by Jimmy Nightingale

Created on: May 08, 2008   Last Updated: June 02, 2010

"Ask a man if he would rather have sex or play sport and you will see him think about it" - Gutma Chandraputri, 2005

Personally, I think that is going a little too far, but it would be fair to say that sport is a welcome distraction from the serious business of living.

As a child of European parents, the round ball version of football, what Americans call soccer, has been an intrinsic part of my life. My Hungarian father was an Olympic wrestler and, despite never being much of a footballer himself, he rubbed shoulders with many of the legendary Hungarian players from the Magic Magyars, the Aranycsapat (or Golden Team) of the 1950s. Ferenc Puskas, Sandor Kocsis and Zoltan Czibor were household names and, despite not being born at the time, I could probably give you a play by play description of the 1954 World Cup Final, such is the number of times I heard this game re-lived, dissected and discussed during my childhood. Germany won this match, 3-2 in controversial circumstances, arguably the biggest upset in World Cup football and a loss that ended a 33 game unbeaten streak by the Magyars. The controversy related to a disallowed goal by Golden Shoe hero Ferenc Puskas with two minutes to go that would have squared up the match and I've never heard so much vitriol from my father and his friends as was directed at the English referee in charge of the match, William Ling, and the Welsh linesman, Benjamin Griffiths, who flagged for offside. If you want to fire up a Hungarian, the mere mention of either of these names will usually do the trick.

My uncle played for Borussia Moenchengladbach when they were a force in European football, winning three consecutive Bundesliga titles in the late 1970s, two UEFA Cups and a European Cup finals appearance, losing to Liverpool in 1977. Several distant relatives also played in second tier competitions in Germany and Italy. Not surprisingly, my mother was a passionate football watcher and, against this background, football was always going to be a big part of my life. I was apparently kicking a ball around at the age of 2 and had my first run on game at the age of 4, playing in the Caringbah Baptist U6 team. My start in football was ignominious one, we lost 11-2, and from memory we lost every game that first season. My teenage years in the 1970s were witness to the peak years of the footballing greats. Legendary footballing figures like Pele, Beckenbauer, Muller, Cruijff, Neeskens, Jairzinho, Tostao, Rivelino, Carlos Alberto, Gerson,

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