Who Ate all the Squid?

Football Adventures in South Korea

Devon Rowcliffe

• Publisher: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• eBook ISBN:
  9781785318047
• Year: 2020

When a struggling Korean football club wants to transform its fortunes, who does it turn to? A former Chelsea manager and a trio of players with Premier League experience, of course. Who Ate All the Squid?: Football Adventures in South Korea charts the year Ian Porterfield managed faltering K League giant Busan IPark. The Sunderland FA Cup legend lured three players from English football out to Korea: striker Jamie Cureton, an ex-England youth international who turned down Manchester United; Andy Cooke, a former Burnley and Stoke City forward who started his career building cowsheds; and Jon Olav Hjelde, who bolstered Nottingham Forest after achieving UEFA Champions League heroics with Rosenborg. How will the players cope with South Korea's unfamiliar culture and language? Can the Brits overcome personal demons, including car crashes, divorces and alcoholism? And does a British football revolution really stand a chance of succeeding in Northeast Asia? The book also casts a humorous glimpse at the world's game inside South Korea.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Busan I’cons Squad List
• Introduction – Chief Executive Chokeholds
• 1. Stadium Moats and Cracked Skulls
• 2. The Silly Bowing Dance (or, Don’t Forget to Shake Your Muffler)
• 3. Rocket Launchers and 12-Lane Motorways (or, You Can’t See Me!)
• 4. Sober Supporters and Player Punch-Ups
• 5. Supporters Have Kit, But Players Don’t
• 6. Alcohol – No; Stolen Military Flares – Yes
• 7. Sleep-Deprived and Without a Toilet
• 8. Could You Switch Off the Floodlights? The Air Force is Cross
• 9. Plagues of Locusts and Flashy Foreigners
• 10. Democracy Protesters Support the Military Team
• 11. Death By Electric Fan (or, Don’t Forget to Smear Red Bean Paste on Your Door)
• 12. Football? On a Saturday?!? Ridiculous!
• 13. Friday Naiveté (or, Build, Build, Build)
• 14. Colgó los Guayos (Hang Up the Football Boots)
• 15. We’ll Show Those Neo-Colonialist Bastards
• 16. The Confrontation (or, Even Manchester United Took Time to Build)
• 17. Cureton’s Debut (or, Busan’s Treble of Embarrassment)
• 18. The British Revolution
• 19. Squad Squabbles and Empty World Cup Stadiums
• 20. Airing Dirty Laundry in the Newspapers
• 21. Best Mates with Local Derby Rivals
• 22. Dog Injures Player (or, Pregnancies Aplenty)
• 23. Big Bugs and Bodyguards (or, Uninterested Club Owners)
• 24. Divorces and Drubbings
• 25. Greener Pastures and Manitoba Dreamin’
• 26. Food Poisoning and a 335kph Breeze
• 27. Baseball Riots, Vanishing Nepalese and Furious Chickens
• 28. Smashing Chairs and Perilous Buses
• 29. Football Hooligans and Picnicking Families
• 30. Match Fixing and Farewell Letters
• 31. Season of Sorrow
• Epilogue
• Sources
• Photos