My Argentina

A photo I posted recently on my Instagram page in a Chacarita football shirt seemed to catch the imagination of Los Funebreros hinchas in Buenos Aires. It led to Solo Ascenso football website contacting me, and today I submitted these answers to questions for the great newspaper Clarin, with a view to a potential article. Given that will be in Castellano in a paper in the Southern hemisphere, for those interested, here was my responses.

1/ Can you tell us about yourself, and how you got into the field of journalism

My name is Jim Rendall (James is my proper first name). I was born and still live in the capital of Scotland, Edinburgh. I was working in the Banking industry from 1983 until the end of 2017, when I took up the offer of voluntary redundancy which had arrived at the best time for me, as I needed to stop working to look after my elderly mother. Prior to 2017 I had done some limited articles for football publications, but since 2016 and more especially now I write for UK magazine Football Weekends, which is a guide in many respects to help fans get to know a club, a city, where to eat etc ahead of maybe making a trip to any given town or city, for a weekend or longer predominantly anywhere in Europe, but I am the unofficial Italian correspondent. Despite the pandemic, and no trip to Italy since January 2020, I have managed to write one, sometimes two articles for the monthly magazine, although I am desperately needing to get across to Italy again to source new material. I had my 60th article published this month about the Italian city of Modena. I hope in the coming months it will be possible to get back to calcio watching, and maybe by 2023 everything will be easier to get back to Argentina too. I kind of fell into my journalistic role, but I hope my enthusiasm for my subject always entertains the readers. I have been published in other magazines too, one story in a Scottish Quarterly football periodical, Nutmeg told the story of my friendship with Uruguayan footballer Fabian Yantorno from when he played in Scotland to our continued friendship to this day. Next month another UK magazine, Turnstile will publish my story about Liverpool FC in Montevideo. It is these smaller, less celebrated clubs that motivate me to bring them to life. The monied end of football is losing its soul, if it hasn’t already.

2/ How did you start to like football and which team are you a fan of in Scotland?

I have been a football fan since I could kick a ball, and a South American intrigue was almost my first football memory when I saw a piece of TV footage from a World Cup Qualifier in Santiago in 1973 when Chile kicked off against no opposition in a full stadium. I didn’t understand the story behind Russia’s refusal to play at the time, I was only 8, but when the following summer’s World Cup Finals in West Germany arrived, the Chile incident had left its mark. With a red t-shirt on I was running around the garden kicking a ball, I was Carlos Caszely, my first football hero! (An incredible footnote to that story, in February 2014 I was visited by a wonderful Chilean friend Cecilia, who had gone to meet Carlos and get him to sign a shirt and his book for me! Needless to say these are treasured items now).

My club in Scotland is Inverness Caledonian Thistle, a club some 250 kilometres north of Edinburgh (nothing in Argentina distance, but away fans think it’s too far here!). My family are from Orkney, a group of islands just north of Scotland and supporting ICT as the club can be shortened too, or Caley Thistle have been my team since they started out only in 1994. What happened before that is a mess, suffice is to say my original club Meadowbank Thistle, who were the third team of Edinburgh (behind Hearts and Hibernian) were stolen from the city, and moved elsewhere even with a change of name. I tried a year without a team, and you should only have one team in your life, but what happens if they don’t exist any more? A brand new merged club in Inverness, from a part of the world I love (very near Loch Ness, and capital of the Highlands), it seemed to make sense and I have never regretted it since. Indeed, I doubt Meadowbank would have ever finished third in the top league, won the Scottish Cup (a truly amazing feat) and played in Europe, but all these things happened to ICT in one beautiful year, 2015. We are now safely back in our safe zone, the second tier of Scottish football.

3/ How did you start to like Argentine football? Was there a particular player that made you a fan?

If Carlos Caszely started a lifetime of intrigue in International football/travel for me throughout the globe, the very next World Cup in Argentina was the start of a slow burning interest in your country. Scotland were the only British team involved, and while Cordoba still sends shivers down our spines after the Iran debacle, Archie Gemmel’s goal in Mendoza versus The Netherlands is still amongst the greatest goals in a World Cup ever. Indeed, on my first foray to South America with a friend, our trek from Lima to Santiago via Cusco, Lake Titicaca, La Paz etc had to have the possibility of getting across from the Chilean capital to Mendoza, where of course we went to the cancha to pay homage to that memorable moment in 1978. If Mario Kempes celebrating his goals in the Monumental had left an indelible impression on a 13 year old boy, the good people of Mendoza did exactly the same 21 years later. We might have journeyed through three other South American lands for a month or more, but those three days in July 1999, which coincided with Argentine Independence Day left the biggest and best impression. By the time we set off on our return to Scotland those three days had eclipsed the rest of the trip, and within the year I was back exploring the greatest city in the world for me now, Buenos Aires. I would be back each and every year from 2000 to 2011, sometimes twice! 

One other rationale as to why Argentina became a country of huge intrigue to me surrounded the mythology constantly spouted out in the press here about the World Club Championship matches between Racing and Celtic in 1967. Football is dominated by Celtic and Rangers here, a duopoly that gets more and more tedious the richer they get, and the more frustrated they become at being left behind in European competition because the Scottish pool is too small for them, as they see it. Anyway, I very early on became convinced there were two sides to this story and only one was being told, so I was immediately drawn to Racing as my team, and they are to this day. My first ever trip to Buenos Aires had to include a trip to El Cilindro, an incredible 1-1 draw with Boca.  It has been a passion that has opened doors to some of life’s greatest friends over the years, and while I won’t name any in particular, they know who they are, everyone of my Racing family have been to Inverness too. The closest I ever got to a neutral perspective on the 1967 games came from chatting with an elderly chap sitting beside me at a Danubio Copa Libertadores match in Montevideo. He recalled seeing a Scottish team (he couldn’t remember the name, which amused me), but they had lost to Racing, and he had been in the Centenario watching; “two very bad teams” was how he summed up the violence that day! The very idea Celtic perpetrated any of the incidents that day is still denied here!

Many years later, in February 2003, Racing played in the Centenario for the first time since 1967 (so I am told), and I was amongst the La Academia hinchas in the stadium that night along with my great friend Juan Manuel when they beat Nacional 2,1. It remains a treasured memory, but I haven’t brought Racing a whole lot of luck in the 15 games I have seen them play! When El Cilcindro is full or bouncing, there is no better place to be, but then again I might be biased!

I am sure I am not the only Scot who had a soft spot for Diego Maradona, not so much for dancing rings around us at Hampden on one occasion, but for that memorable afternoon in the Azteca when he dismantled another England attempt to win the big gong! The Church of Maradona has many disciples here! Diego Simeone, who I had the unexpected pleasure of watching play his last ever competitive game as a player at Quilmes, as a temporarily homeless Estudiantes beat Racing has always been admired, if not in the same way as Maradona, but his coaching CV is without question highly impressive. 

4/ How did you start liking Chacarita Juniors, what is the story behind it?

The Chacarita story that brought me to your attention was just an innocent photo posted on my Instagram page ‘can_chas’ having been at a 5th level game in Scotland the day before, but it just grew from the wonderful Funbreros fans liking their club shirt being shown so far away, I think. As I said, my enthusiasm for the elite end of football has diminished, exacerbated perhaps by the pandemic, where the greed of ridiculous wages and transfer fees seems even more out of step with the real world. When it became apparent no one could go to the stadium any more in March 2020, I decided that I wanted to give back to the sport I love by continuing to spend the money I would have spent going to football. That started to take the form of a shirt collection, and Italian clubs were amongst the biggest group to benefit, but then I discovered a European based company affiliated to Argentina, Homefans.net, who have been amazing in sourcing a growing number of “lesser” clubs in Argentina for camisetas for me (All Boys, Atlanta, Platense, Tigre, Quilmes, Barracas Central are amongst the others in my collection from 2021 aside from Chacarita), and I am very grateful to Alvaro, the BsAs end of the operation for his bespoke service. I never thought I could access some of the great lesser club shirts of Argentine football so easily from Scotland.

I am especially fond of my Chacarita shirt, with a celebration of the club’s 115 years on a badge on the shirt, the colours are great. The Banfield 125 year camiseta is a fabulous thing too. In 1999 when a friend and I were touring South America, the Copa America was on in Paraguay, but occasionally we would come across what were apparently play off matches to get to the top flight on television in Bolivia and very often Chacarita or Tigre were playing! The seed was sown, and in 2002 I was at my first of two Chacarita matches, a home game v Boca, but at El Gasometro. Maybe a year later, this particular match appeared in a BBC documentary about fan violence, when a BBC reporter had been at the game. Watching the footage in the programme, suddenly the penny dropped, Los Funbreros fans had been led a merry dance to incite a riot, and it made me sympathise with them even more. The simple denial of being allowed to bring their drums into the stadium, while the Boca fans were in full regalia, drums et all. It was enough for the water hoses to be turned on the angry Funebreros fans, and the BBC got exactly the footage they came for, a riot! That game ended in a 1-1 draw, and while the violence had been depressing, the “villa” outside San Lorenzo’s ground was an eye opener too. 

5/ Tell me about when you watched Chacarita play?

Chacarita didn’t have a home back in 2002, I guess San Martin was still to be put in place properly, and while I saw them a few years later away at another of my favourite cancha, Parque Patricio in a narrow loss to Huracan, watching Chaca play at home is high on my post pandemic list of things to do when I can finally get down to Argentina.

6/ What do you think of the Argentine Ascenso leagues? Do you follow any other clubs?

I follow the promotion leagues closely in Argentina, and recently watched the great Atlanta v Chacarita derby online. From the two leagues below the top flight, I always want to see Chacarita do well, as well as Ferro for one of my great friends in the city. I would watch more Argentine football, but it isn’t so accessible here as Uruguayan football, who have a subscription channel for anyone, anywhere in the world, so Rentistas v Liverpool, or Racing v Rampla can be enjoyed on my TV, which is great, but I wish I could watch more from Argentina. That said, none of it is brilliant without the fans, but keeping football going and giving us that escape to watch and discuss our favourite sport during the pandemic has been great for mental health. I hope the fans will be back soon down there, we are starting to get back to the stadiums in Scotland. 

Guemes are having an extraordinary season, can they hold on and clinch promotion? From outside the capital I have a real soft spot for Gimnasia Jujuy and would love to see them promoted. The names are hugely intriguing, Almirante Brown, Nueva Chicago (I have been to see a game at Mataderos in my near 40 games in Argentina), Guillermo Brown, plain old Brown too! The history of these clubs, the history of so many clubs in Argentina have deep rooted ties to this part of the world, and after all, it was a Scot who allegedly introduced the game to your beautiful land. 

7/ If you had to compare Argentine and Scottish football, what would you say?

Argentine football is far superior to the Scottish league, the skills and abilities of the players are honed in different ways. It is a shame so many leave to go to Europe as soon as the chance allows, starving the national league of a better class of player, but it is still better technically than what is on offer here. An eight team tournament of 4 second tier Argentine clubs and 4 Scottish clubs would probably see a semi-final of 4 from Argentina! I might be wrong, and I might be putting Scottish football down, as it has improved immeasurably, but somehow those close control skills and tricks that come more naturally in other lands are lacking here.

8/ Would you like to return to Argentina to see Chacarita?

I answered this one above, the San Martin cancha is high on my must visit list. I have watched a game at Platense, but it was an Acasusso home match versus Defensores, so going back there to see Platense is needed too, as well as a trip to watch Tigre! The Delta region is one of my favourite places just outside the city, but I have never seen Tigre play, and with a similar colour scheme to Inverness, there is a certain fondness.