Shuffling up close in the great bus shelter of life to bring you a bumper Bank Holiday episode, magazine editor Andy Lyons, writer Harry Pearson and host Daniel Gray discuss Goalkeeping Gaffes from Luis Arconada to Massimo Taibi’s culpable studs. WSC Assistant Editor Ffion Thomas delves into the pages of magazine issue 424, Record Breakers brings frolics from Flanders, and we continue our perky feature, The Final Third, in which a guest contributes a match, a player and an object to the WSC Museum of Football. Joining Dan as our visiting curator this time is writer and broadcaster Charlie Connelly.
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Stories
Dear WSC
In Nigel Harris’s excellent Fools Gold (WSC 241), he mentions that South Wales Police officers are approachable and highly regarded. This got me thinking about when Cardiff City were the visitors to Preston a couple of seasons back. As my friends and I were sat drinking in our usual pre-match pub, a jolly officer from the aforementioned constabulary approached us and informed us that they would be letting a group of Cardiff City “fans” into the pub and that we should drink up and leave or they wouldn’t be responsible for the consequences. The SWP officers then proceeded to welcome these fans into the establishment and chuckled along as they went round taunting everyone else in the bar with racist anti-English insults. Though I agree that no set of supporters should ever be banned from seeing their team, Cardiff City’s cause is not helped when the body employed to control their unruly fans’ behaviour is seen very much to encourage what they do. South Wales Police may be “highly regarded”, but not in Preston.
Bobby Dilworth, via email
Arsenal and England fan Cameron Carter has enormous respect for David Seaman as a goalkeeper, but his admiration doesn't extend past his football career after watching the ponytailed one's first foray into presenting
So farewell then, David Seaman, one of the great English goalkeepers in the classic no-fuss style and, despite his extraordinary record, one of the most haunted. Peter Schmeichel, in a feature for the Sunday Times, marked Dave’s professional passing with a piece on how unfortunate it is that such a model keeper may be remembered by many purely for his rare errors. Schmeichel then helpfully went on to outline those errors in unabridged, technicolour detail. To the Nayim lob, the Ronaldinho free-kick and the Macedonian fellow’s corner we can now add this video as one of old Safehands’ truly memorable mistakes.
Squads are now so vast that players can sink to the bottom and never come up again. Matthew Hall goes in search of Mark Bosnich
Three years ago, Mark Bosnich had it all. He had turned down Juventus to rejoin his beloved Manchester United, the club he spent three seasons with as a teenager a decade earlier, as successor to Peter Schmeichel. During the same summer, after a night that ended in a police cell, he had remarried. Happy at work and happy at home, the future was bright. Three years later, the sunglasses are well and truly off, most likely replaced by pyjamas, slippers and a blanket. Mark Bosnich doesn’t get out much these days, and in that relatively short space of time, Bosnich has felt the wrath of Sir Alex Ferguson, then his new wife and now Claudio Ranieri.
Thursday 1 Chelsea go out of the UEFA Cup after a 1-1 draw with Hapoel Tel-Aviv. Claudio Ranieri keeps his sunny side up: “The result went against us but it was a brilliant performance.” Leeds survive a scare in Troyes, where they lose 3-2 but go through 6-5 on aggregate. Ipswich save their best till last again, winning 3-1 in Helsingborg. Stung by rejection, Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan refuses to accept Steve Bruce’s attempt to resign as manager: “At no time will Steve be allowed to talk to Birmingham.” Bruce will not, however, be taking charge of Palace’s team at the weekend.
Friday 2 The Bishop of Oxford blesses the pitch at Oxford United’s supposedly unlucky new ground. “There was talk among some players of a sense of evil – they interpreted it as a curse,” says a church spokesman.