Downing a 50p Baileys and accepting a crowd plea to “Get involved”, magazine editor Andy Lyons, writer Harry Pearson and host Daniel Gray talk Terrible Teammates, from Len Shackleton to Millwall Russians via the man who showed them all. Magazine Deputy Editor Ffion Thomas previews WSC issue 434, Record Breakers brings us a Jamaican jingle, and we continue our sprightly 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 Michael Walker, football writer with The Athletic and the Irish Times, and author of the excellent Up There: The North East Football Boom & Bust and Green Shoots: Irish Football Histories.
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Stories
The murky cycle of sponsored news articles by Ian Plenderleith
It sounds like a late-night conspiracy theory to maintain that corporate interests dictate the news agenda, especially when we’re talking about something as relatively unimportant to human destiny as football. But it’s not untrue to say that the internet has allowed the game’s major sponsors to have a say in the way that news is generated. A closer look at one of October’s headlines demonstrates why.
Bayern Munich will have a new coach next season. For now, everyone is happy. But, as Karsten Blaas reports, the club’s relations with Jürgen Klinsmann haven’t always been cordial
Bayern Munich are always big news in Germany. Thanks to Franz Beckenbauer’s and Oliver Kahn’s womanising, Mario Basler’s drinking and Stefan Effenberg’s obnoxiousness, the club did their best to earn the nickname FC Hollywood. But when they announced that Jürgen Klinsmann would be their new coach – a two-year contract starts in July – the public response verged on the lunatic, even by Bayern standards. Half-a-dozen TV stations rescheduled programmes in order to cover the press conference and the broadsheets commented in their politics sections. Even chancellor Angela Merkel stated how happy she was about the return of the prodigal son.
It says a lot about Germany that they managed to reach the 2002 World Cup final in the middle of a prolonged slump but, as Paul Joyce explains, the expectations for this summer’s hosts and poor recent results leave their long-distance coach under pressure
After a 4-1 mauling by Italy in February left Germany without a victory over a top-ranked nation since defeating England at Wembley in October 2000, CDU politician Norbert Barthle demanded that manager Jürgen Klinsmann be hauled before the national sports committee “to explain what his concept is and how Germany can win the World Cup”. With a mere three per cent of the populace believing that a side ranked three places below Iran could now win the tournament, Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel herself felt obliged to give the under-fire Klinsmann the dreaded vote of confidence: she was convinced that he and his team were “on the right path”.
Monday 1 Arsenal go a point clear after a 3-0 win at Charlton. “We know it’s down to us now,” says Arsène. “We’ve gifted six goals in two games,” sighs a baffled David O’Leary as Leeds’ Champs League hopes fade further with a 2-1 defeat at Spurs. Ipswich slip into the bottom three after Marcus Bent misses a penalty in a goalless draw with Chelsea, while John Gregory is “almost lost for words” after Derby’s 1-0 home defeat by Middlesbrough. Everton survive the early dismissal of a punch-throwing Duncan Ferguson (“He was stupid and I’ve told him,” says his new manager) to record a 3-1 win over Bolton, also reduced to ten. In the First, West Brom’s 1-0 win at Coventry takes them level on points with Wolves, beaten 2-0 at home by Man City. Brighton go two points clear at the top of the Second with a last-minute winner against Bristol City, displacing Reading who draw at home with Northampton. Several Luton players are questioned by police following a nightclub brawl to celebrate their promotion. Halifax, 5-0 losers at Darlington, go down to the Conference for the second time in nine years.