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29 February 2008 ~
Manchester City owner Thaksin Shinawatra returned home this week to Thailand to face corruption charges. Whether he is eventually jailed or cleared – and the fact his political party recently won a general election might just help in that respect – it seems that Thaksin intends to remain on Thai soil from now on. But he hasn't forgotten his football club. At the moment the highest-paid City player earns less than Wes Brown, who recently turned down a new contract offer of £45,000 per week, but that's about to change. "I will build a team that the Thai people will be proud of," Thaksin said on Thursday. "Before long there will be Man City China, Man City Japan, Man City USA. In the next season Manchester City will be another Manchester United." They might even become the Manchester United of Manchester. We wish him well.
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Peter Crouch is the new spokesman for the rather cumbersomely titled Keep Your Eye On The Ball Focus Fortnight, organised by the Everyman Cancer Campaign in association with the PFA and the FA. Peter says: “Men can be so vocal on the terraces, but struggle to talk about their own health with their mates. It only takes a minute to check yourself and it's worth it, because in life you don't get extra time." No one would quibble with that but we can’t help wondering what has happened to the campaign’s former mascot, Mr Testicle. He made the first of what was supposed to be a series of public appearances before Everton’s match with Sunderland in November. Did the visitors blame their subsequent 7-1 defeat on the shock of seeing an immense scrotal sac with a smiling face hopping about before kick-off, leading to Mr T being dropped? What fearful purpose has the costume been put to since? Or has it been recycled to make shopping bags?
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Something for the weekend: update
from Mike Ticher
"Australia's A-League final, previewed in last week’s Howl, ended in entertainingly chaotic fashion with refereeing blunders, red cards, suspensions and lost weekends. Newcastle Jets beat Central Coast Mariners 1-0 in front of 37,000 fans, but not before the Mariners' keeper Danny Vukovic was sent off for manhandling the referee, who missed a blatant handball in the area in added time. Vukovic was sandbagged with a 15-month ban (six months suspended), which threatens to keep him out of the Olympics and part of next season. Also in trouble was the Jets' Stuart Musialik, who celebrated the grand final win so exuberantly that he failed to show up for an Olyroos training session on Tuesday and was left at home as the squad flew to San Francisco for a friendly. Central Coast took disciplinary action after their own "mad Monday" post-season party was marred by inappropriate costume choices from their German midfielder Andre Gumprecht (Hitler) and retiring defender Tony Vidmar (God)."
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Condensed match report
Scunthorpe 1 Southampton 1 ~ Championship, February 23, 2008
from Steve Agnew
"Unusually, prior to this game there was a complete absence of the now seemingly obligatory minute's silence or applause or embarrassed not-quite-sure-which-so-I'll-shuffle-from-foot-to-foot that has become a 2.59 staple at Glanford Park. No deaths this day – apart from the football. Or, rather, "soccer" as Scunthorpe manager Nigel Adkins continually refers to the mediocre fare his team have been coughing up apologetically most of the season. Southampton were no better, and neither were the officials. An extremely bizarre Scunthorpe sending off (for what appeared to amount to "being on the receiving end of a two footed tackle") and a dubious penalty each being the only remarkables in a match which begs immediate redefinition of the cliche "dour struggle". The blood only pumped for Scunthorpe supporters when a miserablist steward waded into the crowd and, in an effort to ensure nobody enjoyed themselves, confiscated the inflatable beach-ball that had mostly bobbed high in the air and landed on the heads of the uninterested, the forlorn and the talentless below."
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Spotting players
from Josh Widdicombe
"I once served Mike Summerbee in the Manchester Deansgate branch of Waterstones and he told me that he wouldn't buy a book I found for him because he only read hardbacks. And they say footballers today are prima donnas." ---
Birmingham City’s managing director, Karren Brady, has several media columns. One involves giving online advice about workplace issues. Another is a weekly diary for the Sun. In her latest Sun article, Karren passes on some gossip in rather a startling way: “I’m at London Fashion Week where one of the models tells me she is taking the rhubarb – as Kelvin MacKenzie describes it – from a high-profile Premier League director as well as his team’s centre-forward.” She also had this to say about Carson Yeung, the Hong Kong businessman who attempted a takeover at Birmingham: “We’re in a right old chow mein with the Chinese. Carson Yeung wants former footballers Steve McManaman and Fan Zhiyi on our board. We’ve said ‘no’ but must still call an EGM which will cost a fortune.” Later she describes the day of the EGM: “The election scrutineers were involved in a minor crash outside St Andrew’s afterwards and I received an email today joking that it was probably a ballot-box hijack organised by the Triad.” So look out for a blog where the “First Lady of Football” tackles the issue of racial sensitivities at the office. ---
WSC Trivia ~ No 5
In 1997, we published an article about football in Mongolia, which had just launched a domestic league. The writer of the piece (which pointed out that the game’s flow was hindered by “the Mongolian custom of shaking hands whenever inadvertent physical contact occurs”) was working on various joint ventures between the Mongolian government and British companies. For just a few thousand pounds, WSC could have become the official sponsors of the Mongolian football league. We couldn’t think of a way of organising a readers’ whip round at short notice, though, so the corporate box in Ulan Bator was to remain tantalisingly out of reach. ---
 Stickipedia
A mine of information constructed from sticker cards
Nigel Page-Jones, Stade Brestois Football En Action 1971-72
The ex-Hereford and Gloucester City midfielder was the only English player in France during most of his seven years with second division Stade Brestois, starting in 1970-71, which included four successive seasons as an ever-present. Having married a local girl, Page-Jones’s job with Brittany Ferries took precedence when his previously semi-pro club went full-time in a bid for promotion and he moved on to a lower league team, Saint Pol-de Léon. Page-Jones remained almost unknown in England but there were occasional updates on his career in World Soccer’s French football column (written by Brian Glanville under the pseudonym Andre Duclos).
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