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With the Berlin Wall coming down in October 1990, Paul Joyce recalls the first Bundesliga season where West Germany's teams met those from East Germany
The long-term significance
After reunification in October 1990, this was the first season in which teams from the former GDR joined the West German football pyramid. Only two East German sides (Oberliga champions Hansa Rostock and runners-up Dynamo Dresden) were allowed into the Bundesliga, which was expanded to 20 clubs. A further six GDR clubs entered a regionalised second division.
It’s taken a while, but African players are finally beginning to thrive in England. Alan Duncan charts the changes in both English and African football that have made this possible
A popular African adage says that “pushing stops at the wall”. For the best part of the last decade, African players have seen the inexorable push of their compatriots across Europe tending to break down at the formidable wall presented by English football.
Tuesday 2 Rio Ferdinand is dropped from the England squad for the Moldova game after being arrested for drink driving. His mum blames it on alcopops still in his system from the day before when he'd celebrated his England call up with West Ham team-mates. If we're reading Glenn's complex moral code correctly, Rio would have been OK if he'd only beaten his girlfriend. Scottish Secretary Donald Dewar criticizes the SFA for not postponing their World Cup match against Belarus due for Saturday, the day of Princess Diana's funeral, saying, "The government wants Saturday to be a day of remembrance not a day of sport." "Colin Hendry is out and big Donald would be a welcome addition to the back four," chirps the SFA's Jim Farry.
Wednesday 3 Scotland's match is moved to Sunday afternoon after it is established that FIFA weren't opposed to the rescheduling. The Rangers players in the squad had threatened to pull out if the match went ahead on Saturday, their decision possibly not unconnected to the fact that the club's vice-chairman Donald Finlay has led the calls for Jim Farry to resign. In the First Division Nottingham Forest lose their 100% record with a 3-1 home defeat against Manchester City.
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.