ABSTRACT
In 1955, journalist Archie Ledbrooke and his collaborator Edgar Turner noted that ‘there are two ways of writing about a football match’ (Ledbrooke and Turner 1955, p.161): as a form of self-contained entertainment; or as part of a wider cultural and historical context. They favoured the latter approach, what they called ‘the larger framework’ (ibid.). Ledbrooke was the football correspondent of the Manchester Evening News, and three years later was one of the journalists to die in the Munich air disaster that decimated the outstanding Manchester United crop of Busby Babes. Ledbrooke wrote with excitement of the new internationalism in football. His book Soccer from the Pressbox was first published in 1950, the year of England’s disastrous World Cup debut in Brazil, where a journeyman USA team and then a Franco-inspired Spanish team both beat England 1-0, knocking the overconfident English out of the tournament. His book is spiced with insights from his international experience but also from his Manchester beat, based upon the close working relationship with his sources that allowed him and his peers on board the Manchester United charter to Belgrade and back, via the fatal refuelling stop in the snow at Munich.
