrewd. And it has to be said that the footballing details here are credible. Wilson’s familiarity with the game shines through. He also appears to have done extensive research on Soviet football in those times.
In this regard there was one assertion that confused me. Edik’s debut was said to come when he “was given twenty minutes or so at the end” of a game in 1954. I had always thought substitutes were not allowed in football until the mid-1960s. That was certainly the case in Britain. On researching their history it seems substitutes were formally introduced for the qualifying rounds for the 1954 World Cup. I take it on trust that domestic use in the Soviet Union was permitted at the same time.
While football is Wilson’s subject the novel is not essentially about the game at all. It is the tale of a flawed character dealing (or not as the case may be) with his demons, a tale not unknown to literature and always worth returning to.
Through Ivan, Wilson captures that brittle feeling of optimism occasioned when the future seems bright and a team is doing well. “We were young, we were exciting, we had hope. It was the most dangerous of times.” We all know where that leads.
In football, as in life, Streltsov’s story is a relatively familiar one – early unbridled talent, too much acclaim, the distractions of drink and fawning fans, the stumble and fall. Look at the careers of George Best or Gazza as a template. Add in that in Streltsov’s time and place individual expertise was frowned on in favour of the collective and his fate was perhaps inevitable. That he snubbed the daughter of a Politburo member could not have helped.
Ivan tells us, “there is no doubt to me that his gift became at times a burden,” and asks the question “Why did he drink? Why does anybody drink? Everybody drank in those days.” In many ways alcohol is a prop – and not just to footballers, “Sober he was a shy boy. The attention of fans troubled him.” But, “The drink and the talent and the shyness, they were all related. Take away one element and you change the whole.” It was part of his character. Like all coping mechanisms, when it breaks down turmoil usually follows. In Edik’s case it led to prison for a crime committed in circumstances shrouded in murk.
But how much does having a charismatic player actually mean? In 1960, while Edik was away serving his time in the gulag, Torpedo actually won the Soviet league. The season after his return, 1965, they won it again – but the game had changed, his individualism was no longer the point, team play was, and pressing was on the rise. As far as Ivan is concerned Streltsov’s later redemptive phase never quite makes up for his loss (nor for the crime he served time for.)
The choice of Ivan as narrator is perhaps odd novelistically, leading as it does, since he was not present at many of the crucial points, to a high degree of telling rather than showing but it gives the text distance, objectivity of a sort – and the perspective of a football fan.
Among the ifs, buts and maybes, Ivan wonders if the Soviet Union might have won the World Cup in 1958 had Streltsov played and would the world then have lionised a different teenager than it did? And again in 1966 might his presence have led to the USSR beating West Germany in the semi-final? An interesting counter-factual one ramification of which Wilson does not address: where would the perennial English football obsession with Germany ever since have gone without that defining bench mark?
Streltsov is a slim novel but it packs a lot in to its 157 pages. It is not only about the pitfalls facing a young man blessed with an innate ability which many people idolise, but also about the hope and dejection, the lows and (temporary) highs of following a football team. Above all it is about transitoriness. Like all of us a footballer’s life is fleeting; but his (and increasingly her) active phase is packed into a relatively short time span. How much crueller, then, when part of it is truncated?
Pedant’s corner:- fit (fitted,) dirver (driver,) “but he still a powerful figure” (but he was still a powerful figure,) Konsmoskaya Pravda (usually spelled Komsomolskaya Pravda, as it is later,) “neither keeper covered themselves in glory” (covered himself in glory,) “Chisninau Moldova” (Chisinau.) “That final 34 minutes were agony” (either ‘those final 34 minutes” or, ‘was agony’,) “Konsomolskaya Pravda” (Komsomolskaya Pravda,) novocain (novocaine,) “stoved in” (staved in, or, stove in.) “We won 2-0 win a goal in each half” (with a goal in each half.) “We never see the end till it is passed” (past.)
