The core target group of this small book is quite small, a subset of the Generation Golf: male middle-class children interested in soccer who grew up in West Germany in the 1970s and at the latest consciously followed the 1978 World Cup on the screens.

Anyone who does not belong to this circle can read Andreas Bernard's memories of a youth in Munich shaped by football with a gain of knowledge and pleasure, but will have to do without those almost ecstatic moments that only reading gives, that goes into the deep layers of one's own memory conjures up deposited images – and with them an attitude towards life.

Matthew Alexander

Deputy head of department in the features section.

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For example, when Bernard recalls how Adidas changed the aesthetics of the game with a ball called Tango, which every youngster really wanted after the 1978 World Cup, even though it cost 149 marks.

Where previously pentagons and hexagons had alternated in black and white patchwork, imprinted circles suddenly made the ball movement elegantly dynamic.

It went well with the goals with the infinitely far back and at the same time softly stretched nets that existed in Argentina's stadiums.

The time it took for the ball to go from the goal line into the net stretched almost as theatrically as the exotic shouts of "Goooool" from the home commentators.

The German children in front of the television could learn here that there are dialects in the universal language of football.

"Good on the ball, but too slow"

The cultural scientist and publicist Bernard, born in 1969, titled his book “We went out and played football”.

This is an echo of Franz Beckenbauer's legendary casual sentence, which he coined during the 1990 World Cup: "Go out and play football." The slightly reproachful undertone of a boomer could also be read into it, who accuses the younger ones of getting sour in front of the Playstation, instead of walking in the fresh air.

But that is not Bernard's approach, even if he circles the run-down and deserted soccer field of his youth at the beginning of his reflections.

He doesn't want to educate anyone about anything.

The author, apparently a more than passable kicker until a serious injury, recalls the formative experiences of his youth.

He does this with a thoroughly sentimental, but by no means euphemistic intention.

He talks about the feeling of strangeness that sets in when you spend the night away from home with the youth team for the first time.

He reports on the pain of self-knowledge when the father of a teammate on the sidelines assesses his own abilities out loud: “Good on the ball, but too slow.” He describes the footballing tricks of the migrant children, whose skills he admired but regarded as an end in themselves , over which scoring goals was forgotten.

You can read a lot about Nick Hornby

Bernard has an enviably good memory for small things.

Like the best game of football, his book falls to some lengths, particularly where he rambles on about the nature of his favorite pitches, but that occasional verbal ball shove only seems to set the stage for a surprising combination.

Bernard's unspoken message is that if you take football seriously, you sharpen your senses, for social differences as well as for the dynamics of groups and even for the weather: As soon as the lightening color of the roof tiles on the neighboring house could be read that the moisture from a rain shower was beginning to dry up and so it was time to think about playing football again, young Andreas jumped on his bike to meet his buddies.

He learns to listen carefully from his father,

Sometimes Bernard takes fragments of memory as an opportunity for more general reflections, and the book of memories then expands into an essay.

He puts forward the thesis that the significantly increased interest in football in academic circles is due to a book, Nick Hornby's "Ballfieber" published in 1992.

This is probably too simple a thought, the effect that the academic world was becoming less and less socially exclusive at that time must have been at least as great.

However, he is absolutely right with the analysis that the enthusiasm is often quite superficial, almost learned, that, for example, the sympathy for certain clubs such as SC Freiburg and FC St. Pauli in many cases arises from opportunistic "social tactical" considerations.

The emotional and, unlike all human relationships, unbreakable connection with a club (in Bernard's case it's Bayern Munich) is a fateful coincidence for the true fan that cannot be corrected.

You can read about it at Hornby.

Andreas Bernard: "We went out and played football".

Klett-Cotta Verlag, Stuttgart 2022. 160 pages, hardcover, €20.