Dutch football legend Johan Neeskens has died. He was part of that magnificent Dutch side of the 1970s which reached the World Cup final twice in a row but unfortunately did not manage to win the trophy.

Neeskens also had a secondary assist on the superb goal – aided by a sublime pass from Johan Cruyff – he scored against Brazil in the 1974 World Cup .

Johannes Jacobus Neeskens:  15/9/1951 – 6/10/202. So it goes.

It is in the nature of things that I have made many fewer journeys to Highland League football grounds than to those in the Lowlands. The Lowland Football League does of course contain several teams which used to be in the SPFL or its predecessor,* whereas the Highland League has only the one (Brechin City.)

I have however visited I think nearly all of the towns/cities which have hosted past or present Lowland League teams and even seen games at some of them though not of clubs in the Lowland League at the time.

The first of these cities/towns would have been Glasgow (Broomhill FC, as BSC Glasgow before they became nomadic, playing in Alloa, Cumbernauld, and now Dumbarton) then Edinburgh (Edinburgh City, The Spartans, Civil Service Strollers, Edinburgh University.)  I have been to games at Edinburgh City’s ground, Meadowbank Stadium, but only when it housed Meadowbank Thistle (since morphed into Livingston FC) and at Spartans ground, Ainslie Park, where Edinburgh City played home games when I watched them play the Sons of the Rock.

It may surprise some readers that I have been familiar with Innerleithen** (Vale of Leithen) for many years. My grandparents (one of them the original Jack Deighton) lived there for a time. I may have been to Galashiels (Gala Fairydean Rovers) in those days. I have certainly driven through it, plus Selkirk (Selkirk) and Hawick (Hawick Royal Albert United.)

In their relevant clubs’ SFL or SPFL  days I have been to Cowdenbeath (Cowdenbeath*,) Coatbridge (Albion Rovers*,) Berwick upon Tweed (Berwick Rangers*) and Falkirk (East Stirlingshire*,) the last of which also landed up playing in Stenhousemuir for a while. Bonnyrigg (Bonnyrigg Rose Athletic) is another town I have only visited to see the Sons play. I have also passed through or stopped in Stirling (University of Stirling) many times.

In my teaching days I sometimes passed through Kelty (Kelty Hearts) on my way to work.

Then we have Cumbernauld** (Cumbernauld Colts – and Broomhill, as above)

I see Motherwell is listed on the Lowland League Wiki page (see link above) as the domicile of Caledonian Braves (formerly Edusport Academy) but their history is complicated, being based in Hamilton and even Annan for a while.

On trips south I have taken in Castle Douglas (Threave Rovers,) Dalbeattie (Dalbeattie Star) and east and south of Edinburgh, Prestonpans (Preston Athletic,) Rosewell (Whitehill Welfare,) and Tranent (Tranent, or is it Tranent Juniors?) where my mother was born.

Bo’ness (Bo’ness United) and Linlithgow (Linlithgow Rose) have featured on this blog more than once. I have had a look at Gretna (Gretna 2008) and East Kilbride (East Kilbride) but I don’t recall ever being to Broxburn (the newly promoted to the Lowland League Broxburn Athletic.)

** The game I saw in Innerleithen was a pre-1966 World Cup warm up game. Vale of Leithen played against France. It was of course a mis-match.  Cumbernauld was to see Dumbarton play Clyde.

Gigi Riva, Italy’s all-time top goalscorer, has died.

In all he scored 35 goals for the national team from 42 appearances.

But it was his club career that marked him out. After starting with a local side he moved to Sardinian club Cagliari, then in Serie B, where his goals helped them to promotion in 1964. More astonishingly he took Cagliari to the Scudetto in 1970, the club’s first (and only) Serie A title. Indeed, it was the first time a club from south of Rome had won the title.

His celebration of this goal in the 1970 World Cup semi-final perhaps inspired Marco Tardelli’s in the final in Spain 12 years later.

Luigi (Gigi) Riva: 7 /11/1944 – 22/1/2024. So it goes.

Hot on the heels of the news of the death of Mario Zagallo, the first man to win the World Cup as both a player and manager, comes the death of the second, Franz Beckenbauer.

Zagallo’s playing career was a bit before my time but he won the World Cup twice as a player, in 1958 and 1962, and was at the helm when Brazil won their third World Cup in 1970. He was assistant manager for their 1994 win. This makes him the most successful footballer in World Cup history.

Mário Jorge Lobo Zagallo: 9/8/1931 – 5/1/2024. So it goes.

Beckenbauer leapt into the British consciousness during the 1966 World Cup in England, where he stood out as a new type of footballer, striding about the midfield like someone playing a different game altogether. Not long after he more or less invented the role of the attacking centre back from the seeper/libero position. His control of games led to his German compatriots giving him the nickname Der Kaiser. Domestically he was the driving force behind making Bayern Munich the abiding success they are today.

In later years his reputation was tainted by allegations of corruption surrounding the securing by Germany of the hosting of the 2006 World Cup but it his achievements on the pitch which will be his legacy.

Franz Anton Beckenbauer: 11/9/1945 – 7/1/2024. So it goes.

One of the best football players of my lifetime, Bobby Charlton, a silky inside forward (and later midfielder) with an explosive shot, has died.

He was a member of that inspirational Manchester United team known as the Busby Babes of whom too many died in the Munich disaster. For ever after he naturally dreaded flying but as a professional footballer at the top level had to do so many times.

He then captained that formidable side United team which also featured club legends George Best and Denis Law when they won the European Cup at Wembley in 1968.

As a World Cup winner he will be forever an English football immortal. His record of international goals for England (49) stood for decades. Some poeple attribute England’s defeat in the 1970 World Cup quarter-final in against West Germany in Leon to the fact that manager Alf Ramsey, thinking the game won, withdrew Charlton to save him for the semi. That decision allowed Franz Beckenbauer to dominate the midfield and inspire the Germans’ comeback.

Sadly his last days were blighted by dementia maybe induced by heading the heavy footballs of his youth and playing days.

Robert Charlton: 11/10/1937 -21/10/2023. So it goes.

To those of us of a certain age (who can remember the World Cup of 1970) the news that Pelé has died brings with it an overwhelming sense of sadness. In that Brazil team of greats – Gerson, Tostão, Jairzinho, Carlos Alberto, Rivelino, Clodoaldo – he still stood out.

That outrageous dummy he sold on the Uruguyan keeper in the semi-final, his headered goal in the final, the precisely weighted pass into space for Carlos Alberto – not in sight on the TV screen – to run onto for that sublime fourth goal against Italy, all at the end of a glorious passing move involving what seemed like the whole team. And it was his third World Cup win.* No one equals never mind surpasses that last statistic.

Was he the greatest footballer ever? It is invidious to compare players from different eras against each other.

But the word legend hardly does Pelé justice.

*Even if he was injured in the group stage in 1962 he was still in the squad and received a winner’s medal retrospectively.

Edson Arantes do Nascimento (Pelé,) 23/10/1940 – 29/12/2022. So it goes.

FIFA World Cup, Final, Lusail Stadium, Doha, 18/12/22.

This certainly provided drama – but not until late in the second half.

In the first and most of the second France were pedestrian wheteher due to suffering from a virus or not, but more likely because Argentina were at them from the start. France barely had a kick in the first half. Then again Argentina were playing not only for themselves and their country but also for Lionel Messi.

Argentina’s penalty looked like one to me, Dembele clipped Di Maria not once but twice. Messi despatched it with ease.

The second goal was a thing of beauty. Messi’s pass to Alvarez delightful and Mac Allister sweeping on to supply Di Maria who scored with what football commentators sometimes call aplomb. The withdrawal of Di Maria changed the game a bit and Argentina began to look like they thought they’d won it.

Then came the real turning point, Otamendi’s failure to hit the ball into row Z leading to a clear penalty. Kylian Mbappe was not going to miss.
France now had their tails up and when Mbappe knocked down the cross a minute later, his marker failed to track him and Mbappe’s finish was brilliant.

Then Messi seemed to have won it for Argentina all over again after another sweeping move cut France open before we had the third penalty of the game and a hat-trick for Mbappe.

Loads of incident but all the tension packed into the last forty minutes of the contest, up to then Argentina were strolling it.

But that shows how a goal can change a game. This would most likely have fizzled out but for Otamendi’s mistake.

The result means no-one can now deny Messi’s footballing stature. He has won everything he could in the game and emulated Diego Maradona as a World Cup winner.

Will we ever see his like again?

One of the greats of German (well West German) football has died.

While not quite as prolific as his compatriot Gerd Muller, with whom his career overlapped slightly, he scored 43 times for his national side and 404 for his club side Hamburger SV.

He played in no fewer than four World Cups for West Germany but despite that country’s formidable record in the competition the closest he came to winning it was in 1966 when West Germany lost the final in extra time (to a somewhat dubious goal – and another when some people were on the pitch.)

It’s his equalising goal against the same opponents four years later in Leon in Mexico however that I remember most. That backheader is sublime:-

It seems he was a lovely man too.

While researching this I discovered Seeler’s grandson Levin Mete Öztunalı is also a professional footballer.

Uwe Seeler: 5/11/1936 – 21/7/2022. So it goes.

And so another name from that small number of Englishmen to grace a World Cup final, Roger Hunt, has finally left the pitch.

His 244 league goals remain Liverpool’s best ever. Only Ian Rush has scored more goals for the club overall. Hunt also scored 18 times for England in 34 appearances – including three in the group stages in 1966. When Jimmy Greaves was fit again for the final it seemed it might be Hunt who would make way for him but manager Alf Ramsey decided to stick with Hunt and Geoff Hurst. By raising his arms and turning away Hunt looked in no doubt that Hurst’s shot off the bar had crossed the line for his controversial strike in extra-time that in effect won the game.

That Liverpool supporters called him Sir Roger shows the esteem and affection in which he was held.

Roger Hunt: 20/7/1938 – 27/8/2021. So it goes.

Sadly Gerdy Müller, one of the best strikers I’ve seen play football, (never in person though, though only on television,) has died.

With Bayern Munich and the West German national team he won every competition going. He scored 51 times in 31 appearances for TSV 1861 Nördlingen before joining Bayern (then not in the West German top flight!) for whom he bagged 566 goals in 607 games and an incredible 68 in 62 appearances for his country. That record speaks for itself. Despite not looking like a typical footballer, squat and a bit ungainly looking, he had great pace over short distances and a quick mind for the chance to shoot at goal. He was so good he was nicknamed Der Bomber. He finishe dhis career in the US at Fort Lauderdale Strikers, again averaging more than a goal a game.

In those days chances of seeing a player of a foreign club were few and far between – possibly highlights of a European tie involving them and a Scottish or English club or just, maybe, the final of the European Cup. Even European championship games weren’t routinely on domestic TV.

So it was in World Cups where these exotic foreign stars were revealed to us.

In the 1970 World Cup in Mexico Gerdy got a singleton and two hat-tricks in the group stages to set up their quarter-final against England.

I didn’t see that game live (I was young and foolish) but I heard the early score.

When I got home – not knowing the result – I said to my dad, “England 2-0 up?” A nod.

“2-2 full-time?” (hopefully.) “Yes.”

“3-2 Germany after extra time? “Yes.”

“Gerdy Müller?” “Yes.”

Maybe it was wishful thinking (even in 1970 Scots had got fed up with 1966 and all that) but somehow I knew what the outcome would be and that Der Bomber would make the difference.

Mind you, if I had watched the game maybe I would have been less sanguine. By all acounts (or is that English acounts?) England were bossing it till Alf Ramsey took off Bobby Charlton to save his legs for the semi. Then Franz Beckenbauer took over the midfield. Whatever, poor Peter Bonetti, stand-in keeper after Gordon Banks caught a stomach bug, got the blame. West Germany lost that extra time thriller of a semi 4-3 to Italy, but Gerdy scored twice.

Four years later it was a different story. (England didnae make it cause they didnae qualify. Oh sorry, that line came four years later.) Gerdy scored only once in the first group stage but got two in the second, helping West Germany to the final where they played the Netherlands, Johan Cruyff and all.

Their brand of football made Holland most neutrals’ favoured side and they even took the lead from a penalty in their first attack. But after another penalty evened things out Gerdy scored the winner in a home World Cup for West Germany, forever sealing his legacy.

Gerhard (Gerd) Müller: 3/11/1945 – 15/8/2021. So it goes.