By David Arrowsmith @mrwriterman79
Published by Octopus Publishing Group Ltd https://www.octopusbooks.co.uk/ @Octopus_Books
304 pages ISBN 9781788405232
Publication date 28 May 2024
I was sent a hardback copy to enable me to take part in this Blog Tour. I would like to thank Anne at Random Things Tours @RandomTTours for the invitation to participate and of course the Author and the Publisher.
The Cover
I love the cover with the table footballers in the Columbian national kit, one has a beard and moustache, whilst one is upside down. Then there is the slightly chaotic lettering of the title and author’s name, perfect for a football story out of the ordinary.
The Blurb
Pablo Escobar had one obsession. Not drugs, not money, not power… football.
This is the story of Narcoball. Colombian football during the 80s and 90s – shaped by drug lords, rivalries and ambition. A tale of clandestine deals that reshaped Medellín’s football clubs, where fortunes were won and lost. It uncovers a football empire backed by cartels – where victory was a currency of its own, and defeat, a matter of life and death.Set against the U.S War on Drugs, international threats, and government clampdowns, this is a gripping exploration of Colombian club football under Escobar’s rise and fall.
My review
Here we have a football book, which is also a true crime book, one so outlandish and absurd that if it had been filmed as a piece of fiction it would have been derided for its lack of realism.
Central to the book is Pablo Escobar, a man who was more complex than I appreciated. We follow his life from his early days living in poverty, from being a fruit thief to becoming a car thief, into the world of narcotics and his ultimate demise in a shoot out whilst on the run.
He was self-styled as a man of the people and it seems that he was well liked among the poor, following Juvenal’s conceit of ‘bread and circuses’ only here he gave them football instead of the circus. Owning a football club was seen as a great way of laundering drug money and all the drug cartels got involved resulting in huge sums of dirty money being invested and a fierce rivalry developing. This worked for a while but in the end so much money was coming in that it was stashed, buried and hidden away. Treasure hunters will be looking for the missing cash for years to come. Escobar also built houses for the poor and during this period we have the paradoxical situation of doing good at home whilst poisoning people in USA with cocaine.
There is that famous story (almost certainly apocryphal) about a hotel worker seeing George Best in bed with a couple of blonds, surrounded by cash and champagne asking, “here did it all go wrong George”. Well, where did it all go wrong for Pablo? Simply an extradition treaty between Columbia and the US was signed. First Pablo tried politics but when that failed, he resorted to terrorism and any semblance of being a modern Robin Hood evaporated.
Amazingly at one point he agreed to a period of incarceration, but on his terms. He built his own ‘prison’ and provided his own security. This enabled him to smuggle in professional teams for football matches against the inmates who surprisingly (or not) usually won.
Football is a team game which now has become a squad game, with players rested, rotated and brought in when only in the best physical shape. Pablo Escobar had squad of great talents available to him thanks to his spectacular wealth from being the biggest drugs lord of his time. A great many footballers and criminals appear in Narcoball’s pages, so I decided to pick my fantasy XI to give a flavour of what to expect.
Goalkeeper: René Higuita ‘El loco’ (the crazy one)
Who can forget the outrageous ‘scorpion kick’ clearance he made in that friendly at Wembley. We will come to discover how an act of compassion puts him into a great deal of hot water.
Defence: Juan Escobar (son), Roberto Escobar (brother), Jóse Rodriguez Gacha ‘El Mexicano’ (the Mexican) and Andrés Escobar
Andrés Escobar was a classy centre half, a Rolls Royce of a defender destined for greatness but to whom tragedy would call.
Midfield: David Arrowsmith (our author who still plays), Pablo Escobar ‘El Patrón’ (the boss), Carlos Valerrama ‘El Pibe’ (the boy) and Diego Maradona (yes, the hand of God chappie)
Carlos Valderrama a player of silky skills and the most outrageous barnet in football. As for Diego Maradona (for some of us still the GOAT) a player who needs no introduction, who surely had to figure in a story involving drugs, money and organised crime in the 1980s.
Attack: Faustino Asprilla ‘El Pulpo’ (the octopus), Freddy Rincón
Tino Asprilla we of course remember for his days at Newcastle United under Kevin Keegan, bringing a bit of madcap glamour to the Premier League. That he isn’t the craziest person in the book says something. Freddy Rincón was a good forward who even appeared briefly for Real Madrid (I’ve included him to demonstrate that not everyone in the book is totally bonkers.)
The book follows a chronological order, which is sensible, and ties itself to historical footballing events as Pablo’s life story unfolds. So, nostalgia junkies can bask in stories ranging from Bobby Moore’s arrest before the 1970 World Cup to the 1994 World Cup in USA and its fateful aftermath.
Being a book about football, inevitably the events of some matches are described. I’m a match going fan and keen reader, but I find it difficult to visualise such passages, here they are used to add flavour. The reader doesn’t need to be a keen football watcher to enjoy this most outlandish of real-life stories.
The writing style is clear, concise and well balanced. Pablo Escobar clearly became a deranged and disturbing man, but he is portrayed with some nuance rather than being flat out judgemental. His crimes are not shied away from or glorified, and I am sure readers will see parallels with the Mafia killings of judges and magistrates. It is also important to examine his crimes against the chaotic politics and economics of South American states.
Narcoball is a warts-and-all testimony of the power and influence the drugs cartels and over Columbian football. It can be seen as prescient to the current issues of sports washing in current sport, a problem that will only increase with the vast inflows of wealth within modern professional sport.
Narcoball can be purchased via the publisher’s website here
The author
David Arrowsmith was the Director of Development at leading UK factual TV producer Zig Zag Productions. He has worked in television for over 20 years – developing
unscripted ideas and acting as Executive Producer on key projects for companies such as October Films, DSP, Channel 5, Granada Television, and the BBC . He is passionate about history, and just some of his key commissions include ‘1966: Who Stole the World Cup?’, ‘Britain’s Bloodiest Dynasty’, ‘8 Days That Made Rome’, and ‘Adolf & Eva: Love & War’. He was also involved in the development of the award-winning, Nobel Peace Prize-nominated documentary ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’.
David was born and raised in London but is proudly half-Colombian. In fact, he is the great-grandson of a former president and directly descended from four more. He has played football for over 35 years and has no plans to stop just yet.
Don’t forget to check out all the other great reviews on this blog tour:
Peter turns the page 
Thanks for the blog tour support x
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