Brian Glanville – born 24 September 1931, died 16 May 2025
When football writer Brian Glanville pedalled from his Holland Park home to Stamford Bridge to cover Chelsea matches in the early 1980s, there was no secure spot to leave his bike.
So cantankerous Blues chairman Ken Bates, a near-identical age to Glanville, was persuaded to set aside space in the stadium's private underground car park – alongside the Lotus Esprits and Lamborghini Countachs – for one bicycle.
Glanville, who has died at the age of 93, regarded the Bridge and Fulham's Craven Cottage as his homes-from-home.
He was the last of a golden age of football reporters who phoned his Saturday afternoon match reports to a copy-taker on the Sunday Times when every other journalist was told to use a laptop.
It was an education to watch him. Armed only with a few scuffed notes on a printed teamsheet, he would dictate – off the top of his head – a blow-by-blow account of the match he'd just witnessed, pausing only occasionally to gruffly demand: "How many words is that?"
He'd wearily have to spell and respell surnames like Gullit and Niedzwiecki to the person on the other end of the line, and would roll his eyes at the ineptitude of the copy-taker for not understanding the obscure Latin phrase with which he had laced his report. Yet despite technological advances he resolutely stuck to his old pen-and-paper ways and never went digital.
By the end of his career, the walls of the front room of his home – surrounding a chaotic mess of piled-up papers and programmes, books and memorabilia – contained a museum collection of press passes on lanyards from World Cups, European championships and domestic matches.
He covered every World Cup from 1958 to 2006, churning out almost as many books (including racy novels) as he did football reports.
For fear of being subjected to a torrent of reminiscences, stories and shaggy-dog stories, other journalists at the Bridge would check where Glanners was sitting and site themselves as far from him as possible.
But I always loved hearing the tales of him interviewing Cassius Clay, as Muhammad Ali still then was, in California ahead of a big bout, or listening to his rapid-fire succession of jokes – each punchline triggering the start of the next. Why he was never given his own radio show remains a mystery.
He was an inspiration to young journalists. As Paddy Barclay, a contemporary and great friend of Brian's, once put it: "Football writers fall into two categories. Those who have been influenced by Brian Glanville, and those who should have been."
A fluent Italian speaker, he came into his own at Stamford Bridge in the era of Gianfranco Zola and Gianluca Vialli, stepping in at press conferences to argue with Chelsea's supplied Italian interpreter on the correct translation of 'counterpress' or 'nutmeg'.
Ferociously opinionated, if not downright rude, about the standard of writing of his fellow journalists, Glanville knew the game inside out, having founded and played for the Chelsea Casuals as left-back on Sunday mornings at Wormwood Scrubs.
My favourite memory was sitting alongside him in the Stamford Bridge press box during a dull goalless game and being roused by Glanville leaping to his feet and screaming "Penalty!" at the top of his voice. As the ball had recently gone out of play for a throw-in, everybody turned to stare at him in astonishment. It turned out he'd been simultaneously listening to an Italian match between Sampdoria and Udinese on his radio, and the spot kick had been awarded 1,000 miles away.
Read a World Cup 2014 preview with Brian Glanville from H&F BUZZ newspaper:
