Thursday, September 27, 2007

Football and the Far Left - Constructing a False Trail

British Pabloite Tendency -> Seventies Vintage -> Tractor Boys Country -> Ipswich Town -> Bobby Robson era -> Soccer Coach -> NASL -> Seattle -> Soccer in Seattle? -> Seattle Sounders -> Check Wiki -> Nope -> Other micky mouse sporting franchises in Seattle? -> Seattle Mariners? -> That a heavy hint? -> Christ, surely not?

Nah, according to his wiki page, PM is still living stateside.

Start again.

British Pabloite Tendency -> Seventies Vintage -> Student radical at Warwick -> Lady Godiva Land -> Coventry City -> Chocolate brown away kit era -> Seattle -> Soccer in Seattle? -> Seattle Sounders -> Check wiki -> Mmm, looks promising -> Stalwart for the Sky Blues in the seventies -> Played for the Sounders -> Scottish -> Really promising -> Can Cardenden be considered part of Red Clydeside? -> Worth a punt -> Could it be this bloke?

Damn, according to wiki TH has been living in South Wales for the last couple of few years. He can't be both a mate of the British Pabloite Tendency and and be an acquaintance of the last living member of the Muggletonian International Socialist tradition.

Last effort. Come on . . . try and think more laterally this time.

British Pabloite Tendency -> Seventies Vintage -> International Marxist Group -> Warwick University -> West Midlands -> Aston Villa -> American Soccer -> Seattle Sounders -> Politically unsound -> Pabloism -> Fourth International -> Football International -> What, this bloke?

It can't be JPA. Wrong decade . . . wrong coast of America . . . too good looking to be selling vanguardist newspapers outside Tesco's on a Saturday morning . . . no Colombian section currently in the IST.

As long as I don't find out it was Alan Brazil.

8 comments:

Reidski said...

Err, can I have a pint of what you're drinking?

Imposs1904 said...

Reidski,

I was speculating - in my own peculiar fashion - about who might be the footie player who was mentioned in the following post to the Left Trainspotters list earlier today:

"A good mate of mine, was a professional footballer, went to the USA and worked as a footy coach in Seattle. He was in the IS in England and while in - wherever Seattle is - was active in the IS US group.

Said they had around twenty-thirty members (late 'seventies to 'eighties) in that city alone.

Salt of the earth type. Dad was, CP member, and shop steward etc.

Well, since coming back to England, he has drifted from the SWP.

Reads the Weekly Worker.

He says, "It's a real Marxist paper, the real stuff."


The footie player has since been named on the list, and I hadn't heard of him, but I was still impressed in that footie-player-crosses-left-politics kind of way that such a guy exists.

I wasn't sure how much longer I could keep recycling the 'Jackie McNamara from the seventies Hibs team was a member of the CPGB' blogging titbit, so I'm glad I've got another name in my locker.

John said...

I do recall that Chriss Hughton had a regular column in The Newsline while at Spurs in the early 80s. Most of that paper was devoted to the gee-gees though.

Imposs1904 said...

Chris Hughton had a column in Newsline? Never knew that.

Wasn't Tony Glavin from the same Spurs team from early 80s supposed to be a bit of lefty? I seem to remember that football commentators thought he was a bit unusual because he had studied Russian at Hull University.

Imposs1904 said...

I meant to write Tony Galvin.

Always mix his surname up with Barnsley's Scottish striker from the same era, Ronnie Glavin.

John said...

Yeah, must be gremlins. I meant to write Bee-gees.

Paul Anderson said...

I was in Ipswich and (almost) in IS in 1975-76 - I wasn't old enough to become a full member - and I never heard anything about Mariner being even remotely left-wing.

Imposs1904 said...

Paul,

I discovered that the bloke in question was originally from Norwich. The city not the team, and he played for AFC Bournemouth and Seattle Sounders in the 70s.

It appears he was a rather tasty player as a google search reveals that fans of both teams consider him as a candidate for their all time teams.