Return of the Masters: FourFourTwo goes to the cult competition

Tranmere Rovers, English champions at long last. For those fans present at Liverpool’s Echo Arena to witness that historic day in September 2009, the memory will last forever.

A 4-3 win secured in dramatic fashion as the clock ran down. John Achterberg, Ian Muir, Stuart Barlow & Co raising the trophy aloft. No, this wasn’t a cheese dream, it was Masters Football.

Back then, the competition was still the talk of the summer. The six-a-side matches were played indoors and only eight minutes per half. Over-35s, legends of the British game and beyond, took part in regional tournaments across the country, followed by a showpiece finale that was attended by thousands and watched by many more at home. What more could punters want?

The year Tranmere ran out unlikely winners was the 10th successive time Sky Sports had covered the tournament. Just 24 months later, though, it was no more. According to Steve Black, the CEO of Masters Global Limited, whispers of dwindling viewership and slowing ticket sales that surfaced after the Masters vanished were completely unfounded.

“Journalists would write, ‘Oh, people lost interest,’ but that wasn’t the truth,” Black says now. “The last time we went into Sky, our ratings had doubled from the previous two or three years. Sky took us off for financial reasons. They said, ‘We like Masters Football, but we don’t want to pay for it anymore.’ Obviously that didn’t work for us.” That was that. The Masters rapidly became nostalgia, the fondness growing with every year.

But, at long last, it’s back. Not quite the all-singing, all-dancing phenomenon it once was, for now anyway, but it’s early days. In mid-November, the Scottish Masters will take place in Aberdeen. It’s the fourth iteration north of the border since the relaunch, while September saw the Manchester Masters return for the first time, with City claiming the spoils.

Black remains the guiding light for Masters Football. It was his brainchild in the late 1990s, first inspired by his involvement in Amsterdam’s Euro Sixes in 1997. He worked for Nike back then and the Euro Sixes was held to mark the opening of Ajax’s Amsterdam Arena, with a raucous crowd of 21,000 inside to watch Liverpool, Rangers, Milan and the hosts compete. Instead of veterans, those line-ups mostly contained active first-team players – among those in action were Paul Gascoigne, Michael Owen and Patrick Kluivert.

“The PFA said, ‘We've waited 10 years for the Masters to come to us’”

“I was already of the opinion that arenas needed to offer a wider variety of content to audiences,” Black recalls. “With my background, football was the obvious route. We approached the Professional Footballers’ Association with a plan for legends tournaments and they said, ‘We’ve waited 10 years for someone like you to come to us’.”

The first event was an untelevised pilot in Manchester in 1999. Sky soon came banging on the door and, in 2000, a flourishing partnership was born. The first televised year ended in Nottingham Forest lifting the title in their own city, defeating Rangers in the final despite the efforts of top scorer Ally McCoist.

Liverpool won the second year, before defending their crown in 2002. Chelsea, Leicester, Manchester City, Birmingham, Wolves and, of course, Tranmere were also among the victorious veterans before it was mysteriously cancelled in 2011, bringing down the curtain on a competition that gave fans a second chance to watch heroes such as Benito Carbone, Peter Beardsley, Paul Merson and others strut their stuff again.

After Masters Football disappeared, Black’s company spent a decade running legends tours in Asia. These typically lasted a few weeks, incorporating both community and corporate activities – and always culminating in an 11-a-side match. Destinations included Australia, Hong Kong, China and Singapore.

Black found the local demand was usually for Manchester United and Liverpool legends, although Arsenal also toured. Former Gunner Nwankwo Kanu later approached Black requesting a custom fixture to raise money for the Kanu Heart Foundation. That game was held at Barnet in 2018 and raised enough for a dozen children’s heart operations. Black’s pride in how Masters Football was able to give back is still clear.

Yet despite its power to bring people together for a good cause, Masters Football remained absent from wider public consciousness. Black received scores of emails every month begging for its return, but ultimately it wasn’t until lockdown in 2020, with people stuck in their homes and professional football on hiatus, that the comeback wheels actually began turning.

First, Sky put out a montage of historic footage to satisfy fans’ cravings. “Within days, those videos got 1.5 million hits,” Black says. Amazon Prime made several seasons available for streaming before Celtic, Rangers, Manchester United and Liverpool contested a new tournament near Glasgow in 2022. The latter won, led by top scorer Luis Garcia.

“What’s nice is that all the ex-pros now playing in the modern era grew up watching Masters Football,” Black says. His statement is backed up by Nedum Onuoha, part of September’s champion City squad, who says the tournament was talked about in professional dressing rooms in the ’00s. “It was the thing to watch and boy did I watch it,” he says. Onuoha, who retired aged 34 in 2020, was recruited by pal Joleon Lescott to take part in the revived event. “I’m lucky as my kids are seven, eight and 11 now,” he says, smiling. “They saw me play but didn’t really see me play. Suddenly they’re in an arena, sat there with their mum and grandparents, watching me. There was a proper family element. It was like a throwback to what went on in the 16 years of my career.”

Onuoha was buzzing to be back in front of a crowd against old rivals. “In exhibition games people are usually there to watch and have fun,” he adds. “But in this, when you walk out, there are boos and people go crazy at goals. It’s a sense of shared identity and the closest thing to being a player now. They’re there to watch, not because you are you, but because you’re playing in the tournament for the club they love.”

Onuoha’s warm and fuzzy feelings for Masters Football are widely held among its current players, with Black giving the example of a last-minute dropout by a former Liverpool forward. “Everyone said, ‘Are you sure? He won’t turn up’, and true to form he cancelled.” Within minutes Black had Rickie Lambert saying how much he’d love to play.

Onuoha’s City side lost their first game in September. “We basically had to lock in,” he recalls. “One thing is for sure: you don’t want to be embarrassed. People say, ‘Oh, it’s just old boys playing’, but Everton finished fourth and there was a real tension among them afterwards. It gets those competitive juices flowing.”

Masters Football has the public eager for more. BBC Scotland will televise the November event, while the Manchester edition was available on the BBC. A new generation of fans is being born – add them to the children of the ’00s.