Cult Heroes and Club Icons: The Legend of Luther Blissett

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Few names in European football have the same nuance and distinction as Luther Blissett.

In the annals of English football, there is but one Luther Blissett, though at any time, there are Luther Blissetts around the world, checking into hotels under the name and using the label as a pseudonym for subcultural workings and underground philosophies.

By all accounts, Blissett is the first and last English footballer to become a cult hero among Italian anarchists.

The Real Luther Blissett

Luther Blissett is Watford’s all-time leader in appearances (415, including 46 as a sub.) and goals (148).

Between 1978 and 1992, during three different spells with the Hornets, Blissett led the team in league goals six times, not the least of which was a 33-goal performance in all competitions in 1982-83, the club’s first season in the English top flight.

Debuting for Watford in 1975-76 after a year as an apprentice, the Hornets were languishing in England’s fourth tier. Blissett’s introduction to the club was a progression in piece meal and persistence for a side on the northern margin of London in the shadow of the capital’s colossus clubs.

Three appearances for the senior side that year were followed by four the year after, and Blissett was forced to await Graham Taylor’s appointment ahead of the 1977-78 campaign for his chance.

Like Blissett’s ascent, Watford’s rise to first-tier football was aligned with Taylor’s hiring.

Then 32, Taylor turned down an offer from first division West Bromwich Albion and a chance to manage the likes of Laurie Cunningham, Bryan Robson, and Cyrille Regis. Instead, he opted for the fourth-tier Hertfordshire side with the new chairman from down the road in Pinner, Sir Elton John.

"I had been a lifelong Watford fan and Graham truly made whatever dreams I had for my team come true," John said in 2009, according to The Telegraph.

In Taylor‘s first season with the Hornets, 1977-78, Blissett appeared in 33 matches. He scored six times during Waford’s first-place finish that year, as both club and player kicked off a harmonious meteoric rise.

Promotion up one rung of the English football ladder was followed by another, and, after three seemingly stagnant seasons in Division 2, Watford was promoted to the top flight for the 1982-83 campaign.

The Hornets flew out the gates, winning four of their first five Division 1 fixtures, and in the space of seven years, Watford had gone from the basement of the fourth division to the summit of the top flight.

Blissett led Division 1 and Europe with 33 goals, and Watford finished second behind Liverpool - its highest-ever finish in association football - and earned a berth into European competition for the first time in club history.

A Year in Milan

On the heels of his breakthrough 33-goal performance in 1982-83, Italian behemoths AC Milan satiated its need for an out-and-out striker, paying £1 million for Blissett in June.

His one-year spell with the I Rossoneri would be the first riddle in the cryptic and perplexing tale of Luther Blissett, and while his five goals in 30 appearances may not be remarkable, what followed most certainly is.

Though neither player nor club would admit to it, there is speculation that Milan bought Blissett by accident.

Whether Milan thought it was duped into buying a goal-scorer who could not score in Italy, or it erroneously bought Blissett instead of Watford teammate John Barnes, the striker’s one year was a curious bout.

"There are two main reasons for which I think it's not true," Italian football journo Gab Marcotti told the Guardian.

"First, even the most ignorant and provincial person could see that Blissett and Barnes looked absolutely nothing alike. Second, the fact is that at that time Milan were looking for an out-and-out goal-scorer and Barnes just wasn't that type of player."

Blissett, then 26, was sold back to Watford for £550,000, where he scored 21 times the following season.

The Luther Blissett Project

While Blissett’s stint with AC Milan didn’t leave a lasting impression on the Italian people, his name would.

Shortly after his time at the San Siro, Blissett’s name became an anonymity pseudonym in Italy; first in Bologna, a two-and-a-half-hour drive southeast of Milan, before spreading across Europe.

While parallels between Watford’s all-time leading goal-scorer and the ideals of French Marxist theorist Guy Debord may be scant, the forward’s name was adopted by a group of Italian activists in 1994, who called themselves the Luther Blissett Project (LBP).

The LBP’s aim was to make a folk hero of the information society, using cultural activists concealed by a nom de plume to stage urban pranks and protests.

"This strange group has decided to use my name for their collective identity," Blissett told the BBC in 1999.

"They keep doing all sorts of things and I keep getting the credit or the blame for it."

Roberto Bui, a founding member of the LBP and its later incarnation, Wu Ming, explained the basis for the mid-90’s Italian collective.

"Mythopoesis is the social process of constructing myths, by which we do not mean 'false stories,' we mean stories that are told and shared, re-told and manipulated, by a vast and multifarious community, stories that may give shape to some kind of ritual, some sense of continuity between what we do and what other people did in the past."

While a direct correlation between the LBP and its namesake was never formally revealed, Blissett offers a salient premise for the group’s title.

"When I played for Milan I was one of the few black players in the league," he said, "so I think they must have chosen me for that reason."

Whether it was that or because the confusion surrounding he and Barnes made him a Red Herring, LBP fancied Blissett as the pseudonym suitable for its cause.

Before its self-imposed and symbolic ending in 1999, the LBP was responsible for more than a dozen hoaxes and displays, making both the group and the footballer mythic figures in a realm of Italian culture.

As a final contribution to the project, four members of the LBP - Bui, Giovanni Cattabriga, Federico Guglielmi, and Luca Di Meo - wrote the novel "Q."

Set in 16th century Europe, "Q" follows a radical participating in uprisings across Europe during the Protestant Reformation and the subsequent schism from the Roman Catholic Church. It has sold hundreds of thousands of copies across Europe and has been translated into dozens of languages.

The Influence of Luther Blissett

Blissett’s mark on the game is not limited to his career in England’s professional ranks.

Though born in the same Jamaican coastal town as fellow speedsters Ben Johnson and Usain Bolt, Blissett played for England. After four appearances for an under-21 side littered with stars, Blissett won his first senior cap for the Three Lions in 1982.

Not only was he one of the first black players to wear the England strip, he was the first black player to score a hat trick on his debut during a 9-0 drubbing of minnows Luxembourg.

Consistent with the mystique of Blissett's career and name, he would never score another goal for England despite featuring another 13 times.

Far from the prestige of his generation's marquee peers, Blissett's signature extends beyond sport.

A club legend at Watford and a name synonymous with mythical social and artistic purposes, Luther Blissett’s legacy is one of football’s most peculiar stories.

Any concern that the former footballer disliked the associations made between he and the group of Italian artists was dispelled in 2004, during a television appearance on English TV.

During the appearance, a smiling Blissett reads an excerpt from the book "Q": "Chiunque può essere Luther Blissett, semplicemente adottando il nome Luther Blissett," he says, which translates to: "Anyone can be Luther Blissett simply by adopting the name Luther Blissett."