The Rest Is History - 252. The World Cup: British Imperialism, South American rivalries, and Mussolini

Episode Date: November 14, 2022

Welcome to The Rest Is History's definitive guide to the history of the FIFA World Cup, which looks past the football and uncovers the personalities, geopolitics, and drama behind the tournament. In the first of three episodes, Tom and Dominic debate whether the global game is a product of British Imperialism, vicious South American rivalries, Bolivians playing in berets, the looming shadow of the Second World War, Mussolini, Hitler, and more. Join The Rest Is History Club (www.restishistorypod.com) for ad-free listening to the full archive, weekly bonus episodes, live streamed shows and access to an exclusive chatroom community. *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. Rose, comradeship, fair play. Those are the words, Dominic, with which the Frenchman Jorimé in 1928 persuaded his colleagues on the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, FIFA. Beautiful French, Tom. Beautiful French. To set up a World Cup. And the legacy of that move is very much with us today, is it not? Because it's a week before the start of the World Cup in Qatar.

Yes, it is. 32 teams will be taking part. And one of the things that strikes me about the involvement of Rime setting up this massive global juggernaut is it's very like the Olympics. There seem to be kind of Frenchmen appropriating British ideals of fair play

and kind of marketing them to the world. And as with the Olympics, we did two episodes on the modern Olympics, didn't we? And it began with our memorable account of Dwyle flunking. If you haven't heard that, do check that out. One of the great moments on the podcast, I think. And we said at the beginning of that, you know, I think that there are two areas of historical inquiry that lots and lots of people who otherwise are obsessed by history can say they're very proud to know nothing about one of them is religion and one of them is sport

yeah i think that's absolutely right so in fact a lot of people who regularly listen to this podcast when we said we are intending to do the definitive history of the world cup they sort of there are some people who reacted with horror. Oh no, not football in a history podcast. But football is a brilliant window, Tom. Well, so football, I would say, I mean, it's the single most popular activity that's ever been known by humanity. I mean, it's followed by more people than any other leisure activity that we've ever had. So that in itself makes it of incredible interest.

And that was a justification we had for doing an earlier episode on football with friend of the show jonathan wilson but also like the olympics it provides a kind of four yearly temperature check on the state of geopolitics and if you think about all the arguments that there currently are about qatar the questions about bribery about about corruption, about the lives lost in indentured labor, building the stadia, the cultural sensitivities around Qatar holding it. This is absolutely the stuff of 21st century politics. And it's almost impossible to think of a World Cup, and it goes right the way back to 1930, that hasn't in some way held a mirror up to the convulsions and the turbulence in the

broader world. And I think it makes it an absolutely fascinating topic. And I speak as someone who really didn't know much about the World Cup before I started reading about it, the history of it. It's really extraordinary, really fascinating. I agree, Tom. I think it is fascinating because I think once we get into the story, it becomes actually a story not about, you know, so-and-so crossed the ball into the box and somebody else headed it, you know, a towering header into the back of the net. It's actually a story about nationalism, about the invention of national identity, about the way that often authoritarian regimes co-opt kind of popular entertainment. And so there are characters that run through this story. I mean, Mussolini is there, the Argentine hunter of the 1970s, you know, the Hungarian communist regime.

There are so many interesting kind of characters. North Korea? I mean, amazing. Exactly, yes. I mean, Jules Rimet, you mentioned Jules Rimet. So Jules Rimet was the third president of FIFA in the 1920s. I mean, Jules Rimet, you mentioned Jules Rimet. So Jules Rimet was the third president of FIFA in the 1920s. I mean, Jules Rimet, you'll be pleased to hear, since you're interested in the history of religion, Tom, that he had been profoundly influenced by Pope Leo XIII's encyclical

about the dignity of work, Rerum Novarum. I think that's evident in every aspect of the World Cup. Well, Rimet had served in the French Army in World War I. He'd won the Croix de Guerre. and then he's the classic person in the 1920s who sort of lets all be friends yes well he i mean he says when he when he's making his pitch to to his fellow colleagues at fifa in 1928 he says you know we must encourage mankind to be one thanks to football i mean that's a real 1920s league of nations thing to say isn't it absolutely it's in real 1920s League of Nations thing to say, isn't it? Absolutely.

Yeah, because it's in the aftermath of the First World War. Yeah. So it's, I think, absolutely brilliant. So, Dominic. Yes. The lead-in. Yes. How is it that we have the Olympics kick off in 1896,

but we don't get a World Cup until 1930? Or do we, Tom? Or do we? Okay. Because it's all to do with the Olympicslympics isn't it it is so let's if we pull the camera right back why do we have a world cup at all my answer which some people may find kind of surprising i would say the world cup is is clearly a product of the british empire and that will surprise people because they'll think of british empire sports as cricket and

rugby and not not necessarily as football But if you look at the two countries that I would say to most people, certainly in Europe, they think they are sort of immediately identified with the World Cup. They're Brazil and Argentina. Neither of those countries were officially part of the empire. But if you take Argentina, for example, we know that British sailors were playing some kind of football in the mid-19th century when they were visiting Buenos Aires. Argentina had a big, big British population, so the largest British and Irish population outside the empire. The British were involved in banking, in trade, in the railways, and all these kinds of things. So Argentina was a kind of informal part

of the of the empire i suppose um there's a they're playing cricket before they play football well that's what i found so interesting is that in in brazil as well as in argentina yeah again and again it's actually cricket clubs that's it is it is absolutely i mean that's so and and also of course in in um in in AC Milan. AC Milan, of course. But also the first football match played in Austria. Did you know this? I didn't. It was played by the Vienna Cricket Club.

I didn't know this. So I know that you've secretly behind my back been obtaining facts from my former university teammate, Jonathan Wilson, historian of football. Yes, I have. So I took him out for a meal. This is absolutely the difference between us tom that you i spend the evening swatting up on jonathan wilson's books and you take him out for dinner yes but i would also i on this topic um i would highly commend

uh a new book that's just come out by uh two brothers stewart and philip laycock called how britain brought football to the world which has a splendid cover of a chap in very baggy football trousers, smoking a pipe with his foot on a very heavy leather football. And it goes through every country in the world saying how it was that it came to take up football. So back to Argentina, you mentioned the cricket club. So it's at Buenos Aires Cricket Club that a guy called Thomas Hogg, his father had been a yorkshire textile factory owner and thomas hogg is one of these absolutely classic late 19th century british figures he organizes a swimming club which he calls the

dreadnought swimming club in buenos aires he establishes an athletics club he sets up the south america's first golf club it's the energy isn't it it's exhausting and then eventually in 1867 he places an advert saying let's have a meeting to play football at the cricket ground and and they do and um it obviously takes off and it's actually so in a way that you could say the ancestor of the world cup is this match in 1888 that is organised by British expats in Buenos Aires to play their counterparts from Montevideo in Uruguay. So that's just across the kind of the mouth of the river plate, basically.

They're going to play against their sort of neighbours to celebrate the birthday of Queen Victoria. That is the perfect genesis for the World Cup. It's South American rivalries. Yeah. Interfused with kind of British imperial primness. Well, because as people who like football will know, Argentina versus Uruguay is the first World Cup final in 1930.

Yeah. So then it sort of takes on that Brazil. So Brazil is the country that most people associate with the World Cup final in 1930. So then it sort of takes on that Brazil. So Brazil is the country that most people associate with the World Cup ultimately, because they want it more often than anybody else. And we'll be coming back to Brazil later on. Brazil is actually a similar story. They're less intertwined with the British.

So they adopt football a little bit later, but it's exactly the same thing. There's a guy in Brazil, a legendary figure called Charles Miller. He's the son of a scottish um businessman another cricketer he's another cricketer he's been sent off to boarding school in england and there's this sort of great story that he tells himself in his memoirs he comes back home from university and he gets off the key and santos actually sant, actually Santos is the port city with the club of which Pele played for.

He gets off the key at Santos and his father was expecting him to be holding his degree certificate. And actually he's holding the rules of the game and two footballs. And his father said, the old man, he says, said, what's this Charles? My degree, I replied.

What? Yes, your son has graduated in football. And then Miller sort of goes and plays. Again, they're playing at cricket clubs. They have two teams, one from Sao Paulo Railway, one from the gas team. Then it spreads to the Rio Cricket Club and so on and so forth. But the funny thing is actually, Tom, thinking,

we'll come back to Brazil and how much, how important football is to Brazil's national identity. But first of all, quite often in these places, people react with incredulity and horror at the spectacle of Englishmen playing football. So there's a newspaper report in Rio. I'm guessing this is from the 1890s. It says, in Bom Retiro, a group of Englishmen,

a bunch of maniacs as they all are, get together from time to time to kick around something that looks like a bull's bladder. It gives them great satisfaction or fills them with sorrow when this kind of yellowish bladder enters a rectangle formed by wooden posts. Or in Sao Paulo, somebody writes, they call it a blind and balmy battle of physical force.

Football is an English game and should only be played by the English. But of course it isn't. It spreads. It's taken up by the rich and then it spreads, percolates downwards. But having said that, of course, I mean, it is being played by the English and indeed by the Scots and the Welsh and the Irish. And so they have. So the earliest international match is Scotland against England, isn't it? That's right.

And then there's a championship is set up where all the home nations in the United Kingdom play one another. And that is seen by people in Britain, basically, as what other international competition do you need? We invented the game. We're the home of the sport. We don't need to bother about anything else. But they do set up football in the Olympics, don't they? And obviously the Olympics is for amateurs. And so in 1908, Great Britain beats Denmark, wins the gold.

Following Olympics in Stockholm, 1912, same result. Britain beats Denmark. So hurrah, we are top nation. Top footballing nation. And no one in Britain doubts that. So this story is often told as a story. I mean, you'll see it again and again. People talk about British insularity and xenophobia,

and that's why Britain doesn't join in, the British sort of misguided sense of superiority. I'm not quite sure about that. That just feels like it's repeated so often that it's become a cliche. I think the truth is Britain doesn't need the World Cup. Because the infrastructure is there, isn't it? Right. Countries that care about the World Cup are often ones that have, frankly, have something

to prove. So South American countries that have only been independent for 100 years or so, later on, countries like Hungary, that again, is a sort of post-imperial, post-war country trying to establish its own national identity. In Britain, you have this existing ecosystem with this immensely popular tournament the home nations tournament with all this sort of competitive club football and basically nobody really cares about the prospect of playing matches against paraguay or or whatever it doesn't mean anything yeah so so yes there's

the british do do well in those first olymp But actually, to go back to the World Cup itself, the first World Cup final most people will know is in 1930, and it's won by Uruguay. But if you look at Uruguay's shirts, instead of having the two stars on their blue shirts to signify they've won the World Cup twice, they have four stars. And the reason is that two of the Olympics before the World Cup count as World Cups because they were organized by FIFA. So those are the Olympics of 1924 and 1928. And Uruguay's story, actually. So Uruguay, just like Argentina and Brazil, there's a British pioneer.

In this case, it's a Glaswegian called John Harley. He went to work as a draftsman and the railway lines first in Argentina and then in Uruguay he became the player manager of the big Montevideo team Peñarol he played for Uruguay so that was quite common yeah in the early days that basically expats would play it's very like in cricket world cups where you'll have I don't know Romania yeah and there'll be one Romanian and everyone else will be from kind of India or Sri Lanka yeah well I mean they start out. I mean, that first match that we were talking about

played for Queen Victoria's birthday. They're expat teams. Yeah. That's what these national teams were. So Uruguay, what John Harley does is he introduces the Scottish style. So the English had always played a very, very physical direct game,

kind of kick and rush. The Scots had done something disgraceful. They'd started passing the ball between themselves. That is shocking. Instead of just booting it up, hoofing it and running after it in public school manner. So John Harley introduced this. The Eurogrinds played very successfully.

They often beat their neighbours. So the 1924 Olympics is the first one where the football tournament is organized by fifa so that's why fifa recognized it as a kind of proto world cup and the uruguayans take that very very seriously so they're the classic example of a of a small country that is sort of has always been squeezed by its gigantic neighbours, Brazil and Argentina. It's basically Montevideo and its hinterland, the port city. And the Uruguayans are very keen to prove themselves. Thanks to this Glaswegian guy,

they've got this sort of forward-thinking game. And so off they go to Paris. So it's 1924. It's the Charity Sapphire Olympics, Tom. Yes, and it's the Olympics where WB Yeats' brother wins Ireland's first Olympic medal with his painting. With his painting? Yeah.

Do you remember? We had that in the Olympics episode. He puts in a painting, wins silver. Brilliant. But not gold, tragically. No, no. Silver's pretty good. Do we know who beat him?

Picasso or something. I don't know. Bring it home for Spain. Right. So the Uruguayansans so the uruguayan fa um they pay themselves for the team to go one of the uruguayan fa bigwigs actually mortgages his house and so this is the issue with the british teams isn't it and indeed with the danish teams where people can afford to be amateurs yes the corinthian spirit um the idea that that people have to be paid to play sport is shocking to the kind of british bigwigs who run their sporting associations exactly and so when is it is it 1928 the british pull out of fifa because the olympics are are meant to be amateur yeah but but they're agreeing to pay they're not paying them to play

are they but they're subsidizing the wages. What they're doing is they're saying, it's called broken time payments. It's a bit of a swizz, really. They basically say, you can pay people for the work they would have done if they hadn't taken time off work to go and play in this amateur tournament.

And of course, the associations basically, you know, completely abuse that to, to, to, to pay their players professionally. So the Uruguayans, I mean, the people who go,

so folklore has it that they are a marble cutter, a meat packer, a guy who plays music in carnivals, all this sort of a boot black, all these kinds of things. But actually, of course they are extremely skillful professionals professional players exactly so they go off to um to paris the uruguayans all these journeys have this sort of comic opera sides to them don't they they go on

so this is one of the abiding themes throughout the early years is that the challenge of travel isn't it yeah that actually you know taking 11 people well more i mean a squad um with with the manager whatever across the atlantic or into the depths of brazil or whatever i mean it's actually quite challenging yeah it's a massive operation again and again there comes some quite so my favorite one is um in uh in 1934 when when it's held in italy and the mexican team comes across thinking that they've qualified, arrive, find that they haven't. So they have to play a qualifying round against the United States,

lose, and go back. You know, that's a long way to come. That's a hell of a way to go. And never even to play in the World Cup. So for Uruguayans in 1924, they have to help pay for this. They do a tour of Spain first. So they get the boat to Spain. They play all these matches in Spain, and they go off to Paris.

When they get to Paris, they think the Olympic village is terrible. So they rent or they find a chateau owned by the brilliantly named woman called Madame Pain, Mrs. Bread. So Mrs. Bread assumes this sort of folkloric position. She's the kind of mothers them. Exactly. She mothers them. So they storm through the tournament.

They win the tournament. They beat the Swiss in the final. They get back to Uruguay. There's a national holiday. The government issues stamps. It's a huge, huge deal. And actually not just for Uruguay, but for South America generally. So the Argentine paper El Grafico, I think Jonathan Wilson talks about this in his brilliant history of Argentine football, Angels with Dirty Faces.

Epic yet intimate, a distinguished critic. Is that what you called it? That's what I called it. Right, of course. Not influenced at all by the fact that you play cricket together. No, it's genuinely, it's a brilliant book. It is a brilliant book. Not just a history of Argentine football, but history of argentina i believe i also said as he

always says it's not really a football book it's a history book uh el grafico says said millions of maps were sold in paris to people who wanted to know exactly where that tiny nation that is the home of the football artist was and soon there will be argentinian and uruguayan clubs going to europe just as the english came to south america to show us and teach us football so there's this sense even then in the 1920s you know this is it's not quite revenge but it's basically the boot is on the other foot the english have been patronizing us all these decades the student is schooling the master exactly exactly it's darth vader and obi-wan kenobi tom for for if you like star wars which i know you

don't so you won't you won't know what i'm talking about I don't of course I know what you're talking about so 1928 the Uruguayans go again don't they they go to they go to Amsterdam this time this time they play Argentina so Uruguay Argentina is the great rivalry well and in 1924 it results in their first use of a fence to separate players from spectators. Is that right? Yeah. You're full of Argentina and Uruguay. Very good. It's a top fact. So the Uruguayans win, and the British have left FIFA completely by this point.

It's partly amateurism. Actually, the British were also, they'd had a rift with FIFA because they didn't like the fact that FIFA had admitted the central powers from World War I. I think the justifications are stacking up. Well, actually, the British will redeem themselves on that front when we come back to the aftermath of World War II, when they were very keen on letting their old antagonists back in.

So those first two, those are, I mean, I was going to say those first two World Cups. The Uruguayans would say they are World Cups. So Uruguay gets its first two wins and then there's the first official World Cup in 1930. And that's played in Uruguay for obvious reasons. They're the best team, but also Uruguay is celebrating

the centenary of its independence, but also Montevideo has remained relatively immune from the Wall Street crash and the onset of the Great Depression. Whereas Argentina is terrible, isn't it? Well, Argentina is sort of entering, preparing to enter its long-running basket case phase. Also, they've built a spanking brand new stadium, haven't they?

Which is very much a World Cup tradition. They have. They've built this stadium to mark their 100th anniversary of their independence, the Centenario Stadium. And also the Uruguayans say they will match they will meet the expenses of everybody who comes and we should we should preview here that um we're doing a world cup marathon that actually has nothing whatsoever to do with football uh we're doing 32 episodes because there are 32 countries playing and we're doing

um an episode a day on an aspect of the history of all these various countries. And in the episode that we've already recorded on Uruguay, you make the point that Uruguay was a very, very rich country. And that sporting success tends to be associated with wealthy countries for obvious reasons, because they can afford to invest in the infrastructure. And that's what Uruguay is able to do in 1930. Exactly. It is a very prosperous country. It has a kind of proto-welfare state. It's very

forward-looking. And this is part of that. For the Uruguayan government, football is a way to advertise Uruguay as otherwise little noticed countries of the world. So you have these amazing stories. I know you love all these stories about steamships

and people crossing the Atlantic. There was a brilliant article actually in The Guardian by a guy called Simon Burnton about this. And he talks about the ship. So the ship is called the Conte Verde and it was built in Glasgow, but it was built for the Genoese. It was named after a 14th century count of Savoy.

And this ship, which later goes on to be bombed in the Second World War because it's taken over by the Japanese, it sets off from Genoa in the summer of 1930. The first people aboard are the Romanians. The Romanians are going to the World Cup. So you don't have to qualify. It's basically anyone can go.

Well, because most Europeans refuse to go. I mean, initially, they all refuse to go. And so Gilles Rimet kind of leans on people, doesn't he? And it's the king of Romania. King Carol. He personally funds them to go and so you remake kind of leans on people doesn't yeah and it's the king of romania king carol he personally funds them to go and they're all people who work for british oil companies in romania because that's why they've been playing football in romania so they they all go on board and then they pick up the french then they pick up the belgians in barcelona and then across they go the atlantic to rio where they're going to pick up the Brazilians. And so basically for 15 days, all these guys are on the boat.

And they're just running around all the time and lifting weights. Isn't there a swimming pool? There's a swimming pool. They have comedy acts. There are string quartets. It's basically, you know. Very Titanic. It's very Titanic, yeah.

There's another boat that goes called the Florida. So that's got the Yugoslavs on board. And isn't there a team that doesn't, they miss their appointment? Right. Egypt. Egypt, that's right. Egypt we're going to go.

But there's a storm and they're delayed and they're crossing from Cairo. And the Yugoslavs sail without them. So that's why there are 13 teams rather than 14, which makes it rather tricky to make up. So they get to Uruguay. Uruguay are the clear favourites. They all look kind of very...

So Bolivia are there, but Bolivia, they play in Berets, which I think is a nice touch. And of course, you mentioned Brazil, and they are the only country to have played in every World Cup. They are. But they're not very good in... They're not the superpower. And the USA is there?

The USA gets the semi-finals. So do you know what their nickname is? The Knickerbockers. No, the Shotputters. Why the Shot is there? The USA gets the semifinals. So do you know what their nickname is? The Knickerbockers. No, the Shotputters. Why the Shotputters? Because they were physically absolutely huge. They had massive great shoulders. The first sort of World Cup brawl is their match against Argentina.

So Argentina beat them 6-1 in the semifinal. But this is when the manager runs up one american one american past plays on with a broken leg would you believe one american loses four teeth and has his lip ripped off uh one american has to be taken to hospital with a stomach injury and another american is left limping badly after somebody attempts to dislocate his knee. But my favourite story about that is the US manager who runs up to the referee to complain, but he's got a bottle of chloroform on him and he drops it and passes out.

Which, tremendous scenes. So the referees look splendid because the referees are wearing a shirt and tie. Which is so, honestly, I mean, I think... All referees should wear that. What wouldn would you give to see referees do that but i mean the the all the matches are full of amazing detail so um the first goal is scored by a frenchman um but the first goal scored by a uruguayan the striker only has one arm oh yes he lost his arm his arm as i think when he was kind of 13 or something,

in a chainsaw accident. So basically, if your image of early World Cups, if you know nothing about football and your sort of supposition is that it's all people with wooden legs or, you know, playing in a shirt and tie. Absolutely right. Yeah, you're right. So there's the final, isn't there? And it's Uruguay against Argentina.

The referee says, I will only play if you give me a police escort. And there is a ship primed and ready to take me away. That's right. And so Uruguay against Argentina. The referee says, I will only play if you give me a police escort. And there is a ship primed and ready to take me away. That's right. And so Uruguay wins. Argentina, you know, there's massive kind of rioting and all kinds of stuff. There's some hilarious stuff about it. So you're talking about Egypt missing their ship. So 15,000 Argentinians pack into these steamers to take them across the bay to Montevideo.

But there's terrible fog. So the steamers all get stuck in the fog and the Argentinians only get off the boat after the day after the match. To join in the fun of trashing the city. To find out that Uruguay won. So it's a massive, I mean, this was a massive deal.

There were riots in Buenos Aires. Two people were shot. A woman was stoned for waving the Uruguayan flag. Meanwhile, in Uruguay, all the victorious players, so they won 4-2. And actually, the guy with one arm plays, Hector Castro plays for Uruguay. The Uruguayans are all given a house by their government

as a reward for having... Fair enough, I think. Fair enough. It's a big deal. This, for people who think that the World Cup doesn't matter, this is why it does matter, historically speaking, because it amplifies the global role of that you get a sense of the kind of shadows spilling forward from the second world war uh the sense of of uh the horrors are to come so the french captain in 1944 he will be shot by the resistance as a nazi collaborator he ends up wearing the uniform the ss and the yugoslav captain the year before in 1943 will be shot by the nazis as a partisan and you you know you you think of the the world cup this corinthian spirit all this

kind of stuff and yet you you have captains playing in it who are going to die in the war and lots of you know lots of others will but then also you have the two world cups that follow the one in 1937 34 and 38 and they are massively shadowed by the rise of fascism and the horrors that have come in the war. You're right, Tom. There's a bit of darkness ahead. But just before we get to the darkness, I'll tell you one last funny thing about the 1930 World Cup. So the Romanians go home on the transatlantic boat again, but one of has taken ill a guy called alfred eisenbeisser ferraru he's got he's taken with pneumonia when they get to genoa he's taken off the boat to to hospital to recuperate but basically what happens is the team will then go off without him and they arrive back in bucharest and everyone that the huge crowd gathers to see them and people notice

that he hasn't got off the boat and a rumor spreads that he's dead that he's died in South America word of this reaches his mother and she organizes a wake to just as basically to mourn her son and on the morning of the wake he walks in front door and his mother takes one look at him and faints on the spot.

But anyway, she doesn't die, which is good because he then goes on to compete in the Olympics, Tom. This is your World Cup Olympics

crossover. First as a figure skater. Wow. And then in the Romanian bobsleigh team. Blimey. What an absolute hero. Yeah.

Well, that's wonderful, Dominic. That's the first of many World Cup miracles. I think we should take a break at this point. When we come back, we will look at the shadow of Mussolini over the World Cup, which is quite a big one, isn't it, Dominic? It is indeed.

We will be back very soon. Bye-bye. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment. It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip. And on our Q&A, we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works. We have just launched our Members Club.

If you want ad-free listening, bonus episodes and early access to live tickets, head to therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com hello welcome back we are talking the history of the world cup um dominic in the first half we uh we saw the world cup kickoff um uruguay 1930 the next world cup 1934 was held in Italy yeah which by that point of course very much um under the jack boot of Mussolini and the fascists um and Mussolini doesn't really like football does he uh dictators tend not to like football yeah because they can't kind of predict it and control it yeah so I was fascinated to learn that Peron in Argentina I mean, he takes Argentina out from the 1950-1954 World Cups because he just can't control the emotions. But Mussolini takes a punt that he can.

Yes. That Italy will stage a tremendous World Cup and that the national team will actually win. And he's absolutely right. Yeah, Mussolini has an interesting relationship to football. Supposedly, he doesn't like it himself. Part of Mussolini's linguistic nationalism, they call it calcio rather than some derivation of football.

And he claims that it derives from Siena, doesn't he? The kind of very violent... Yeah, calcio fiorentino. They play this in Florence, and he claims that that derives from a Roman game. Yes, and so his stadium, and again, this tradition that you have to build an enormous grand stadium that proclaims the nature of the country and he says that um uh

it's it's consciously designed to evoke memories of the coliseum and the kind of muscle-bound sub-classical statues of people in football kit and ice hockey pads and all kinds of things it was very very odd if you've ever been so the Mussolini regime had basically been leaning on FIFA as far back as 1930 saying we want the 1934 World Cup Mussolini thinks this would be a tremendous advertisement basically for his regime uh he puts the organization a lot of that is run by this guy called Achille Staracci who is basically he does love football doesn't he does love football, doesn't he? He does like football. He loves sport.

So Staracci, people call him the high priest of the cult of Il Duce. His own daughter said he breathed only by the Duce's order. He's absolutely obsessed with sport. He does all things like he jumps through circles of fire, and he jumps on a horse over a car to prove the virility of the sort of... Wouldn't it be brilliant if sports ministers had to do that? Yeah, I'd like to see. Or, you know, exactly.

Tracy Crouch. Right, exactly. Colin Moynihan, if you remember him. Well, he'd been a jockey. He was an athlete. He was an Olympic athlete, wasn't he? Was he a jockey? No, he was a cox.

Was he a cox? Yeah, he was a rower. Yes, he was a rower. So whether he could jump through a circle of fire, who knows? However, we've got distracted um so starachi he in some ways creates the iconography of the world cup he produces all these posters well marionetti marionetti does the poster yeah the futurist and also they come up with a massive vulgar cup don't they so so they've got the jewelry made trophy that's which is quite a modest thing yeah and then they because they're

fascists they have to have a massive huge one so six times the size yes and it's um group of footballers in front of uh in front of the fast jays the um the uh the birching rods of the ancient roman republic but one of the interesting things about this is the countries that tend to to really care about the world cup in the 20th century are new countries, or relatively new countries. And Italy is a good example. Italy has not even existed for a century, when Mussolini wants to host the World Cup. And it's seen as a kind of nationalising project. So Italy, this country where actually people don't even really speak the same language that somebody in Sicily and somebody in Piedmont can't really understand each other. It's really important to show that we can do this. We're a modern country and we're all working in tandem.

And presumably this is another reason why the British nations are slightly sniffy about it. Because I gather that in 1934, FIFA issued a report naming the world's top football nations. Yeah. Austria, England, and Scotland. Scotland. This was their chance, Tom. issued a report naming the top the world's top football nations yeah uh austria england and scotland scotland this was their chance tom this was their chance and they blew it so the austrians had a very good team and the austrians are the great um pre-second world war world cup champions they kind of get away the vienna cricket club yes the austrians had always really cared about football they had a brilliant team called the wunder Team in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

They'd actually, in 1934, they'd only lost one game in the previous three years, I think, and that, of course, was to England in England. Because in those days, whenever anyone came to England, they always lost because of the rain, because of the mud, because of the kind of, you know, the crowd rattling at them or whatever, putting them off.

The smog. Exactly, the smog. But Austria at them or whatever, putting them off. The smog. Exactly, the smog. But Austria lose to Italy in the semifinals, and then Italy play Czechoslovakia in the final, in Rome, in the Stadio Nazionale, in front of Mussolini. Czechoslovakia has just basically teamed up. They've gone Team Stalin at this point. The story is that it's seen as being fascism against communism. Is that not true?

It's slightly that I've seen that repeated in quite a lot of football articles and sort of football websites, but it's actually not really true. What had happened was that the French had brokered a putative pact called the Eastern Pact, where all the Eastern European nations plus France would team up with the Soviet Union. This is basically an anti-German pact. And the Czechs had said, yeah, we're well up for this. But actually, it never really comes to fruition. So the idea that it's fascism versus communism, I mean, the Czechs are not communist. However, what is true is that the Second World War was very much on the horizon because Mussolini, in his diary, four days after the World Cup final,

he's going to the Venice Biennale to meet, for the first time, a certain Herr Hitler, who's only been Chancellor of Germany for a year. Who also doesn't like football. Who also doesn't like football, exactly. Just one other thing on the final. Italian defender Luis Monti. Yeah. The only man to play in two World Cup finals for two different countries.

So he played for Argentina. Yes. So that was quite common going right through. Well, actually, there was a guy in 2006, Mauro Comoranese, Argentine born, but plays for Italy. So especially between Italy and Argentina because of immigration into Argentina from Italy, that's very common. Right. especially between italy and argentina because of immigration into argentina from italy that's very common right so 1938 is in paris and all kinds of major um uh football playing nations are not there spain for obvious reasons because it's a civil war austria because it's been

annexed in the angeles that's right japan too busy invading china. And so because Japan drops out, the Dutch East Indies go in. So that's a colonial team. Yeah. And absolutely my all-time favourite World Cup team because they are captained by a man wearing glasses. They don't do very well to them. They lost 6-0 to Hungary in their opening match, and that was the end of them because it was pure knockout in those days.

It doesn't matter. I think it's wonderful that a man could wear glasses. So this is where you get politics obviously intervening because it's played in France. The Italians arrive in Marseille and they are booed by the crowds and there are local exiles. Lots of exiles have fled to France from Italy and they sort of encourage people to give the Italian team a hard time. And so Mussolini in the quarterfinal tells them to wear black shirts. Is that right? Well, again, I think that's…

Again, is this a myth? I think there's an element to it. So there's also a story that they do wear black shirts. I don't know how much this is because of Mussolini's direct influence. So there's also a story, for example, that Mussolini sends them a telegram, win or die. Vincere o marire. Right.

And this is completely untrue. Apparently, historians have interviewed the players before the players died. And the players said there was no such, you know, there was no such telegram. However,

Dominic, according to top historian of football, Jonathan Wilson, This is your dinner again. I spoke to him at I was dining here. Yeah. And he said that, so Italy get to the semifinals

and they're playing Brazil and the Brazilian team, there are wholesale changes to the Brazilian team for no apparent reason. So Leonidas, arguably the Brazil's best player is dropped for the semifinal.

No one knows why. The great thing about Brazil, the number of classically named players. Yeah socrates juvenile brilliant um so it's possible that there's a bit of bribery there and then also there are wholesale changes to the hungarian team which who are brilliant i mean who really should have won um and jonathan suggests that perhaps this was um micklaus horty the dictator well is he dictator as kind of slightly loose isn't he but he's verging on that um trying to keep on side with the fascists so it's possible but then the trouble is with all the so we'll see this

particularly with our next episode the trouble with all these stories is that that there's there's almost never any documentary evidence for these things. Are you saying that that prevents us from mentioning them? No, no, no, Tom. We've just done some episodes on Alfred and Cakes. No, but it's really interesting how you can tell how these, when you trace them back, how these sort of urban myths about the World Cup, because, of course, there was so little reporting in those days and so little,

the matches are not, you know know they're not filmed and preserved so there are urban myths that are then initially told as everybody knows they're slightly apocryphal or they're they're speculative but then they're told and retold and they become sort of established as cast iron fact and we'll see that you know going right into the 1970s with the argentine world cup very controversial um but anyway, yes, Italy do win. I mean, they were a good team. Nobody, not even, you know, I'm sure Jonathan Wilson would have told you, they are a very formidable team.

They get back home. They're given gold, fascist medals. They meet Mussolini. They're given a big bonus of three months' salary. I mean, actually, it's not as good as if you were a Uruguayan where you get a house, but there you go. And they bring back the jules romeo trophy yeah and they the um the commissioner of the italian football federation then hides it under his bed throughout the second world war there's a slight um quality to the idol of marduk about the jules romeo trophy

people keep the babylonian god who kept being his his statue kept being removed by various other empires it keeps kind of being nicked and stolen reappearing and all kinds of weird things anyway so it doesn't get lost in the in the second world war it stays under there another interesting bit of triv from jonathan um two players there are two players in the world cup who've played in world cups either side of the war there was alfred bickle who was swiss and eric nielsen who was swedish and i think what one of the things that's striking about that is both those countries were neutral i don't know whether it's coincidence or not because if you were a footballer the chances are you'd be very yeah you'd be you'll be involved in that away and we'll see that actually when we get west germany

with west germany in the Germany later in the 1950s. But let's just... So had there not been the Second World War, probably the World Cup in 1942 would probably have been held in Brazil or Argentina. And I think most football historians think it would have been won by Argentina or Uruguay. So the Uruguayans had refused,

having been the great power, they had refused to go to these European World Cups. Yeah, very English behaviour. Because they said not enough people had gone to their world cup and so they would just boycott all these other european ones in protest the war happens um basically it's really interesting there's no great enthusiasm to hold more world cups after the end of the second world war i think there's a slight sense that the World Cup had been a gimmick, that this had been a sort of comical gimmick. And who cared?

And also people have got better things to do. I mean, the role played by Mussolini would not show it in a good light. Exactly right. So Japan and Germany have been kicked out of FIFA anyway because of poor behavior. The British countries have, however, rejoined FIFA. And eventually FIFA managed to find somebody who says, well, rejoined FIFA. And eventually, FIFA managed to find somebody who says, well, we'll do the World Cup, and that is Brazil. Now, the Brazilian World

Cup, for those of us in England, Tom, held in 1950, is famous for one thing above all. And it pains me to say this, but I suppose we just have to address it england go for the first time now famously i'm going to be heretical now famously people say well typically insular arrogant xenophobic hubristic the english don't prepare properly it's all a shambles the players all complain i think this is actually slightly exaggerated because everybody went in a shambolic way to World Cups in this period. So the English are not unusual in kind of training in a dog field or whatever.

They have three days in Wembley, don't they? Yeah, they actually trained at some, sorry, I said dog field. They trained at a place called Dog Kennel Hill. I don't know what a dog field is. It's not a thing. Anyway, they trained at this place. It was the home of Dog Kennel Hill. I don't know what a dog field is. It's not a thing. Anyway, they traded this place. It was the home of Dulwich Hamlets.

Dogs will appear in this story later on. They will. They will. They go on this incredibly long flight. I mean, it's a flight, not a boat. So they go on a flight that stops everywhere. It stops in Dakar. It goes across the Atlantic, and it goes to Rio.

They're too hot, and they don't have the food and all this kind of thing. They beat Chile, and then there's this terrible, terrible, terrible day when they go to Belo Horizonte and they play the United States. 500-1 outsiders. So here's the perfect example of how little we know. When we read that the British, the English rather, they hit the woodwork of the American goal 11 times. They have more than 90% possession.

But how anyone can know these things? I mean, how can you tell? The match isn't filmed and recorded. People aren't noting down, you know, all the statistics of the game. Well, it's all kind of this homeric quality that we've already discussed that one of the reasons why the world cup has this kind of resonance is the opportunity for myths to be generated but so what we do know is that eight minutes before halftime one of the american players they're semi-professionals sort of

boots the ball vaguely near the english goal he hits this this guy who's from Haiti called Joe Gajans in the face. So this is what some accounts, other people say it was a brilliant header, but it sounds more likely that this ball just hit his head and flew in and flies in past the English goalie. So the Americans lead 1-0. The English attack and attack and attack and can't score.

And amazingly, the Americans have beaten England, the home of football, 1-0. The English attack and attack and attack and can't score. And amazingly, the Americans have beaten England, the home of football, 1-0. And the funny thing is this story, this result, which is a great shock, makes the newspaper headlines everywhere in the world except for two places. That's the United States and England, the two countries

that played. The United States because absolutely nobody cares about it at all. So there's only one American journalist at the 1950 World Cup. He's a man with a fantastically American name of Dent McSkimming. Something from a Martin Amis novel. Exactly. Thomas Pynchon or something. So Dent McSkimming writes for the St. Louis the st louis post dispatch the newspaper who refused

to pay for him to go so he's he's going on his holiday and paying for it himself uh but nobody really wants to print to print his stories anyway because nobody cares about football and in britain well in britain there's a much much more important sporting story isn't there go for it which is that um this is the day on which England lose for the first time at cricket to the West Indies. Yeah. And this is a much bigger story. Completely eclipses the football.

So British newspapers at the time were much, much smaller than they are today, partly because of austerity, post-war austerity, newsprint restrictions. So there's actually very little sport coverage anyway. And it would simply never have occurred to anybody that this was a story even remotely comparable to the big cricket news no well quite right because at the time you see i think in the time most of most people in britain

i mean as soon as england lose the entire british press corps goes home they're not interested in what happens in the rest of the tournament because i think to them the world cup is is it's completely um it's only with hindsight that this appears like this colossal story yeah because at the time i think to most people in britain this feels like an amusing embarrassment yeah an amusing embarrassment it's like a summer friendly it's a summer friendly tournament i mean it's not a friendly but it feels like a bit of a gimmick so you know oh yeah what a terrible embarrassment but who cares that's but of course but of course for for everyone else who's playing that's not the case and especially brazil and especially for brazil so brazil are really really focused on winning and it's a weird setup isn't it

because there isn't really a final it's all done on this this is kind of done on points but essentially what is it the the last match it's Uruguay again our friends and Brazil exactly and what is it Brazil needs to win by two no no Brazil only need to draw Tom oh Uruguay need to win by right two no Uruguay just need to win uh but Brazil if they draw they are the champions so so Brazil okay Brazil who are slight late comcomers, they're behind Uruguay and Argentina. Brazil have been – we'll come back to Brazil and the importance of football in the next podcast. But Brazil have been ruled by this authoritarian modernized group, Getulio Vargas, in the 1930s and the 1940s.

Vargas is a very strange man, Tom. He becomes leader again in Brazil. So he's the sort of dominant person in Brazilian history in the 20th century. But unusually, he committed suicide in office. A very rare thing for a dictator to do. He was depressed that things weren't going so well for him politically.

I suppose Hitler did. Yes, Hitler did. Yeah, I suppose Hitler did. But things weren't going well for him either. But in quite unusual circumstances, it's going to go well for him either but in quite unusual circumstances it's fair to say yes anyway

so the Brazilian nation they've started to sort of throw themselves into the embrace of football much more keenly very famously in 1938 a Brazilian writer called Gilberto Freire had said that Brazilian football

was the expression of their mulattoism. That's the expression he used. He said it was basically their own brand of football was a product of their Afro-Brazilian kind of slave heritage. And this would make them superior. They were more physical, all this stuff that now looks a tiny bit dodgy, to be honest. Right. Okay. But so the racial makeup of the Brazilian team,

there are three black players, aren't there? There are. Yeah. Including the goalkeeper, Barbosa, who is the best goalkeeper in the world at the time. Who is regarded as an excellent goalkeeper. Yeah. The Brazilians are absolutely convinced from the beginning

they're going to win, just as Uruguay had. Hosts often do well. They'd built this stadium, the Maracanã especially. The Maracanã is this colossal stadium with a capacity of over 160 000 people um it is seen as a symbol of brazilian modernity and national unity it's the first big concrete building in brazil so it anticipates all those buildings in brazilia later in the 1950s kind of modernist absolutely and the news the brazilian newspaper anoint said today brazil has the biggest and most perfect stadium in the 1950s. Yeah, so kind of modernist. Absolutely. And the Brazilian newspaper, Anoite, said,

today Brazil has the biggest and most perfect stadium in the world, dignifying the competence of its people and its evolution in all branches of human activity.

And also, Omundo, the day of the final, they have run a picture of the Brazilian team, don't they, with the front page headline, these are the world champions.

And the Uruguayan captain sees it. He buys every copy that he can he takes it up to his teammates and he tells them to urinate on them which i think is brilliant man management so any any captains of sports teams listening to this this is the way forward you're going to do this, Tom. Yes, for England. With the Western male when England play Wales. No, I mean, the Brazilians, I mean, this is, if you want, you were talking about the classical stuff, and the Brazilians all have kind of, they're all called Leonidas.

I mean, this is the great 20th century object lesson hubris because the Brazilians have composed a samba ready to go called Brazil the victors the mayor of Rio actually congratulates the team on becoming world champions before the final even happens you players who in less than a few hours will be hailed as champions by millions of compatriots you who have no rivals in the entire hemisphere You who will overcome any other competitor. You who I already salute as victors. So everybody's massively overexcited. 200,000 people cram into this stadium with a capacity of 160,000. People have already died in stampedes for tickets.

There's such enthusiasm. And what's worse, Tom, Brazil actually went 1-0 up in a match they only needed to draw and then you know even if you know nothing about football from the way we've been telling this story you know what's gonna happen you know what's gonna happen you require score two goals and win the match 2-1 there's such shock in brazil the doctors at the stadium had to treat 169 people for hysteria. So I was reading about it.

And over the years that followed, Brazilian sports writers compared this defeat to the murder of JFK, the Titanic, and Hiroshima. Oh, wow. So any British listeners, we're not the only people who indulge in massive sporting hyperbole. But the saddest story is the one about Barbosa, isn't it? The goalkeeper who lets the goal in. And it's the three black players in particular who are the particular objects of Brazilian fury. The press, the Brazilian newspapers say they're cowards. They don't have discipline.

They don't have the discipline of their white compatriots, all this sort of stuff. I mean, Barbosa in particular, he would later in life tell a story about going into a bar and sort of semi-deserted bar and hearing a woman turn to her little boy and say, look, that's the man who made all Brazil cry. And he comes to be seen as a kind of, as a Jonah. Yeah. they'll cry and he he comes to be seen as a kind of as a jonah yeah um he he it's it's thought that he'll bring bad luck to any team that he um that he plays for and he comes to believe it himself

and so there's this story isn't there that he gets the groundsman to smuggle the goal posts out yeah you know the goals posts through which the the two goals have been scored by Uruguay. And he takes these goalposts and he sets them on fire and he has a barbecue and he invites his friends to come and eat the meat that has been grilled on the burning embers of these goalposts to try and expiate the curse. But it doesn't do him any good, Tom, because even as late as 1994,

a World Cup Brazil won in the United States, he went to the training camp for the Brazilian team, and he was turned away because he was a curse. So the most famous story about the aftermath of 1950, there's a boy in a place called Baru,

which is in Sao Paulo State, very poor, who's 10 years old, who is with his father. And he says it's the only time in his life he ever saw his father cry. And the boy says later, there was a sadness so great, so profound that it felt like the end of a war with Brazil, the loser and many people dead. And Dominic, who was that little boy?

So that little boy was somebody called Edson Arantes de Nascimento, better known as Pele. Dun, dun, dun. On that note, Tom, we should,

blow the whistle. We should blow the whistle. This is only half time though. No, it's, it's, it's the, it's the quarterfinal.

We've got the semifinal tomorrow, and then we have the final on Wednesday. So tomorrow we will be returning with the history, the extraordinary political history of the World Cup in the 1950s, 60s, 70s.

Then we will reach a climax with a very special guest, the former England captain Gary Lineker will be talking us through what's happened to football and to the World Cup

from the 1980s onwards, his own memories and the implications. He's somebody who thinks quite a lot, isn't he, Tom, about the media, about the political role of the World Cup. But then we will be getting into our 32-team marathon where we'll be selecting aspects of history from the stories of all the competitors.

At Qatar. At Qatar. So that's everything from roman emperors and phoenician queens to 1970s urban guerrillas protest movements emperors south korean south korean uh iguanas on the galapagos Islands, so much range. And just to emphasise, I am assuming that if you've listened this far, you have a moderate degree of interest in football. But if you don't, please be reassured there is absolutely no football in this marathon. It is a festival of world history, Tom, of global history. A festival of global history is exactly what it is, Dominic.

So non-stop fun. So we will see you tomorrow. We've got England winning the World Cup. We've got World Cup in Argentina. Germans behaving badly. But also very well. Germans behaving well and badly. Yes.

So we will see you tomorrow. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. thanks for listening to the rest is history for bonus episodes early access ad-free listening and access to our chat community please sign up at rest is history pod.com that's rest isistorypod.com. That's therestisentertainment.com.