FOOTBALL LEGEND JOHAN CRUYFF - CRAIG JOHNSTON - WORLD SOCCER 6IX's and ME!

FOOTBALL LEGEND JOHAN CRUYFF - CRAIG JOHNSTON - WORLD SOCCER 6IX's and ME!

I was born a few minutes away from the Crystal Palace Football Club home of Selhurst Park in South London (Mayday Hospital) and went to many of the games when young (I still support them) - however, I can't honestly say that football wasn't of great interest to me - music was my life and dominated all my spare time and eventually my whole working life - having said that, I have always enjoyed sport and watching good games.

When I received a call from my very good friend Graham Axford - "would you like to get involved with a World Soccer 6ix's a six-a-side tournament conceived by football star Johan Cruyff and being put together by Graham and former Liverpool star Craig Johnston" - Would I? YES......

Not being a football fanatic, I had of course, heard of Johan Cruyff, but didn't know much about him, other than he was from the Netherlands and was very highly rated. Later when I started to look into this project, I realised that Johan was a true superstar of the game and one of the greatest players ever. When I met him and got to know him well - he was not only a footballing genius, but a really great guy and very funny. Here is the story of Johan Cruyff, Craig Johnston and World Soccer 6ix's and ME.... read on please

Johan had come up with the concept of training his teams (Barcelona, Ajax...) on the grass pitches with six-a-side teams and moving the goal posts to the penalty lines - he believed that this would develop the player's skills and judging by his success,  this certainly worked well.

Liverpool legend, Craig Johnston had met with Johan and had come up with a six-a-side tournament concept that would feature 4 leading European teams with all their star players - The initial tournament would take place over two days and feature four games a night - the games would be approximately 30 minutes long with two halves of 15 minutes each. This concept chopped and changed a bit, because there was an idea of having 7.5 minute quarters to allow for the American television programming (with advertising), but it eventually went back to the 30 minute per game.

I don't remember how Craig Johnston met with Graham Axford, but they reached an agreement to create a company and build the brand WORLD SOCCER 6ix's - the trade mark was 6ix's instead of using the more traditional six-a-side name. Graham had been (and as far as I know still is) a leading player in the banking and finance world - he had a great passion for football and together with Craig, they approached Johan about the company and developing the brand. Graham Axford had been working with me on the entertainment and music business and was a very dear friend - would I be interested in producing the tournaments? You bet - Yes I WOULD!!!

The company was formed and the core team was John Cruyff - Craig Johnston - Jaap de Groote (the sports writer and editor of De Telegraaf in Holland and great personal friend of Johan), Graham Axford (and his business partner at that time Sandra) + Steve working on sponsorship and a great team from Holland put together by Jaap.

Liverpool Football Club legend Craig Johnston

Jaap de Groot (Former Sports Editor and Journalist for De Telegraaf in Holland - great personal friend, adviser and biographer to Johan Cruyff)

The inaugural two day tournament was planned at the AMSTERDAM ARENA for the 27 and 28th January 1997

Each evening19.30 to 23.30 - four games plus three top artists in concert between the games We titled it the 'SOCCERTAINMENT EXTRAVAGANZA' - EXCITING FOOTBALL FEATURING 4 OF THE TOP EUROPEAN TEAMS AND LIVE MUSIC - all the top stars featured in the teams

We negotiated with the Amsterdam Arena, with me shuttling back and forth from London to Amsterdam and Craig and Graham with the four teams that were contracted:

AJAX FC (Holland)
LIVERPOOL FC (England)
A.C.MILAN (italy)
GLASGOW RANGERS (Scotland)

With plans for future tournaments with BAYERN MUNICH, REAL MADRID, BARCELONA, PARIS ST GERMAN, BENFICA FC, MANCHESTER UNITED, ARSENAL, SPURS  and other leading clubs - creating a European Super 6ix's brand of tournaments.

I should point out that Graham and Craig had negotiated sponsorship and television agreements with SONY ENTERTAINMENT and  I remember sitting in the lawyers offices of Denton Hall in London for a few days with Graham Axford helping to negotiate these agreements.

I got to know Johan very well - he was always delightful, full of fun and great company as was Jaap de Groot (we called him Jaap de LOOT) - Jaap is still a dear friend and remained very close to Johan up until Johan so tragically and sadly passed away. These were amazing times - I had never previously been involved with football and here I was deep into the soccer scene dealing with Johan, Craig and all these marvellous clubs. Of course, I had produced hundreds of concerts and music events but never football tournaments - so I was being thrown into the deep end - and it was damned cold!

Amsterdam in January that year was freezing - I remember spending days at the Amsterdam Arena (home of AJAX FC) on the pitch with Craig, Johan, Jaap and the Ajax management thinking I would get frost bite!!

The tournament dates came closer and the talks and negotiations with SONY ENTERTAINMENT and SONY in Holland (as the tournament sponsor) continued - Steve was finalising sponsorship agreements and the teams were contracted.

Massive JUMBOTRON SCREENS were to be used so that the fans could see everything wherever they were in the Stadium - Hi-Tech studio sets were to be constructed and unique TV camera angles planned - use of boom arms, referee cams, wiz cams, sky cams, etc were to be used - all of this is commonly used today but back in 1997 this was hot stuff. Jaap and I negotiated with the host broadcaster NOS, Sky (UK), and Tele+ (Italy) with a minimum 2 hours coverage each evening. In addition we negotiated package coverages by DSF/RTL in Germany, Canal + (France), Canal+/RTVE (Spain), TV4 (Sweden), Fox Sport (USA), Bandeirantes (Brazil), Canal 13 (Argentina), NTV (Japan) and many others,

EURO SUPER CLUB 6ix's - Very exciting - to be played on real grass (a lot of the 5 a-side games were traditionally played indoors on Astra Turf or some similar flooring - but it was very dangerous to the players because they could easily twist their ankles on this material - which is why the grass issue was so important to the players and clubs involved), - the tournament would feature Europe's biggest names - guaranteeing more goals, more saves, more skills - more action than with traditional football - rotating substitutes - sin bins - intervals between the 30 minute halves - great pop stars on stage LIVE between the games - the message was pounding across the air waves.

The time arrived to produce the tournament - we all camped at the Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam shuttling back and forth to the Stadium  - with my Producers hat on - it was morning to night meetings with technical teams, football management people, sponsors, staging, sound, lighting for the music element (full concert staging), television executives - trying to keep Craig Johnston in line (which I can tell you wasn't easy - bless him) - in amongst all of this Johan Cruyff was so great - calm and funny and inspiring to all of us. Jaap de Groot was wonderful and Jaap and I held the team together assisted by Ian Baldeosingh (another member of the team who has remained a good friend all these years, who brilliantly edited al the promotional video material and the post tournament film). I should also mention two great girls who helped us Jackie and Idi - both who went on to form their own very successful businesses.

As I mentioned earlier, one of the innovative ideas was to present music stars on stage between the games. Maybe, this had been achieved before, but I was not aware of it and we worked hard to build the staging at one end of the ground - with all the concert lighting, video screen and sound systems that were able to cope with the massive Amsterdam Arena and the thousands of fans that would attend.

We reached an agreement with SONY MUSIC to provide two wonderful artists YOUSSOU N'DOR from Senegal and the Italian star MASSIMO DI CATALDO - they had just had a very big hit together with Anime (you can see them on Youtube on massimo di cataldo anime) to sing live at this tournament - they were superb and made an incredible impression on the tens of thousands of fans attending the matches.

 Youssou n'Dor

Massimo di Cataldo

We also featured on the music stage between the first games three girls from Holland who were big stars in that country LINDA, ROOS and JESSICA and they were a huge hit - the fans loved them.

To add to the entertainment we had brought the Liverpool mascot, singer Gerry Marsden - who was to sing "You'll Never Walk Alone", which was the Liverpool Football Club song, but rather amazingly also AJAX's song - it was very emotional when stepped out onto the pitch and started singing this iconic number - it was a defining moment - I can remember seeing Johan and a host of VIP's from the football world and also with other sporting legends singing along with Gerry - a great moment.

Gerry Marsden

The great day arrived and the Tournament got under way - the weather was still freezing and I was worried anyone would turn up - I don't remember the exact numbers who brought tickets but it was around 40,000 each night!

I remember the clubs arriving the day before and welcoming them - I think both Liverpool and Glasgow Rangers were surprised to find an Englishman welcoming them although Jaap looks more Apache Indian than from Holland (he actually has Apache blood as well as Dutch) - Craig Johnston was everywhere like a whirlwind except (I'm laughing when I write this) when you needed him - Jaap and I did our best to steer Craig in the right direction - but his energy and enthusiasm was irrepressible and there wouldn't have been a tournament without him - Craig was the same as he was on the Liverpool pitch - everywhere and kicking hard for goal.

The games were exciting - fast and furious - the publicity was correct - there were more goals and there were more saves - the fans saw a feast of fascinating football - featuring the big stars and four great teams. A.C.Milan won the tournament and I can clearly see Johan Cruyff presenting the award to the winning team.

Johan was such a  wonderful person - I was fortunate to go with Jaap to his home in Barcelona and indeed go with him to the Barcelona ground. One small episode that will also remain in my memory, was when Johan played football every Sunday with other retired professional players - he was still breathtakingly fast and a joy to watch. Johan is sadly missed - RIP Johan - we all loved you and miss you very much. I also loved Craig - he was a whirlwind - a wonderful character who could drive you insane, but his heart was of gold and without his energy and passion there wouldn't have been any Soccer 6ix's.

For legal reasons that I won't go into now, the 6ix's tournaments never progressed - we had all the top clubs with us - it would have developed into a massive brand - but with two mega corporations going at one another over rights - no further tournaments were produced - what a waste - However, I will never ever forget the time I was deeply honoured to work with JOHAN CRUYFF, CRAIG JOHNSTON, JAAP DE GROOT and four great teams AJAX, GLASGOW RANGERS, AC MILAN and LIVERPOOL.

Thank you for reading
Peter