A Nostalgic Longing For The Better Days You Never Knew

A recent family argument over whether it was or was not compulsory for Partick Thistle players to wear moustaches for team photos in the 1970s (it was) boiled over into petty namecalling and ill advised pontificating. In the end, my cousin David insisted, point blank, that Alfredo di Stefano was the greatest ever footballer. David is 25.

He was born in January of 1983, fully 17 years after di Stefano (alright, alright: di Stéfano) played his last game of football for Espanyol. Di Stéfano who played for Argentina in the Second World War. Di Stéfano, who played for many teams, but always in black and white.

Now, the point here is not whether Freddy (can I call you that?) is the best player the world has ever seen or not. The point is that you will find people claiming that title belongs to him, to Cruyff, to Pelè, to Pat Nevin, to Maradona, without ever having seen them play football. Even on telly! All I have seen of di Stéfano is the 1960 European Cup Final. He played ok, I suppose, but he missed a couple of sitters.

But think how many sporting greats of the past are embraced by people who could not have seen them: Cassius Clay, Don Bradman, Joe Lewis, Jack Nicklaus; anyone under 30 would not have seen these people at the height of their powers, and yet they are expected to proclaim them great. Mike Hussey recent claimed that if Bradman were playing cricket today “he would still have an average twice as good as any batsman in the world”. An admirable sentiment, but Hussey was born in 1975, 25 years after Bradman’s last meaningful game. So how in the name of the Wee Man can he possibly know just how good Bradman was? From Pathè footage? Where you can’t see the ball?

And so we come to the heart of the Sporting Nostalgic: The nostalgia for times we have never lived through. Whether it be Dixie Dean, Alexander Obolensky or ‘Babe’ Ruth, please pause for a moment in your adulation and ask yourself: who can I watch now, today, that I will be proud of having seen? Where are our legends? Of course they exist: but only nostalgia will reveal them to us.