EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT MORALITY AND THE OBLIGATIONS OF MEN, I OWE IT TO FOOTBALL.

As lovers of words, the IQ squad thought it only fitting to include in their very first ‘starting eleven’ a football-themed quote from one of the greatest literary minds of the 20th century: Albert Camus – philosopher, author, journalist and absurdist extraordinaire. 

Writing for The Telegraph in January 2010, which marked 50 years since Camus’ premature death in a car accident aged just 47, Jim White distilled the essence of the man and his lifelong love affair with football quite beautifully:

‘…As is often the way with those plucked prematurely from their thinking posts, it was a violent death that sealed his mystique. In the five decades since, he has come to be recognised as many things: roué, novelist, drinker, resistance hero, one-time friend but later sworn enemy of Jean-Paul Sartre. More to the point, he is now recognised as a man who understood the true profundity of football…’

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