A small portion of despair and enlightenment delivered to your inbox every Friday
28 August 2009 ~
Karren Brady is expected to step down as Birmingham City's managing director once Carson Yeung completes his takeover. This may also mean the end of her singular column in the Sun. This week Brady predicts that the takeover will go smoothly ("There'll be no China crisis this time") and reveals that she texted her husband Paul Peschisolido after his Burton Albion side won their first League match. "It read 'Sex and Indian tonight?' The reply was 'When and Where?' It was then that I realised it had gone to another manager named Paul." It might have been Paul Hart but, even though he's between jobs at present, our money would be on Paul Jewell. Eeeeww anyhow.
---
 Badge of the week
Of course it is difficult to ever be exactly sure where one is with Polish surrealism but it is especially unclear why GKS Katowice have chosen to represent their team with a picture of a Dalek attacking Batman with a giant toffee hammer. What is nice about the badge is the big letter G cradling and framing the rest of the image – it shows a flair for innovative, edgy graphic design – but ultimately this does not help with decoding the central message. There is no rallying theme of the triumph of Good over Evil here because there is absolutely no way the Dalek is going to lose from this position, especially given his height and weight advantage. Perhaps the message here is: "This football team wants you to enjoy your sport responsibly, do not go down to the docks in a cape looking for trouble." Or perhaps Katowice is a silly place. Cameron Carter
---
from Mark Lewsey
"Anyone watching the coverage of the West Ham v Millwall Carling Cup tie violence on Sky Sports News will have noticed that their commercial breaks included a trailer for The Firm, a remake of a 1980s film about football hooligans in London. No irony alarm at Sky then."
---
There's no better way to follow the Copa Libertadores than through Conmebol magazine, the official publication of the South American confederation. As we have mentioned previously, the appeal lies in the entirely literal English translation that runs alongside the Spanish text. Here's how they saw Estudiantes' 2-1 victory at Cruzeiro in the second leg of the 2009 Libertadores final:
The two finals were highly emotional. We cannot speak of football beauty because there was none... Estudiantes were sure and self-trusting, and they started to exert pressure on Cruzeiro, blocking the side and having the ball possession, with Veron always as their banner. Thus, Cruzeiro began to worry... In the second half [Cruzeiro] had the upper hand. A shot from outside seemed as if had no consequences for the goalkeeper, but it was deflected towards a defender and went to a post. The stadium became a boiler thanks to the cheering and shouting of Cruzeiro's fans... Estudiantes did not fret, they continued with their plan and 15 minutes later they equalled their rivals. The tie shattered Cruzeiro and empowered Estudiantes, who 15 minutes later scored the 2-1... Before the last whistle, there was time for the union of post and crossbar to return Thiago Ribeiro's powerful shot.
It's just like being there. And you don't even need the magazine to enjoy the full glory of Conmebol's reporting – their whole website now has a parallel English version.
---
Getting shirty Notable kits of yesteryear
 Crystal Palace home, 1972-73
Palace's second appearance in Getting shirty serves as an example of the influence that Ajax had on English football strips in the early 1970s. The season after the Dutch side's first European Cup win, their shirt style – a broad central stripe on a plain background – was copied by several clubs with some variations. Birmingham City introduced their "penguin" stripe, white on blue, and Carlisle launched a similar kit with two thin red stripes either side of the white. Palace's new kit left a line of white between the claret and light blue. It was modified for the next season, with the white gap removed. But that kit too was jettisoned after one year as the team fell into the second division. This strip was also worn by a fat kid who went to primary school with a member of the WSC staff. Disdaining the team ethic, he would sit cross legged in the opposition penalty area when play was at the other end, then bounce up and score when the ball came near him. He was perpetually offside but who knew about stuff like that?
Buy this shirt and hundreds of others at Classic Football Shirts
---
from Dave Espley
"A mate of mine had a friend who lived outside Edgeley Park, Stockport. He wasn't a County fan, so was often doing other things at 3pm on a Saturday. One day he and his missus wanted to go out, but found their car was blocked in. They were fairly used to this, so nipped over the road to ask for a message to be read out. Sure enough 'will the owner of a blue...' was made over the Tannoy. However, no one turned up. So they asked for the announcement to be made again. And again. At about 5.30, the owner of the car turned up, and the irate householder was ready for him. 'Where the hell have you been? We had to stay in all afternoon! Didn't you hear the announcement? Where the hell were you?' 'In goal for Bury,' replied Dean Kiely."
---
from Graham Davenport
"As the Howl of two weeks ago pointed out, the tabloids got stuck straight into the Sven bedroom jokes when reporting on Notts County's opening match. So I was wondering what they might make of Hull City's new signing Kamel Ghilas. Possibly something about him not needing to take on water despite the heat? Instead, this is how the Mirror's Michael Morgan began his report on the 1-0 win over Bolton, in which Ghilas scored the winner: 'Here was one Kamel who refused to get the hump.' It was then explained that Ghilas would have been frustrated at having hardly touched the ball for the first hour. I think we can soon expect to hear that is coping well with his side's goal drought."
---
WSC Trivia ~ No 78
We used to have a noticeboard column in which readers would ask for help with research into various football-related topics. It was also used for appeals and apologies.
From WSC 44 Sorry to Hans Krankl and Manfred Zsak for referring to both of them as "Franz" in WSC 43. Neither has written in with a complaint, but that's probably because they're too cross to think straight at the moment.
WSC 44 again An Esso World Cup coin displaying the rugged but boyish features of Gary Stevens is sought by a desperate collector who is making unnecessary journeys in order to use up petrol so he can visit an Esso garage again. Global warming is speeding up as a result. Save the earth by writing to...
WSC 45 This month's apology goes to Belgium, which was misspelt as "Belguim" in our last issue, and to ourselves for omitting the word "Court" from our address, making it look as though we are based in a treehouse.
WSC 49 Strathclyde Programme Shop recently received an empty wrapper through the post, which may have contained fanzines. It was addressed to "Strathclyde Proggy Shop" and the address label was typed. If the sender of this parcel recognises this description, it would help a claim against the Post Office if they could drop a line to...
---
Stickipedia A mine of information constructed from sticker cards
 Sammy Lee & Michael Robinson, CA Osasuna Pamplona Panini Futbol 88
There was a flurry of player movement between England and Spain in the late 1980s when League clubs were banned from Europe. Most of the migrants failed to settle, even when they had some success – John Aldridge scored 33 goals in 63 games for Real Sociedad but complained about the team's defensive approach when he returned home for a long spell with Tranmere in 1991. A WSC correspondent once saw Aldridge slumped on the beach at San Sebastian, moodily poring over a copy of the Daily Mirror while getting a sunburnt back.
Sammy Lee joined Osasuna in 1987 from QPR. He later said that he felt like going straight home after his first training session because the club coach Pedro Zabalza had his players practising penalty area dives. Lee stayed on to play 28 matches in two injury-hit seasons – he retired after brief spells with Bolton and Southampton.
Like Lee, Michael Robinson's previous two clubs had been Liverpool and QPR where he failed to add to the reputation he'd build up as a striker with Brighton (he'd played previously for Preston and Man City). His time in Pamplona was also affected by injury – he played 59 games in three years – but Robinson subsequently adapted extremely well to life in Spain, presenting a popular football magazine show El día después for 14 years up to 2005. He crops up occasionally on UK football programmes, still speaking with a strong Lancastrian accent except when referring to La Liga teams, at which point he switches to an impressively guttural Spanish.
---
Contribute to the Weekly Howl
If you’ve met a footballer, seen any Wikipedia vandalism or if there’s anything else you want to get off you chest, we’d like to hear from you ~ drop us a line at
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
|
WEEKLY HOWL 
