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20 March 2008 ~
We must begin with news of of a sensational offer. On eBay there is an opportunity to purchase items of clothing worn by the winning goalscorer in an FA Cup final. The Wembley suit belonging to Keith Houchen, who got the decisive goal for Coventry in their 3-2 defeat of Spurs in 1987, is up for sale until just after 6pm today. It comes with a certificate of authentication signed by Keith. The leading bid so far is £26. Send us a photo if you win. Needless to say, if there is a collectors' sub-culture based on suits worn by cup finalists we want to hear more about it.
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 Badge of the week
At some point Avenir Beggen, from a northern district of Luxembourg city, modified their badge to reflect their nickname, Wichtelcher (the Pixies). The end result could have been a lot worse. While the little chap is undeniably twee, at least he hasn’t got disproportionately big eyes. And while he might have been better positioned standing beside the ball rather than perched precariously on top of it, his rather demure posture does at least reflect the club’s European record. To date Avenir have played 36 matches in international competitions with an average score of 0-4; one of their three wins was a walkover when Swedish opponents fielded an ineligible player. Still, the team are handily placed for another tilt at the UEFA Cup next season as they currently lie fourth in Luxembourg’s Fortis Ligue. As is the modern way, their squad contains players from nine countries, but none from Britain – although a Steve Hewitt did play three games (two as a sub) during the Euro walkover glory season of 1995-96.
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from Martin Vickery
“Browsing through the Yahoo sports pages online, I came upon a report on the Champions League quarter-finals that suggests the very elite of British football are taking note of the probability pedantry recently occupying the WSC letters page. In a eulogy on the current status of the Premier League, Sir Alex Ferguson said: ‘We now have a 40 per cent chance of being drawn against an English team, which is a measure of the quality of this division.’ This is a very carefully worked out figure from Sir Alex. Many in his line of work would have been satisfied with the phrase ‘a big chance’ or the breezily inaccurate ‘50/50 chance’, but he has clearly taken the trouble to calculate the probability accurately. The fact that the actual probability of Manchester United drawing an English team in the quarter-finals is 42.8 per cent is splitting hairs and we cannot expect a busy person like Sir Alex to go into decimal points and suchlike because he’d never have the time to take training. Let us congratulate the pie-faced stopwatch-botherer on his care in this instance and hope that this prefigures a new trend towards factual accuracy in all our top managers.”
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The Howl doesn’t yet sponsor a Spoilsports of the week trophy. But if we did, this week’s award would be heading to Central Scotland Police who threatened to arrest East Fife players for opening bottles of champagne. The team clinched promotion from the Scottish Third Division with a win at East Stirlingshire’s Fir Park on Saturday March 15. The champagne that had been stored on the team bus was duly brought into the stands and sprayed over the fans gathered by the side of the pitch. Officers then threatened to arrest celebrating players on the basis that alcohol in glass containers is not permitted inside sports venues. Plus, as a Chief Inspector McLeod later said: “Glass bottles present a health and safety issue, particularly with a number of families with children in the vicinity.” But all the bottles had been emptied by then so they were binned – along with any hope East Stirlingshire may have had of staging a Formula One Grand Prix.
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Spotting players
from David Gordon
“Back in 1996, I said hello to Leyton Orient’s Nigerian striker Sam Ayorinde in a B&Q in east London – he was looking at discount packs of lightbulbs – a couple of days after he had featured in the O’s first match of the season, a 1-0 home defeat by Scunthorpe United. Nothing remarkable in that. But Sam hardly stayed anywhere long enough to have been recognised. In a 13-year career, he played for 17 different clubs in nine countries. His two international caps for Nigeria in 1998 came while he was with Bangor City in the League of Wales. The O’s were one of his five English clubs – 19 games for Stalybridge was his best effort – and he also played in Tunisia, Finland, Sweden, Israel, China and Vietnam as well as his native Nigeria. That’s not including a trial in the US. Some coaches have comparable travel records but can any other player better that 17-9-13 combination?” ---
from Mike Innes
“Here’s a stuffed toy version of Ore-kun, mascot to J2 small-fry Ehime FC. Frank Sidebottom fans may find it all a bit disconcerting, but for Japanese people at any rate there is no possibility of confusion. Ehime, a rural prefecture on the island of Shikoku, means one thing: oranges. And the football club have, via the adoption of Ore-kun – a mascot with citrus fruit for a head who nevertheless quite clearly encapsulates the official team slogan for 2008, STRONG WILL – embraced the produce with which their area is associated. In fact, in common with many clubs in Japan, Ehime FC have expanded upon the simple idea of the mascot by developing no fewer than three separate representative characters. Ore-kun has an attractive female admirer, Tamae-chan, and a goalkeeping friend named Iyokanta whose appearance and demeanour are reputedly modelled on that of former German international Oliver Kahn.”
Mike’s online guide to Japanese football can be found here ---
This week in history ~ Division Four, March 22, 1975
Results
Happier times for Mansfield who had played one of two Friday night fixtures, a 3-2 win over Exeter. This was the first of two promotions in three seasons which led to Division Two games against Spurs in 1977-78. Striker Ray Clarke scored 26 goals in his first season with the club and went on to play for Ajax and Bruges among others.
The top four all went up, though Chester only pipped fifth-placed Lincoln City, managed by Graham Taylor, on goal average. Lincoln would have prevailed under the goal difference system which was brought in two years later. Chester also reached the League Cup semi-finals after a stunning 3-0 win over reigning champions Leeds.
Reading’s team included the goalkeeper with one of the best-ever footballers’ names, Steve Death. Newport featured John Relish and Billy Screen while Hartlepool had Alan Goad and Hartley Maddison who was, as you might imagine, an amateur making one of his four League appearances.
Scunthorpe finished 24th after an entire season without an away win but the bottom four were all re-elected. Workington – finally voted out in 1977 – finished a narrow eight votes ahead of Kettering Town, who were one of 12 non-League applicants.
Cambridge United’s goalscorer in their 1-1 draw with Bradford was defender Brendan Batson who followed manager Ron Atkinson to West Brom two years later.
Bobby Sibbald, scorer of one of Southport’s two goals in their defeat at Torquay, later captained Los Angeles Aztecs when Johan Cruyff was in the team (perhaps Bobby was better at shouting). ---
WSC Trivia ~ No 7
A current Premier League chairman is a subscriber to WSC. He recently renewed but only for one year, declining to take advantage of various longer-term renewal offers. So either he isn’t expecting to stick around or, ulp, he doesn’t think we are. ---
 Stickipedia
A mine of information constructed from sticker cards
David Beckham Panini 1997 & Michel Platini Football 1974-75
Panini’s rivals Merlin became the official sticker publishers for the English First Division the year before the Premier League was formed. Unable to depict team kits, Panini had to make do with players in tracksuits bearing the logo of their union, the PFA, who sponsored the collection. Worst still, with team logos also prohibited, the album was organised on an A to Z basis rather than club by club. The French players' union, the UNFP, had also stepped in to sponsor sticker albums in the mid-1970s when publishers AGE failed to reach an image rights agreement with the French league. Hence photos of players in UNFP T-shirts, like this distinctly retouched-looking Michel Platini. Panini became the official publishers of French football sticker albums two years later. Merlin still hold the exclusive rights to the Premier League so Panini UK now concentrate on international tournaments, barring occasional dalliances with the Football League and Scottish League.
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