Brian Glanville, known around the world as “the doyen of football writers”, has died at the age of 93; he spent nearly 30 years as Sunday Times football correspondent, and his many books – such as the essential “The Story of the World Cup” – have entertained and informed countless readers…
The worlds of football and journalism are mourning the death of Brian Glanville, undoubtedly one of the finest sportswriters of all time, at the age of 93.
Glanville was the Sunday Times football correspondent for nearly 30 years and spent five decades writing for World Soccer, but his colossal contribution stretched far beyond newspapers and magazines, not least through the many books he authored about the beautiful game.
He was bestowed the title of “the doyen of football writers” and his best-known work “The Story of the World Cup” is considered a seminal text, regularly revised and republished for subsequent tournaments since its first edition in 1973.
Glanville’s son Mark and daughter Jo shared the news of their father’s passing via social media on the eve of the FA Cup Final.
“RIP a true great who also happened to be my dad. What a life, and such a legacy,” wrote Mark.
The great Brian Glanville 24/09/1931-16/05/2025 pic.twitter.com/10x96rKKDl
— Jo Glanville (@joglanville1) May 16, 2025
Among those to pay tributes was the SJA’s President, Darren Lewis, who said: “Brian was an icon of our industry who brought insight, wisdom and magnificent context to any and every major tournament he covered.
“He was a wordsmith of the highest order and inspired generations beyond his own. He will be remembered as one of the all-time greats of football writing.”
Former Times and Sunday Times sports news correspondent John Goodbody, an SJA Sports Writer of the Year award winner, says Glanville was his “inspiration” to get into sports journalism.
“At school, I learnt many of Brian’s articles by heart and can still remember them today,” writes Goodbody.
“He then became my mentor in the 1960s, then a colleague on The Times and Sunday Times. Above all, he was always a friend.
“I last visited him three weeks ago and although he was very frail, his eyes would still light up when I mentioned the famous players and memorable matches we had seen.
“Brian was a pioneer, opening up the coverage of football beyond the British Isles, introducing everyone to the global stars as this country slowly embraced the World Cup, European Championship and the European Cup.
“In World Soccer in the 1960s, he called for a European League and this is now what we have got – and what we are revelling in.
“His industry was extraordinary. He probably wrote more words on football than anyone in history, let alone producing so many novels and short stories.
“He was never afraid to confront managers and officials, often rightly, emphasising that one should always suspect authority rather than respect it.
“As Paddy Barclay, another fine writer who also sadly died this year, said:”Football writers are divided into two camps: those who have been influenced by Brian and those who should have been.”
“I will miss him immeasurably and so will sports journalism.”
Keir Radnedge, the long-time former editor of World Soccer, said Glanville and the magazine were made for each other.
“Brian began contributing a typically individual column from 1961, less than a year after the magazine’s launch,” Radnedge told the SJA.
“He had freedom to write as he wished and enjoyed applying his own labels – such as the “Greed is Good League” (for you know what), a former FA chairman as “Bert the Inert” and FIFA president Sepp Blatter as coming up with “50 ideas every day, 51 of them bad.”
“Yet Brian, for all his status and stature, was unfailingly polite and considerate to aspiring young sports writers who dared ask his advice (like this one) back in the days before 10-second emails, when he had to wind in a sheet of copy paper and type a thoughtful response for posting.
“He fiercely regretted the chasm which opened up between journalists and players (the only people who matter) and greeted with resignation the technological revolution.
“Memorably, when the hubbub of a World Cup or Euro press room had dissolved into the mumbled clicking of laptop keys, somewhere in a hidden corner came the clackety-clack of an old Lettera and reassurance that Brian had not left the building.
“Now that he has, sportswriting is all the worse for it.”
RIP Brian Glanville, doyen of football writers. I worked with Brian often; he could be fun, or prickly (🤯), but when he spoke, you listened. He KNEW. And his script for Goal! (Fifa's 66 World Cup film) is a classic of lean writing… "the Italians go home… to their tomatoes…"
— Danny Kelly (@dannykellywords.bsky.social) May 17, 2025 at 4:09 PM
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Norman Giller, prolific author and former Daily Express chief football reporter, described Glanville as “a true giant of old Fleet Street.”
In 2011, Gilller – an ardent Tottenham Hotspur fan – had marked the occasion of his Arsenal-supporting friend’s 80th birthday celebrations in an article for this website…
Glanville, the twin-tongued, Italian-speaking Godfather of football scribes, first saw the Gunners play back in 1942 – at White Hart Lane, as they were then sharing the ground with Spurs while Highbury was being used for wartime defence purposes.
I am one of the few who have written more books than Brian, but his quality defeats my quantity by let’s say the 7-1 scoreline when Arsenal hammered Aston Villa in 1935, with all seven goals coming from the great Ted Drake.
Brian has been a wonderful ambassador for our profession, never short of confidence or anchored by false modesty and worthy of reading by any young journalist who wants to know how to write about football with authority and style.
Giller says football should feel extremely fortunate to have been chronicled by Glanville, who was a unique talent.
Giller told the SJA: “Brian was the son of an Irish Jewish dentist – he was proud of his background and particularly a play he penned about the Jewish community in Hendon, where he grew up in the immediate pre-war years.
“He was an intellectual who I was continually telling should have been a lawyer rather than a football hack. He accepted this with its combination of humour and truth. Glanville KC had a perfect ring to it.
“He used to continually put me down with insults delivered in fluent Italian and Latin. I used to respond with cutting Cockney rhyming slang. I miss those hilarious exchanges. Rest easy, Master.”
Giller ranks Glanville in the elite tier of football writers from that period.
“There were only six in his league from our generation: Ian Wooldridge, Hugh McIlvanney, David Miller, Geoffrey Green and – a little younger – Patrick Collins and James Lawton.
“Me? I was strictly a hack and Glanville, God bless him, used to let me know my status. Modesty was never allowed to cloud his thinking… and nobody, but nobody, had a deeper knowledge of world football.
“He knew the game inside out and never let associates forget it. I will miss the old sod. The Life of Brian was a best seller.”
A World Cup legacy, and still hard at work into his old age
In 2016, Glanville was the recipient of an Outstanding Contribution recognition at the annual Sports Book Awards.
Luminaries such as Patrick Collins, then the SJA President; Gavin Hamilton, who was editor at World Soccer; the England manager Roy Hodgson; and Times columnist Matt Dickinson, paid their tributes for a short film played at the ceremony, with Glanville in attendance to accept his honour.
In a self-effacing interview at the Sports Book Awards ceremony, he said getting to write the narrative script for “Goal!”, the official film of the 1966 World Cup (available to watch for free on FIFA+), was one of his career highlights.
However, even then he was still taking himself to task for an error in his Sunday Times match report for the Wembley final, having written that Germany’s 89th-minute equaliser against England should have been ruled out for a handball offence in the build-up.
Glanville said that when watching the footage for the film, he could see the ball had in fact been struck into the back of Karl-Heinz Schnellinger, before Wolfgang Weber scored. “When he [Schnellinger] felt the pain, he put his hand to his back.”
England famously went on to record a 4-2 victory after extra-time. “Fortunately, I think either nobody read the article or that they were so euphoric about England winning that it didn’t matter,” said Glanville.
On Saturday morning on social media, the Guardian’s Richard Williams, their former chief sports writer, shared a photo taken six years ago in the Fulham FC press box.
His great friend Glanville is pictured hard at work, studying the matchday programme.
Sharing memories for The Times, Martin Samuel said Glanville had “immense knowledge and judgement” and “impeccable instincts” which made him a formidable reporter.
Samuel also recalls Glanville’s skill at hitting a word count, marvelling at his concise technique. “Before technology, I never saw anyone do it like Brian… There wasn’t a sliver of fat in that copy, nothing was wasted, nothing to cut.”
In his tribute, Henry Winter said Glanville was “the greatest football writer this country has ever known” while Mail Sport’s Ian Ladyman wrote that he was “arguably the most esteemed and influential… of his and perhaps any generation.”
SJA committee member and former Football Writers’ Association chair Carrie Brown recalled: “Talking football with Brian was a privilege, akin to a fictional carpet ride, propelling the listener through decades of the game with insight and wit.”
Football photographer John McDermott, originally from San Francisco, covered nine World Cups – two of them as a FIFA official photographer – and first met Glanville at the 1976 USA Bicentennial Cup Tournament in Philadelphia, where Kevin Keegan scored twice in a 3-1 England win over “Team America”, a side of NASL stars including Pele and Bobby Moore.
“Brian seemed genuinely astonished that “an American?!” actually knew who he was and followed him, and could be knowledgeable about the international game. He graciously invited me to come and see him the next time I would be in London.
“The following year, I did visit him and he even provided me with a ticket for an England v Italy match at Wembley, and let me play for 20 minutes in a game with his beloved Chelsea Casuals.
Brian Glanville's famous Chelsea Casuals football team c 1975. My old man back row, 2nd from right, far left Tom Kremer who developed the Rubik cube, me on the ball, brother Toby in the middle, artist Norman Ackroyd next to him. pic.twitter.com/Opc1Zv8Jcl
— Mark Glanville (@MarcoManasseh) May 20, 2025
“Another favourite memory of Brian is from the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. At a press conference the day before the opening match, he had the temerity to ask the then-FIFA President Joào Havelange how FIFA could, in good conscience and as a governing body theoretically dedicated to the promotion of sport and good health, support the sale and use of cigarettes through advertising at World Cup matches.
“Havelange, angered by this unexpected and very unwelcome question, lost his composure and was momentarily speechless. After what seemed a lengthy pause, and consultation with an aide (“Who is this Englishman?” he wanted to know) Havelange cut Brian off and declared that the question was inappropriate and out of order, claiming it had nothing to do with football and because tobacco products were legal and under no restrictions of any kind.
“But Brian had made his point. And, as we know now, the advertisement of tobacco products at FIFA events ended prior to the next World Cup and were eventually banned pretty much everywhere else in the world as well.
“My last time seeing Brian was in Seoul during the 2002 World Cup. I ran into him on the street; it was almost midnight after a late match. He was lost, lugging a heavy suitcase and perspiring and breathing so heavily I thought he would have a heart attack at any second. I sat him down immediately, and realized he was looking for the media bus stop, which was where I was going as well.
“So I took him with me, carrying both my camera gear AND his suitcase. He was effusively grateful. Once on the bus, some colleagues recognized him. He announced loudly to them, and to everyone within earshot, that he had been rescued from spending the night on the street by his friend “one of the only Americans who knows anything about football” and who was also “not only a great photographer for the likes of Newsweek, Sports Illustrated and FIFA, but an ex-Navy pilot as well.” I wanted to hide under the seat, of course… but it was also sweet of him, in his very Glanvillean way.
Faber is very sorry to hear of the death of the legendary sportswriter Brian Glanville. Faber published Glanville's books for over forty years. His classic work, The Story of the World Cup, updated for every tournament between 1993 to 2018, was a vivid celebration of the great… pic.twitter.com/74N4nF5j6d
— Faber Books (@FaberBooks) May 19, 2025
“Brian was one of our greatest sportswriters, and a multi-talented man. And above all, for me, a joy to spend time with. His writing about soccer (football to him, of course) had a depth and an authority to it that most of his colleagues could only aspire to.
“He truly loved the game and, I believe, enjoyed playing it – something he continued to do into older age – even more than he enjoyed writing and talking about it. RIP, dear friend Brian.”
The SJA sends its deepest sympathies to Brian Glanville’s family and friends.
If you are interested in sharing your memories of Brian via publication on the SJA website, please email us – we welcome your contributions.
Further reading…
Brian Glanville 1931-2025: Tributes by Richard Williams and Henry Winter (Football Writers’ Association)
Brian Glanville, influential football writer, dies aged 93 (The Times)
Brian Glanville, journalist lauded as ‘the greatest football writer’, dies aged 93 (Andy Martin, The Guardian)
Brian Glanville obituary: Legendary football writer dies aged 93 – he was arguably the most esteemed ever and a generous man (Ian Ladyman, Mail Sport)
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