Manchester City are the new champions but, as Tony Curran explains, their unethical hoarding of players has tarnished their Premier League victory
Harry Dowd was a goalkeeper who played for Manchester City during their glory years of the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was a reasonable keeper but apparently an excellent plumber. Legend has it that he used to negotiate job offers with crowd members behind his goal, offering competitive rates for bathroom re-fits when play was at the other end.
Dear WSC
Trevor Fisher (Letters, WSC 301) is nearly right. When Alex Ferguson was accused of driving on the hard shoulder in 1999, he hired Nick “Mr Loophole” Freeman as his lawyer. They argued successfully that he should not be punished as he was
suffering from an upset stomach and needed to get to the training ground quickly to use the toilet. I have always slightly suspected he got away with it because nobody in the courtroom wanted to spend a moment longer than necessary with that gruesome, messy mental image in their head. Which is now in your head. No need to thank me.
Jim Caris, Prague
Dear WSC
Gavin Duenas asks why WSC readers want standing areas in football grounds (Letters, WSC 300). My reasons are purely selfish. Maybe then the people stand in front of me and my two young boys “because you can only support your team properly from a standing position” will go to the terraces and leave us to sit and enjoy an unobstructed view from our expensive seats.There should be a choice for all supporters between sitting and safe standing. Yet as a frequent away supporter in “all-seater” stadiums, the choice of sitting doesn’t actually exist. You are forced into unsafe standing in seating areas if you want to to see anything of the game. Woe betide you if you point out that if everybody sits, everybody sees. Oh for the joy of Huish Park and London Road, where thanks to the terraces you can still sit in comfort.
Andrew Bartlett, Kenilworth
A principled former Premier League striker is raising money and awareness for charities in Africa. Dermot Corrigan explainsOn December 30 last year, while most Spanish footballers were on their winter break, 60 African and European players were at Atlético Madrid’s Vicente Calderón stadium for a charity Champions for Africa game organised by Sevilla’s Frédéric Kanouté. Over 40,000 fans paid in to see a José Mourinho-managed Africa United team, featuring players such as Kanouté, Lass Diarra and Carlos Kameni, win 3-2 against a Spanish League selection captained by Sergio Ramos and including Kun Agüero, David Trezeguet and Juan Valerón.
We asked you for your views on a variety of issues in our post-World Cup issue. Roger Titford analyses the responses
On Sky TV, Andy Gray has several times passed his firm verdict on the 2010 World Cup – “disappointing”. Well, it wasn’t on Sky, of course. The WSC readership’s view, asked for in three words or fewer in our post-tournament survey, was slightly more nuanced, as you would hope, “strangely unfulfilling”, “dramatic but mediocre”, “curate’s egg – almost”. There was a general feeling of being slightly underwhelmed. “Meh” wrote several but our favourites were “team-work trumps celebrity” and “tippy-tappy tedium”.