Naranjito: World Cup Final In Danger was published in 1982 by Ladybird Books and was written by Lynne Bradbury and illustrated by Graham Marlow.
I might not remember any of the football from World Cup 82, but I was absolutely obsessed with this book. The book is all drawn in felt-tip pens, which seemed to be the fashion at the time (Ladybird’s excellent Garden Gang books from around then were also drawn like this). I assume that was also why I scribbled all over the cover. I always desperately wanted to fit in.
The story is all about Naranjito - the greatest mascot in world cup history - and his friends saving the world cup from the evil Doctor Mantis and his robot assistants, who have been blowing up cities in an fit of misanthropic disgust.
Naranjito and the rest get captured by Mantis eventually, and he has them brought to the underground bunker in the middle of the desert where he lives, and Naranjito blows it up.
On their return to Spain, a rosy-cheeked Hitler greets them as the heroes they are.
The one bit of this that always haunted me was when Pedro, the muscle-bound lemon, gets stuck in some lift doors. With this, and the bit in Krull when the cyclops gets crushed to death by a stone doorway closing on him, I was frightened of lifts for most of my life, terrified that eventually the doors would close on me and never open again.
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