Munching on the sweetie version of a veteran reserve goalkeeper, magazine editor Andy Lyons, writer Harry Pearson and host Daniel Gray discuss players’ Indian Summers, from Horst Hrubesch to Wilfried van Moer via untucked shirts and Pools Panel hotel trifle. WSC Deputy Editor Tom Hocking talks us through the pages of magazine edition 417, including Big Match Festive Specials and issues around colour blindness in football. Record Breakers brings crooning from Cagliari, plus Steve McManaman’s iconic hands and Maurice Fussey’s wig.
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Recent complaints about rescheduled fixtures inconveniencing supporters have highlighted the changing ways people get to matches, as Tom Hocking explained in WSC 316, June 2013
Trains are an important mode of transport for fans but Tom Hocking says that little is done to make them more convenient
“In terms of transportation,” read an official FA statement, following the controversy caused by setting the FA Cup final kick-off time at 5.15pm, “a small percentage of Cup final fans use the method of train travel.” The evening start, rather than the traditional 3pm, meant fans of both north-west-based finalists would have trouble catching the last train home. Wigan supporters had already faced similar problems for the semi-final against Millwall and been widely mocked for not selling out their entire ticket allocation. The situation was made more galling by the FA’s solution: use their official coach partner, National Express, instead.
Alex Lawson on the role of train travel in football
In the 1970s and 80s Football Specials were used to ferry fans to away games by rail in a bid to contain hooliganism. Supporters’ organisations and the British Transport Police have been investigating the idea of restoring the services in the wake of frequent arrests of fans travelling on regular trains. At the height of hooliganism, spare carriages and redundant trains were used to transport huge numbers of fans. But the Specials became a focus for problems and were largely scrapped in the early 1990s as privatisation made organising services across the networks more difficult.
Taylor Parkes sits through a British comedy about Gillingham fans on a road trip
Pre-release publicity for The Shouting Men makes much of the fact that despite being a football film, it’s not about football violence – well, that’s something I suppose. It is, however, about beery laughs and mawkish sentiment, which is surely the next worst thing. Gillingham are drawn away to Newcastle in the Cup; a mismatched band of Gills fanatics make the trip in a clapped-out minibus, with much calamity along the way. Into this hollow shell of a plot almost any kind of comedy could have been poured, but a slack script, some non-performances and too much soapy slop make this a pretty trying experience.