Search: ' Frans Thijssen'
Stories
There was a time when strike partnerships rolled off the tongue like superheroes and clubs even thought foreign players should be kept in pairs, as Harry Pearson explains
The remarkable story of Dutch masters Arnold Muhren and Frans Thijssen
Available from TWTD.co.uk, £16.99
Reviewed by Gavin Barber
From WSC 364, June 2017
While the other World Cup winners celebrated the competition’s first 50 years, England stayed at home, writes Neil Andrews
The Mundialito tournament – or Little World Cup – that kicked off in December 1980 was one of those rare occasions when FIFA managed to get everything right. Designed to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first ever World Cup, all six previous winners of the trophy were invited to Uruguay, the first hosts in 1930, to contest the title of Champion of Champions. All seven games were to be played at the Estadio Centenario in Montevideo and the organisers were determined to set a celebratory tone. However, the English FA seemed to misunderstand this wave of nostalgia and declined to take part, just like they did first time around.
Neil White describes the unique football relationship between FC Twente and Stranraer
In 1981, Frans Thijssen was just about as good a midfielder as there was in Europe. He won the UEFA Cup with Bobby Robson’s Ipswich Town and was named Player of the Year in England. He remembers the European trophy that is now the totemic achievement of Robson’s team appearing as a mere consolation after late-season injuries exposed a lack of depth, costing Ipswich a First Division championship and a place in the FA Cup final.