Search: 'stamps'
Stories
The A-Z of Lost Football Culture, Treasures and Pleasures
by Derek Hammond and Gary Silke
Pitch Publishing, £19.99
Reviewed by Roger Titford
From WSC 299 January 2012
If you were born between 1960 and 1970 and still miss getting the Topical Times Football Annual for Christmas, this might be its ideal replacement. The book takes as its text the notion that "football used to be better in the past" and celebrates many of the juvenile and adolescent aspects of the game's culture.
An Argentine investigation into players claiming Italian heritage could stem the flow of transfers to Europe, says Rodrigo Orihuela
In 2003, Leganés, a small Segunda División club from the suburbs of Madrid, made headlines by signing 16 Argentine players, most of whom held EU passports (Spanish clubs are permitted to field a maximum of three players from countries outside the EU). Results were bad and the Argentine businessman who bankrolled the team dropped out at mid-season, with most of the players leaving by year’s end. The Leganés case was the most extreme illustration yet of how the Bosman ruling has brought about an influx into Europe of South America players claiming EU citizenship.
Remember when kids played football just for the fun of it? Ian Plenderleith looks at the website run by forward-thinking nostalgics who want to bring back those days, and at online homes for amateur players
As an original member of the “jumpers for goalposts” generation who learnt to play the game in the back garden, the concrete school yard and a bumpy field covered with cow shit, I’ve nothing but praise for a new UK site seeking to reclaim youth football from the hands of coaches and ambitious parents.