COMRADE JIM: The Spy Who Played for Spartak

by James Riordan

Like many working class children growing up in the war, the young Jim Riordan would fantasize his way out of his devastated surroundings with dreams of Wembley and FA Cup glory for his local team, Portsmouth FC. Spartak Moscow, the team he would end up playing for, wasn't even on his radar. Taught Russian and trained as a spy in the same institution that nurtured the likes of Alan Bennett and Michael Frayn, he was posted to Berlin as part of his National Service to listen in on Soviet military communiqués. But, unbeknownst to his seniors, he began mixing with Russian servicemen, mostly through informal kick-abouts, and the passion of these idealistic young men would cultivate his interest in Russian culture, and especially communism, until it blossomed into a full grown love affair. From the shambolic outfit that was the British Communist Party in the 1950s, to Cold War Moscow at its coldest, to his friendship with the Cambridge Five and meetings with Brezhnev and Gregarin, and his eventual debut in front of 50,000 Spartak fans at the Lenin stadium, here is the remarkable true story of the only Englishman to have played-and survived-Russian league soccer; told with grace, humor, and lashings of vodka.

Genres: Football, Biography, Nonfiction

223 pages, Hardcover

First published May 5, 2008

About the author

Riōdan, Jeimuzu 1936-2012
Riordan, Dž.
Riordan, Džejms.
Riordan, James
Riordan, James William 1936-2012
Riordan, Jim, 1936-2012

James Riordan (10 October 1936 – 10 February 2012) was an English novelist, broadcaster, sports historian, association football player and Russian scholar.

Well known for his work Sport in Soviet Society, the first academic look at sport in the Soviet Union, and for his children's novels.

Reviews

[Shatterlings · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a weird mish mash of a book, there’s a lot about communism both in Russia and England, some history of Spartak Moscow and Portsmouth football clubs, a small amount of spying that didn’t happen in Russia and had nothing to do with the football, and two football games for Spartak. It’s like an editor somewhere read this book and threw together the two smallest ingredients to sell it as a “spying footballer” But seeing as how I am reading about Russia at the moment it had interest for me and I liked Jim. If you aren’t reading Russian books and have no interest in Pompey, probably give it a miss.

[Kimberly · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title is misleading but it is an enjoyable book regardless. As a narrative of the author's early life and time spent in Russia it's a fun read.

[John M · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable and easy to read but its title is misleading. Jim Riordan wasn't a spy (unless of course he's not telling us that he was a spy because he was, actually, a spy) and only played two games for Spartak. However his writing is very engaging and evokes a good sense of place and time both in the UK and the former Soviet Union. Riordan appears to have been relatively isolated from Communism's real effects on real people having lived within a bit of a bubble while in Moscow; his contacts are mainly upper crust Brits and former spies and, in truth, he could have been in London or Oxford for all the sense he gives of what life was like for ordinary people. Riordan lived inside his head and seems to have been a dreamer - not untypical, I'd guess, of a lot of Westerners who saw Communism as the chance for a fairer, more equal, society. The book comes into its own when he gets onto the football and it is truly fascinating how he ended up playing for Spartak. However the best is saved to last when he relates the story of a family of brothers who were rounded up and sent to Siberia and other isolated parts of the USSR for having the audacity to play for Spartak and beat Beria's, the chief of the Secret Police, team.

[Dorota · Rating 3 out of 5]

A misleading title - the protagonist played 2 games with Spartak and has never really been a spy. Some interesting anecdotes about SU in 60s as seen by a Brit..

[Dеnnis]

I was electrified when i just noticed this book and immediately scooped it.

The story seemed so interesting that I couldn't sit still until i passed the book to my English teacher, who was in football business those days (never a pro himself but was through youth squads of 50-s/60-s and therefore retained many connections with the guys who actually made it into the first teams of Moscow based Soviet Premiership clubs). Of course he was an avid football fan and a staunch supporter of precisely Spartak Moscow.

His immediate reaction after reading this opus was one of the bewilderment. He never encountered any Riordan or Jordanov playing in starting XI or coming in as a sub. Moreover factual errors were of extraordinary brazen character. The man confused the venue at which the game took place: Tashkent (now in Uzbekistan) for Moscow which are 1 700 miles apart (according to Google Earth), let alone climatic and geographical differences which are still evident even to a blind man.

This and other glaring inconsistencies forced him to give a call to pro players, then active, and ask for clarifications. No one could remember such player. And to conceal such a player would be harder than to hide the proverbial needle in a haystack. Just so you know: there were few players of foreign origin (f.e. Spaniards - kids of Spanish Reds - evacuated in the wake of the Spanish Civil War to USSR) in Soviet Championship those years. And everyone remembers their presence nowadays albeit not always their names.

And no one even remembers a Briton, if you don't trust official statistics. Sorry. Nothing personal. But please don't sell a fiction for a real story.

If he was a real player it would be trumpeted all over as triumph of Communist sport's attractiveness over "sweat-extracting" professional sport of "rotting West".

[Joel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting book, but it's not really about a "spy who played for Spartak." He played two games ever for Spartak and his spying was limited to listening to and translating Russian radio transmissions during his national service.

That being said, his life was an interesting one in that he rubbed shoulders with the Soviet elite during his time in Russia. He had interactions with Yuri Gagarin, Aram Khachaturian, Yev Lashin and many others. Interesting read from an Englishman living in Moscow during the 1960s.

[Iain McNab]

An interesting life, but the book is sloppily written/edited e.g. someone born in 1930 who died in 1990 can't have died at age 61. The author writes kids' books and maybe it shows in the fairly superficial and nt sufficiently reflective way he writes about living in Moscow in the early 1960s . Overdoes the wide-eyed 'How did a Portsmouth oik like me get to rub shoulders with Khatchachurian and Krushchev?' routine too. Some good anecdotes about Burgess, Maclean etc though.

[Jack Barraclough · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is not what I was expecting. I was expecting a book about someone who played for Spartak with a little social commentry on Russia interwoven and in fact the book is just the opposite. The author rambles and jumps around, so the story is hard to follow.

If you have a particular interest in life in Russia in the post WW2 era, this book might be of interest. Otherwise I would avoid it!

[Nick Arnold · Rating 3 out of 5]

I actually thought the footballing parts of ths book the least interesting. Observations about life in 1960's USSR and how some Russians are trying to forget the past were more intreging to me

[Joe · Rating 1 out of 5]

The man played twice for Spartak Moscow. Book is all about communism. However, I did find some snippets interesting when riordan writes about some atrocities committed by the Russian government.