Battling on despite the halt of Wagon Wheel production due to industrial action, magazine editor Andy Lyons, writer Harry Pearson and host Daniel Gray discuss club mergers from Thames Valley Royals to Manstock County. There is a delve into the pages of WSC issue 402 including the mechanics of the Season Guide and the difference between a “fan” and a “supporter”, and Record Breakers takes us to Rotterdam, Vancouver and Cardiff. Plus, international retirements and refusals and football grounds built into mountains.
Search: ' Thames Valley Royals'
Stories
Roger Titford on the proposal to Oxford United and Reading in the early 1908s
If megalomaniac tycoon and serial football chairman Robert Maxwell had not made two monstrous errors, there could well have been a Thames Valley United in Division Three in 1983-84 in place of Reading and his Oxford United. And, as David Lacey wrote in the Guardian at the time, “as a method of killing off two Football League clubs at a stroke the scheme surely has few rivals”.
Dear WSC
Re the letter regarding Paolo Di Canio’s favourite referee and his apparent total lack of a sense of humour (WSC 170). I hate to further tarnish the man’s reputation, but he recently refereed the Brighton v Hull game at Withdean. Sitting in our seats prior to the game, we were informed that, due to a mysterious technical problem, no music would be played in the ground before kick-off. Probably down to our somewhat ropey PA system, we thought, or the local residents complaining again. But no, for it was later revealed that Mr Alcock, tucked away in his dressing room, found the music to be objectionable and demanded it be turned off. Unable to isolate the ref’s room from the speaker system, the club was faced with the choice of silencing the airwaves or having the game called off, as our beloved referee refused to start the match unless he had a bit of quiet.Perhaps he needs peace to get himself in the right frame of mind to put in his usual outstanding refereeing performance.
Vicki Lank, Via email
Piers Pennington takes on the mysteries of the Didcot triangle, with three teams that lurk around the periphery of the big time
Look at a map of England, go left from London and you’ll come across a footballing desert stretching across Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire and Somerset. Only three oases of league football offer succour to the parched lower division journeyman and many a camel towards the end of its career has found refreshment in Oxford, Reading or Swindon. In the middle of the three lies Didcot, the railway junction which links them, and this has persuaded some to call this area the Didcot Triangle.
South Yorkshire's clubs can learn from the trials of their rugby league neighbours. Dick Roebuck reports
Somewhere along the A61 connecting Barnsley with Wakefield there is a disruption in the sports-time continuum. Things are similar but not the same. This is the frontier between football and rugby league, a Checkpoint Charlie dividing the sporting affections of Yorkshire’s working classes.