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Stories
by Gerry Francis and Chris Slegg
Pitch Publishing, £16.99
Reviewed by Alan Fisher
From WSC 377, July/August 2018
Buy the book
In their third year in League One and having lost in the play-offs for the last two seasons, Leeds were desperate to claim promotion at The Valley against hosts already guaranteed a top-six finish. Barney Ronay reports
This was supposed to be a Leeds United promotion party. That was the idea, or at least the mathematical possibility, at the start of a balmy late-spring afternoon in the Kentish London suburbs south of the River Thames. By the end of a match that started at chest-jabbing, off-the-ball-bust-up speed and just sort of took things from there, it still felt like a Leeds United promotion party; that is, a painful, soul-searching, but still aggressively defiant type of party. A party attended, perhaps, solely by feisty, gin-swilling, leopard-print-clad divorcees continually on the verge of a Gloria Gaynor party piece.
Thursday 1 The Football League lose their court case against ITV Digital on the basis that the TV companies were not contractually bound to pay the full amount owed, £178.5 million of which is outstanding. The League may sue the legal advisers who drew up the contract with Carlton and Granada. Bradford City come out of administration after agreeing a repayment schedule with their creditors. Chairman Geoffrey Richmond is remorseful about the club’s over-spending: “I wish I had played it a different way. It looked right at the time though.” Dave Watson is sacked by Tranmere. Debt-ridden Fiorentina go bust, but may be allowed to restart in Italy’s fourth division.
WSC readers and fanzine editors weigh up the season to come
ARSENAL
Boyd Hilton
How will your team do this season? Third (again)
Who is going to be the most important figure at the club this season? Arsène Wenger: he’s the most intelligent person ever to be associated with professional football anywhere in the world ever, so this is our chance to just sit back and enjoy whatever he comes up with…
If you had to come up with a new piece of merchandise to sell at the club shop what would it be? Life-size, fully realistic, 100% physically accurate model of Ian Wright.
Which player at your club most divides the home support and why? Ian Wright: bizarrely, a sizeable portion of the fans seems to think that we’d do better without him, that he’s too old, too selfish, or some such crackpot theory. These people are clearly insane or are from the Arsenal old school and simply can’t cope with too much pleasure.
Which element of the matchday environment would you most like to change? Installing some kind of device which sends a near-fatal electric shock through anyone who shouts “Yiddos!” and make it easier to get a half-time cup of coffee, perhaps by getting rid of the enormous bar area in the North Bank and installing 10 coffee stalls.