The Half Man Half Biscuit Lyrics Project

Letters Sent (3)

1. peter mcornithologist

   Star of the 1978 World Cup. Less famously he was manager of Albanian giants Lushnja. Signed a 2 year contract but scarpered back to Argentina after 6 weeks. Owner arrested owing to financial skulduggery, with Kempes being one of the few involved not losing his life savings.

   28 July 2015

2. Bobby SVARC

   I Hated Kempes and the other twisting gits, the Dutch were totally shafted.

   28 July 2015

3. EXXO

   Mario Kempes never scored another goal for Argentina after the one pictured above in the 1978 ticker tape final. Four years later in Spain ’82 he limped off at half time against that great Brazil side, and that was his international career over.

   It wasn’t necessarily Mario’s final international performance which made such a strong impression on one Brazilian father that just a few weeks later he gave his newly born son the name ‘Kempes.’ Perhaps it was the deadly number 9’s whole twisting, swerving, balletic career and his super-soft left foot.

   The Brazilian namesake grew to be a decent player himself, left-footed of course. But like the Argentine legend, he also scored a fair few with his right and plenty with his head. In a professional career of just over a decade, Everton Kempes dos Santos Gonçalves, known simply as ‘Kempes’ because ‘Everton’ is such a strangely common first name in Brazil, played for a dozen clubs in his homeland and two in Japan. Early this year he joined his latest club, Chapecoense, for whom he became joint leading league goalscorer this season and with whom he recently headed off to play in his first major cup final. With the number 9 shirt taken, the 33 year-old striker chose to wear shirt number 33, even when he passed his 34th birthday a few months ago. He never made his 35th. Like all his ill-fated team-mates he will be remembered young and smiling, celebrating goals and victories, forever.

   #ForçaChape

   8 December 2016