The Department of Slavonic Studies will be hosting a talk by George Scanlan on Thursday, 23 October at 17.30 in the Gordon Cameron Theatre of Fitzwilliam College. Mr Scanlan matriculated at Christ’s College, Cambridge, in 1954, where he studied Russian, French, Arabic and Persian. He obtained a Soccer Blue in his first term and went on to captain the side at Wembley in 1957.

Throughout his career he combined his passions for Russian and football. In this talk he will discuss his experiences as attaché/interpreter for the national  teams of England, Wales and Scotland, as well as for Liverpool, Aston Villa, West Ham, Manchester United, Arsenal, Cardiff City and many others, as well as for the Soviet teams (Dinamo Moscow, Tbilisi, Kiev), Spartak, Torpedo, Donetsk and the Soviet World Cup team of 1966.   He was the trainer at Marine during the 60s, but also a Head of Russian at Liverpool Polytechnic, then Head of Languages, and finally Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Studies. He subsequently worked as a translator for both Eric Cantona and  Andrei Kanchelskis and with Sir Bobby Robson's England team during the 1990 World Cup. His publications include many Russian language textbooks and the co-authored biographies Cantona: My Life (1994) and (1995).

Mr Scanlan is eager to share his experiences and his tips for high-level sports interpreting with current MML students.  This event is intended as an informal and entertaining presentation that should be of interest to all aspiring interpreters, football fans and students of Cold War culture.

The talk is free and open to the public.  Questions may be addressed to the Department of Slavonic Studies:  slavon@hermes.cam.ac.uk