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31 October 2008 ~

For a few days this week it looked as though a smug, arrogant creep might finally be removed from our TV screens. But it was too much to hope for. Jamie Redknapp has decided not to take up a coaching job with his dad’s new employers and will instead honour the three-year contract he signed with Sky Sports earlier this year. This country.

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Badge of the week

Cagliari’s badge has changed significantly over the years without actually losing the central theme. The image in the middle of the crest is of four kings who were captured when the region was won back from its Moorish invaders. The earlier image is somewhat cruder in style than the others, with the Moors apparently blindfolded in preparation for some sort of nasty business. The later, middle image has the captured enemy in more human form, with their blindfold now dignified to the status of a headband and looking like they might get away with a strong telling-off. The latest and current image has been almost entirely stylised to avoid offence to any historic foes and now appears to show four very modern men using their new video eye-wear technologies. Maybe Arsenal could take a leaf out of Cagliari’s book and update their central image from a stupid old cannon that medieval people used to a bullpup assault rifle. Wake up and smell the 21st century coffee, Arsenal. Cameron Carter

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In the least surprising news of the season, Leigh Genesis – featured in the Howl of June 13 – are in danger of folding after their benefactor Dominic Speakman pulled out. This seems to have been prompted by delays in the construction of their stadium, or as the garrulous Mr Speakman puts it, “a stand-off between the builders, developers and the council with regards to some finishing issues” while some blame is also laid at “health and safety people that just don’t live in the real world”. More here.

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Long Players The Glorious History Of Football’s Full Length Recordings

Title Unknown The Dutch 1980 European Championship Squad

I bought this record in a second hand shop in Margate for 50p. It was the sort of thing I used to end up doing on stag weekends instead of vomiting over the edge of a supermarket trolley. Such are the rewards of refusing to run with the pack. 1980 was still the golden age of football music when whole international squads would be herded in front of the mic to make a full-length recording. Every song was in Dutch. On the opening track it sounded like they were singing something like “Nederland, dey hievt de ball”. In my head this became “Wimbledon, they heave the ball”, a lyric and tune that still occasionally haunts me in the middle of a sleepless night almost two decades later. I lost the LP (I’m fairly sure it wasn’t stolen) and I can find no record of its existence on the internet. The rest of its content now escapes me, but if you somehow have a spare copy... thanks, but I’m not interested. Ian Plenderleith

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This week in history ~ Division Three, November 1, 1997



Results

Eleven years ago this weekend, Hull City’s 4-3 defeat at Darlington in front of 2,893 kept them in 22nd place in what was then Division Three. That was where they finished the season having won just one away match. Managed by Mark Hateley, the side that lost at Feethams included Welsh international midfielder Glyn Hodges and David Rocastle, a former League winner with Arsenal who was playing his final League season; he died aged just 33 in 2001.

Notts County went top after their 2-1 victory at Barnet and were to win the title by 17 points. Striker Gary Jones was the division’s top scorer with 28 goals. Manager Sam Allardyce spent one more season with the club before moving on to Bolton.

Sammy McIlroy’s Macclesfield, playing in their first League season, dropped to tenth following their home defeat by Rotherham. But a run of seven wins in eight games from early January propelled them into the top four and they finished as runners-up.

Lincoln took the third promotion place and were joined in Division Two by Colchester who beat Torquay 1-0 in the play-off final through a David Gregory penalty. Exeter, third after their draw with Peterborough, won only five games in the second half of the season and plummeted to 15th.

Doncaster were bottom for the entire season, which they finished with just 20 points having conceded 113 goals while using 45 players. The club had been purposely run down by owner Ken Richardson who was jailed in 1999 for having attempted to burn down their Belle Vue ground as an insurance scam. Rovers spent six years in the Conference before returning to the League in 2004.

Brighton were in the first year of a groundshare at Gillingham, their hugely unpopular board having sold the Goldstone Ground without finding an alternative home first. With many supporters boycotting games – Gillingham was a 150-mile round trip – the 1,025 who saw their home match with Barnet was a club record low.

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WSC Trivia ~ No 39
The national stadium in Dakar, main venue for the 1992 African Nations Cup. Two WSC staff are standing in line to collect press passes. Also in the queue are John Salako and a film crew from Chrysalis TV who are making a documentary about the tournament for Channel Four. Salako approaches us. “When Saturday Comes?” Yes. “When Saturday ejaculates!” he says, clamping a hand over his mouth as though suppressing a chortle. There would never be a good time to have said this but it’s really early in the morning. John’s still beaming. Mindful that he could probably flatten us, we ask politely if he knows any good jokes. He looks less gleeful. “All right, all right. They told me to say it,” he points at his film crew standing a few yards away. He heads over to them and gets a pat on the shoulder. The game will always need characters.

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Stickipedia  
A mine of information constructed from sticker cards

Steve Mackenzie, West Brom Panini 85 and Charlton Panini 89
Even in these diet-conscious times, footballers rarely look at their best when the official team photos are taken in early August having had more than two months off. Hence Steve Mackenzie, only 22 at the time, looks a little full in the face. The Panini 85 album claims that he weighs 11st 3lb but that might be revised upwards by a couple of stones. Seven years earlier Mackenzie had made back page headlines when he joined Manchester City from Crystal Palace for £250,000 despite never having played a first-team match. City manager Malcolm Allison, prone to extravagant claims, believed that Mackenzie was an international star in the making but it never happened. He did go on have a respectable career, however, scoring one of City's goals in the 1981 FA Cup final replay and spending a further decade at the top level with West Brom and Charlton, where he was looking relatively svelte four years on.

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