The son of football writer Brian Glanville has accused Gary Lineker of providing fuel for people holding antisemitic views after confirming he has barred the former Match of the Day presenter from delivering a tribute at his father’s memorial service.
In an emotional interview, Mark Glanville, 66, who sang kaddish at his father’s funeral last week, shed new light on his dad’s passionate support for the state of Israel, and an often complicated relationship with his faith.
Glanville – once described by The Times as “the doyen of football writers, arguably the finest football writer of his, or any other generation” – died last month, aged 93, following a lengthy battle against Parkinson’s Disease.
The funeral, in west London, was a private affair for family and only the closest of friends.
But overwhelmed with tributes to the journalist, who worked for the Sunday Times for 30 years, and also wrote over 20 novels, the family has now begun preparations for a memorial service to allow all those who came to know and love Brian to pay their respects.
Speaking to Jewish News, Mark, a classically trained opera singer and writer, revealed that his sister had raised the prospect of Lineker delivering one of the speeches at the memorial.
Like most football fans, their father had recognised Lineker as a class act on the pitch and as a presenter offering his unique insight into the game.
Lineker had also recognised how Glanville was a master at his profession as he wrote about the game.
But Mark revealed he has now barred Lineker, 64, from paying tribute to his father at the memorial in response to the presenter’s frequent social media posts in relation to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
Screen grab taken from BBC One of Gary Lineker reacting to a tribute motage shown during his final Match of the Day. Picture: BBC News
Lineker was forced to leave his Match Of The Day role early after sharing an anti-Zionism post that had an illustration of a rat, which is how the Nazis characterised Jews.
Mark, who sang as cantor at Westminster Synagogue for over two decades, said: “I can’t have somebody coming to speak at my Dad’s memorial service who, though not antisemitic, is someone who is giving ammunition to people who are antisemites.
“Once you share a picture of a rat which is associated with Nazis, you are crossing a line.”
He added: “I do not think Lineker is an antisemite. But he does single out almost exclusively Israel, as so many people do, with the type of criticism that gives no context of what happened on October 7 and what has triggered it all.
“As he is such a major public figure, he is lending a lot of fuel to people who have a very different agenda and who don’t just hate Israel, but also detest Jews.
“I believe Lineker really cares about issues but I wish he would talk about what is going on in Syria, in Sudan and with women in Afghanistan.”
Mark suggested Lineker’s sharing of a social media post that attacked Zionism by using the image of a rat, had inexplicably “tied the anti-Zionist agenda directly into Nazi antisemitism. ”
Brian Glanville at sports awards ceremony in 2013
He said Lineker had “majorly crossed the line ” when he shared the “rat” post.
“I do believe Lineker really cares about issues, but I wish he would talk about what is going on in Syria, in Sudan, with women in Afghanistan. I know the ‘whataboutery’ argument can also be shot down.
“But in this case, and for people like Dawn French who put out that disgusting video, they single out Israel for criticism in a way that they do with no other country.
“That raises suspicions of a kind of underlying antisemitism. I certainly don’t think that is the case with Lineker, although I do think this can be the case with other people.”
Explaining the decision to hold a memorial service possibly at St Brides journalists church in Fleet Street he added: “We felt that for a man of such stature, Dad deserved a proper memorial service and my sister suggested inviting Gary Lineker to speak, saying that he had really loved Dad’s work.
“But I said that while this was undoubtedly the case, loads of other people were admirers of Dad’s work as well. I then said there was no way Lineker was coming anywhere near it.
“She was very understanding as I explained that in my view Lineker was an exceptionally talented footballer and that is where it should have stayed.”
Jake Marlowe. Pic: Facebook
The 7 October Hamas massacre also impacted the Glanville family, Mark revealed.
His son Joshua, 28, had been best friends at school with Jake Marlowe, a 26-year-old dual British-Israeli citizen, who was murdered by Hamas terrorists at the Nova festival on 7 October.
“My son was absolutely devastated by what happened to Jake,” said Mark, who noted that Lineker, like “so many people” had failed at the time to strongly come out and condemn the appalling Hamas attacks.
Asked what his message would be to the presenter, following his father’s death, Mark said: “I would just like to see people like Gary Lineker try to understand what it felt like to be Jewish, and to be Israeli on October 7th.
“Have your view, as several friends of mine do on what Israel has done since. And I say, I understand how they feel the way that they do – I have always been a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause myself.
“But please try to find some balance. Even though I utterly deplore seeing innocent Palestinians being killed, please try to understand how that also felt to us.
“It wasn’t just ‘a bad thing that happened’, it was the most horrific attack.
“Please try to understand how Hamas carried out what appeared to many to be a mirror image of what happened during the Holocaust.
“I am willing to acknowledge the pain of the Palestinians, but please also acknowledge our pain.”
Mark, who in an expert in Yiddish music and whose 2003 memoir The Goldberg Variations was shortlisted for the Wingate Prize for Jewish Literature, also revealed how the horrors of growing up in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust had deeply affected his father.
Born in 1931 he said Glanville, a lifelong Arsenal fan, suffered antisemitic abuse as left his childhood home in Hendon, northwest London, to attend the fee-paying Charterhouse School.
“Dad and I talked about antisemitism a lot,” recalled Mark. “At Charterhouse there’s no doubt he suffered some nasty antisemitism there.
He added: “Dad was passionate about Israel. He was a schoolboy during the Second World War but he was aware of what happened.
“He saw Israel, after all the utter horror, like so many Jews, as a country that was Jewish and where Jews could thrive as Jews and be safe.
“In the aftermath of 7 October that is now a debatable point. But Israel has a very important place in Jewish psychology and its very existence gives a sense of peace and security to Jews like my father.”
Glanville felt such an attachment as a Zionist to the state of Israel, that in 1973, when the Yom Kippur war broke out he told his family he wanted to go there and fight to save the Jewish state.
“When it came to the 1973 war, my dad openly said he was going to go out and fight for Israel,” recalled Mark. “I remember this very well because my mother I think at one point was in tears.
“She feared he would be the first one to be killed.
“I had this image in my mind of Dad shuffling along next to a tank trying to keep up with the rest of them.
“A middle-aged Jewish journalist trying to hack it as a soldier in Israel.
“He genuinely meant it though.. When Israel was hit on Yom Kippur in the underhand way it was – he was determined to go and fight. He meant it.
“His heart was in that place.
“My dad, who I totally adore and admire now, was just this incredible influence on me, and a fantastic model for me to follow on so many levels.
“To have someone like Lineker coming to the memorial having demonised Israel like he has – you just cannot have that.”
Growing up Mark said his parents were not religiously Jewish in any way.
“Jewish jokes and Freud” were, he said, the only real family reference points at home. Dad wasn’t in any way religious but his Jewishness was incredibly important to him,” Mark added.
“Unfortunately, in many ways, it was defined by negativity, by brutal antisemitism at school.”
There was also an incident involving his father and another distinguished sports writer, Mark revealed.
“My dad was at dinner when this other writer, who was from quite an upper-middle class background, turned around to him and said ‘The trouble with you Jews’
“Dad just slapped him around the face. That’s one of the stories that has not come out about my dad.”
In other ways Glanville had a complicated relationship with Judaism, once refusing to wear a kippah as he attended synagogue for a family function. “Dad was a maverick,” said his son, “he could never be told what to do.”
There was also the controversy over Glanville’s 1958 novel The Bankrupts, which his son describes as a “very unremittingly negative take on north-west London Jewry of that time.”
It caused such strong reactions within the community that Glanville faced the charge of antisemitism from some, while others defended him over the book’s tone.
Glanville even won a libel case against the actor David Kossoff, who had accused him of writing an antisemitic handbook.
“I don’t think there is a single positive character in the book, no one has any redeeming features,” says Mark, of his father’s novel, which he says he is not a fan of himself.
But Mark understandably turns to the positive impact his father had on so many people’s lives, both within the football world and far further afield.
“He was an unbelievable figure and it has been incredibly moving to see the tributes that have been made to him since he died,” said Mark.
“I was always aware he made an impact, but to see the extent of that has been remarkable. I am very proud of my dad.”
