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19 September 2008 ~
Well done to ITV who have just announced that they will be showing the legendary Graham Taylor documentary An Impossible Job for the first time in 14 years. This forms part of the build-up to next month’s World Cup matches against Kazakhstan and Belarus that will also involve Taylor presenting a new documentary called England Expects. Apparently, one of the questions Graham will be addressing is: “Why do we have such high expectations when our record is actually rubbish?” No news on whether Carlton “Carlton!” Palmer will be one of the interviewees or whether Graham still wakes up of a morning with “my pyjamas drenched in sweat”.
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 Badge of the week
AS Nancy Lorraine play in the French first division and have a rather alarming logo. The interpretations of this image are many and varied. Some maintain it depicts the fiery landing of an extra-terrestrial craft in a field in the region of Lorraine. Others see a fleet of battleships explosively under attack from the sky. Others go further, divining a vision of Armageddon, the final conflict created from the labours of the seven Angels of Death, while nicer people see a white dandelion. The motto along the top, Qui S’y Frotte S’y Pique, means, literally, “Who Frotts, Piques”. This is as true today as it has always been. Nancy’s is rather a vigorous, excitable image, but a bit too busy for the crest traditionalists among us who favour static pictures of historical significance over abstract blood-red psychodrama. Cameron Carter
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Historic Football Websites No 22 ~ Delcampe.net (Football Stamps)
Collecting stamps isn’t something I’ve tried bar a brief and undevoted pre-pubescent phase when it seemed like the kind of quasi-erudite activity that might impress grown-ups. Maybe if there had been more football stamps around, I’d have been keener. You can see what I missed out on at this sales site, featuring such oddities as a Cambodian set of stamps purporting to commemorate the World Cup in San Francisco in 1994, though not featuring any country’s colours I’d claim to recognise, or Bhutan’s 35nu acknowledgment of the talents of Newcastle’s Philippe Albert. There are many more such bizarre or badly drawn items of intrigue. A sheet of stamps from Yemen for the 1970 World Cup counts as “rare! ‘Israel’ not crossed out!”. Ian Plenderleith ---
from Nick Kinsella
“The legendarily immobile Barry Conlon has kept quiet about his Papal past.”
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This week in history ~ Division Two, September 21, 1974
Results
Man Utd topped the table throughout the season with their average crowd of 48,388, nearly 20,000 higher than the next best-supported club, Sunderland. Striker Stuart Pearson, signed from Hull in the summer, was their top scorer with 17 goals, ahead of Irish midfielder Gerry Daly who converted five penalties in the first seven games.
After their 4-0 defeat of Norwich, Fulham fell out of the promotion race, winning won only one of their next ten games. One of the scorers against Norwich, Viv Busby, went to get six goals in Fulham’s run to the FA Cup final which ended in a 2-0 defeat to West Ham.
Norwich, meanwhile, reached the League Cup final which they lost 1-0 to Ron Saunders’ Villa. Ray Graydon, whose penalty rebound decided the final, scored all three goals in the victory over Millwall. None of the Villa players was still at the club when they won the league six years later.
Villa finished second, three points behind Man Utd, and helped Norwich’s promotion bid by beating their rivals Sunderland 2-0 on the final weekend of the season. Norwich clinched third place with a 3-0 win at Portsmouth on the same day.
Nottingham Forest had seven members of the 1977-78 title-winning team in their squad which finished 16th in Brian Clough’s first season in charge; one such player, Viv Anderson, made his League debut in the 3-2 win at Sheffield Wed, who fell into Division Three for the first time after finishing 11 points adrift at the bottom.
Millwall and Cardiff both went down after failing to win any of their last six matches. Millwall winger Gordon Hill made a big impact in only his second season and went to be capped by England after moving to Man Utd. Hill also became known for his impersonations of Norman Wisdom, which were foisted on TV viewers in the build up the 1976 FA Cup final.
Blackpool’s scorer against York, Mickey Walsh, won Match of the Day’s Goal of the Season award for a long-range strike against Sunderland in February 1975. York finished 15th in their first ever season in Division Two but went down the following year.
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WSC Trivia ~ No 33
WSC was mentioned in Coronation Street in 1991. The mother of one of the McDonald twins asked him where his brother was, to be told: “He’s taken his copy of When Saturday Comes and gone to read it in the toilet.” This may not have been intended as a comment on the contents. Granada declined to send us a video of the episode – which we’ve still not seen – and wouldn’t accept copies of WSC to be put in the newsagents The Kabin. Not that we’re still bearing a grudge.
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Stickipedia
A mine of information constructed from sticker cards
 Rachid Harkouk, Notts County Soccer 82
Rachid Harkouk is the only Notts County player to date to have appeared in a World Cup and the first English player to have turned out for an African team at the finals. Born in London to an Algerian father and English mother, Harkouk began his playing career in non-League, joining Crystal Palace as a 20-year-old in 1976. Nicknamed “Spider” because of his ungainly running style, he became an important part of the side that won promotion to Division Two in 1978. Shortly afterwards, however, he received a suspended jail sentence, alongside team-mate Barry Silkman – now a players’ agent – for passing counterfeit money which they had apparently received during a match against a prison team. Harkouk left Palace soon afterwards for QPR before moving on to Notts County with whom he was promoted to Division One in 1981. Harkouk made his international debut for Algeria in the build-up to Mexico 86 and played in two matches in the finals. But an injury picked up in his second game, against Spain, brought about his retirement at the age of 30. ---
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