Long Live Betis, Even When They Lose: Seville and Literature, with Adam Winkel

Here’s a city that can’t agree on a football club. Seville has two, and they’ve been at odds since a falling-out among directors in 1907 gave birth to Betis. Everyone repeats that Sevilla is the posh side and Betis the working-class one, but Adam Winkel suspects the clubs just like the story. Adam, a Spanish professor from North Carolina, found Betis the way outsiders usually find a team: through people. He spent a junior year abroad in the mid-90s, had friends from the province who followed Betis, and learned that knowing the weekend’s results gave him something to talk about. Almost thirty years later he plans his weekends around the club and watches matches with friends in a small Andalusian town over WhatsApp. This conversation covers a stadium rebuilt while the team plays elsewhere, a club that has fallen to the third division and still won the league, and a Champions League run that the whole country seems to enjoy. Betis supporters turn up in every away end in Spain because the migration of the 50s and 60s carried them to every industrial town. Adam, a former president of the Sport Literature Association, also asks a question I hadn’t considered. How does a novelist capture a match when the replay always does it better? HELPFUL LINKS: Adam Winkel The Guardian on Rayo Vallecano's current crisis Copa90 documentary about Seville and Betis (YouTube) Collin Millar, The Frying Pan of Spain The Assistant Professor of Football Rayo Vallecano episode NEW: send me a text message! (I'd love to hear your thoughts - texts get to me anonymously, without charge or signup) Please leave a quick voicemail with any feedback, corrections, suggestions - or just greetings - HERE . Or comment via Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook. If you enjoy this podcast and think that what I do fills a gap in soccer coverage that others would be interested in as well, please Recommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help. Leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me. Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige Lind Instrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/