The great Brian Glanville dies at 93.

The great Brian Glanville dies at 93.

Brian Glanville, who has died at the age of 93, was one of the most learned and scholarly football journalists the Beautiful Game has ever known. By way of a coincidence, Glanville's passing has fallen on the day of today's FA Cup Final, one of the many prestigious occasions Glanville frequently graced us with his presence. 

From his early days at Charterhouse public school to one of the many innumerable World Cup Finals attended as a distinguished football writer, Glanville was a giant of cultured football journalism and the most prolific of novelists. In a world of powerful masculinity and often hot headed, tempestuous times during the 1970s, Glanville was a cool, calm, often graceful figure, a writer of measured but controversial prose, a football encyclopaedia who often challenged the establishment and questioned the often authoritative men in charge of UEFA and FIFA.

In 1960, Glanville joined the Sunday Times as chief football correspondent and would establish an enduring relationship with readers of a newspaper that always set the highest standards. His columns were both lyrically entertaining, powerfully descriptive, almost allegorical in their use of the English language, frequently laced with Latin references but always accurate, informative and brilliantly observational. 

At roughly the same time, Glanville became a regular contributor to the still popular World Soccer magazine and his articles were both profound, sharp and acerbic, honest and impeccably researched. He was a fastidious stickler for detail and accuracy, earning him global admiration in the football community and the unwavering respect of his contemporaries. There was the admirable back catalogue of FA Cup, World Cup, League Cup Finals, football throughout the old four divisions of the Football League, football at every level of the game.

And then there were the hard-hitting interviews, occasional criticism of his own team Arsenal, the forthright but balanced journalism. There was an edgy and confrontational nature about Glanville's interviewing style, an insistence on getting it absolutely right and then writing with an integrity that left most of his colleagues breathless with praise. 

The young Glanville was something of a precocious child, completing his first book on the life and times of Cliff Bastin, the Arsenal full back, at the tender age of 17, the precursor to an illustrious career which included a fund of memorable stories about the man. There was the incident when Glanville, travelling back with the England squad from a game abroad, collared then grilled the then FIFA president Joao Havelange, verbally attacking the Italian official on the dreadful handling of some now long forgotten match. Glanville was fiercely critical, relentlessly investigative and always had his finger on the pulse of the game.

His observations on the 1966 World Cup Final in England were often enlightening and thought provoking. He tells the story about the moment when West Germany equalised for the second time. After the messiest of goal mouth scrambles, it was Wolfgang Weber who got the final touch for the West Germans to take the game into extra time. England would, of course win the World Cup with a handsome 4-2 victory. 

But Brian Glanville, remembering the day as if it were yesterday, said that the equaliser seemed to go in via slow motion and none of the eminent Press scribes who were present on that famous day knew who had scored the goal. You feel sure though that Glanville felt himself to be a privileged witness to one of the most glorious days in English sporting history. 

In the years that followed, Glanville would continue to work diligently for the Saturday matches, always an influential presence in football ground Press boxes, his words now precious and beautiful, his reports from the old Highbury, Upton Park, White Hart Lane and then Old Trafford, Anfield and St James Park both witty, humorous, but invariably expressive and elegant. 

Throughout the early 1960s, Glanville would move to Italy before settling and living there, enthusiastically embracing the Italian defensive catenaccio, Torino, AC and Inter Milan, Fiorentina and Napoli. He then mastered Italian and could speak it with spellbinding clarity. He wrote splendidly for Gazzetta Dello Sport with a charm and insight that had few equals.

His literary career had now installed him a rightful place in the history of the Beautiful Game. His definitive account on the Story of the World Cup was a breathtaking work of art, a masterpiece that flowed effortlessly from his typewriter and recorded every single match, player, manager, fact and statistic with meticulous attention to detail. There was an early novel called the Olympian, Goalkeepers Are Different and a whole compendium of player profiles, brilliant and awful matches and managers who were either unpredictable, perfect gentlemen, annoying, irascible but always delightful company.

In a world where football now operates in an online world and football can be processed and analysed via I Phones, Tablets and Smart Phones, Glanville may now seem very traditionalist and  conservative. But he always had a mischievous twinkle, a perceptive eye for a juicy story and was never disapproving of the modern age. 

Some of us will deeply miss Brian Glanville because he somehow epitomised the true spirit of football, a man with an  always inquisitive mind, perhaps something of an ardent perfectionist but always true to himself and his readers. Glanville it was who loved that superlative turn of phrase or bon mots, a wordsmith extraordinaire and one of the game's finest craftsmen.  Brian Glanville we salute you. You were and will always be regarded as the best in the business. Fleet Street will never forget you.