Biteback Publishing, £20
Reviewed by Ian Farrell
From WSC 424, September 2022
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Stories
Dear WSC
The article on the FA Cup’s longest tie (Draw to a close, WSC 298) reminded me of what I believe is still officially the longest single match between two English sides – the second leg of a Division Three cup tie between Stockport County and Doncaster Rovers on March 30, 1946. After extra time, the score stood at 2-2 – which was also the score following the first leg. Having checked with the local authorities, the referee let the game carry on until one team scored, the original Golden Goal. After 203 minutes and with darkness setting in, the match was finally brought to an end. The story goes that fans left the match to go home for their tea and returned later to carry on watching. The replay at Doncaster was won by the home team 4-0. This might not be quite as impressive as the longest football match ever, which I believe currently standards at 57 hours. This epic encounter between Leeds Badgers and Warwickshire Wolves in 2010 was played to raise money for charity.
Alan Bredee, Enfield
Ian Plenderleith asks: How will football in America move forward without the newly crowned MLS Cup-winner David Beckham?
Major League Soccer has learned one major lesson from the big leagues in Europe it aspires to eventually compete with, and that is the ability to blow its own trumpet. Crowds are up! Sponsorship and TV revenues are up! New stadiums are being built! We are expanding the number of teams every season! Big name players are coming from abroad!
The bosses at Major League Soccer in America thought it necessary to spend millions on a new web presence. Ian Plenderleith points out why it has been a disaster
“The days of the 800-word think-piece are over,” a football journalist recently told me as we discussed the state of internet writing. With all that content being condensed into ever shorter formats, readers want easily browsed headlines, Twitter snippets, news-based blog entries that end with a question, controversial quotes and a space at the bottom where they can launch in with their opinions. Those long paragraphs just give us a headache and take up time better spent watching that shaky YouTube clip where the loco ref scores with an overhead kick in a Paraguayan Fourth Division game before taking a out a handgun and opening fire on the crowd.
If you’re stuck in the office, can’t afford that away trip or are living on the wrong side of the world, then you still have to keep up with the match and plenty of people want you to do so online. Not all the web options are that compelling, though, unless you love throw-ins. Ian Plenderleith reports
Gary Lineker once famously remarked that it was more fun watching Wimbledon on Ceefax than it was to watch them live. That was before the internet, but with the advent of online commentaries, live blogs and constantly updated match trackers, there is more than enough opportunity to follow a game by sitting in front of a screen that is not actually showing the action.