The new WSC is available now, including WORLD CUP FIXTURE WALLCHART AND PREVIEW SUPPLEMENT
We're having some distribution problems this month (and covering football we have an accountant-like knowledge of the intricacies of administration) but the magazine should be in the shops very soon. If you order direct from us your copy will be dispatched immediately.
In this issue:
Chat roulette How tedious soundbites are promoted by the media "It's easy to be cynical about modern football, so I'd like to begin with a positive statement – the World Cup is great. Even if you missed out on FIFA's wheeze of selling match tickets in South African supermarkets and won't be there yourself, the competition gives the summer shape. I doubt I'm the only person impatiently awaiting the World Cup wallcharts so that barbecues, beach trips and weddings can be slotted into the gaps between group deciders, or quarter-finals B and C." Buy here to read the full article
The joy of failureWhy footballers are now viewed by extremes "I haven't heard much about Titus Bramble lately. I can't say I've followed his career assiduously but I'm definitely hearing less about him than I used to. Time was when he seemed to be everywhere – pranging cars, giving away soft goals and attracting cheap gags from anyone with an opinion on the game. Once the epitome of "comedy defending", the term of choice for caustically humorous bloggers and writers everywhere, Bramble seems to have slipped out of the public eye. Well, out of my eye anyway." Buy here to read the full article
Ill-gotten gainsA successful but deeply uncomfortable season at Meadow Lane "I have an awful admission to make. I am a Notts County fan (that's not it) and a strange thing has happened to me during our farcical season. Having had nothing much to celebrate since we won the old Third Division championship in 1998, I spent the majority of my team's League Two title-winning season hoping that our challenge crumbled." Buy here to read the full article
Out of tuneEngland's 2010 World Cup songs "There has this year been an overwhelming spate of underwhelming pro-England World Cup songs, most of which sound like they were bashed out in a greenhouse-cum-home studio. All of these share that peculiarly English sense of entitlement to the trophy as if 1966's victory had rendered it our personal property, since unjustly passed around from the Brazilians, Germans and Italians, with a typically exasperating foreign emphasis on keeping possession. Forty-four years of hurt is the common sub-text – surely it must be our turn again this year – and not, ooh, the Dutch, the Spanish, any African team, any eastern European team." Buy here to read the full article Plus Club debt doesn't worry the Premier League Reaction to Liverpool's loss and Spurs' gain Changes at MOTD2; the unfulfilled potential of Twitter; "Roy Keane's Ipswich"; a psychological study of football Sheffield Wednesday down, Barnet survive in photographs The future for the Glazer protests An Italia 90 film shows the danger of nostalgia How tedious soundbites are promoted by the media Charlton host Leeds, as the promotion-chasing visitors' agony drags on Highbury in the 1950s Darlington's positive spin on relegation to the Conference Dani, West Ham's male model Germany's capital loses a top-division team; Czechoslovakia possibly reunited by football Pennine pride – Mossley AFC take 10,000 to Wembley Half-time entertainment, from paper aeroplanes to testicles Altitude problems in Bolivia; FIFA's pre-World Cup aggression Season in brief Serie A 2005-06.
Availability WSC is the only nationally available independent football magazine in the UK, and this bumper issue costs a very reasonable £3.25. You should be able to find a copy in your local newsagent, otherwise outlets that stock WSC include WH Smith, mainline train stations plus selected Tescos. If you're having trouble finding the magazine, you could do one of the following:
The joy of failure Why footballers are now viewed by extremes
Out of tune England's 2010 World Cup songs
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