The Spy Who Played for Spartak
by Jim Riordan
4th Estate, £14.99
Reviewed by Tom Davies
From WSC 258 August 2008
Football in the Soviet Union held a lurid fascination for many – by turns menacing, exotic, secretive and awe-inspiring. So it’s something of a surprise that the curious story of the only Englishman to play for a Soviet League club is so little known. Children’s author and Russian studies academic Jim Riordan, then a young British Communist Party member, found himself propelled through political connections and his modest prowess with a Sunday morning expat team into a title-chasing Spartak Moscow side for two league games in the early Sixties, and this is his account.