Joanne Rosenthal fits the cynical profile of the Manchester United fan. She lives in London — although she was raised in Salford — and rarely attends games. But she is a pivotal player in the upcoming Jewish Museum, Camden, exhibition showcasing the Jewish contribution to football, on and off the pitch, and the influence the beautiful game has exerted on Jewish life in this country.
As the curator of the JC-sponsored Four Four Jew, Rosenthal has sourced a treasure trove of material from footballing personalities past and present. There’s the teenage diary of ex-Arsenal and Football Association luminary David Dein: “He meticulously documents the important things in his life, loving football and seeing his team, but also going to JLB or Maccabi.” After the 1958 Munich air crash — in which Manchester United players, supporters and journalists died — Dein switches to red ink for the related diary entries, evidence of the impact of the disaster on the then teenager.
Former Spurs boss David Pleat “came in with a suitcase full of stuff covering his whole career. There’s England youth and schoolboy caps, his Maccabiah medal, photos from his playing days.”
Featured players date as far back as Louis Bookman, an English league star in the early 1900s who represented pre-partition Ireland. Among the exhibition items is a medal Bookman won as a member of Dublin’s Adelaide Road shul team. Then there is Harry Morris, Swindon Town’s record goalscorer, who was banging them in regularly in the 1920s and 30s, and Mark Lazarus, the tricky winger who scored the winner for QPR against West Brom in the 1967 League Cup final, the first played at Wembley. Football journalists are also represented, as is the more recent phenomenon of agents — one of Rosenthal’s favourite items is some informal snaps of Mel Stein with poignantly boyish client Paul Gascoigne at his signing for Lazio.
