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6 June 2008 ~

While the rest of the continent prepares for the European Championship, Premier League chairmen are holding their annual meeting, an event which recalls the conclave of villains who gather regularly to discuss how to defeat Batman. They’re deciding what to do about the Game 39 plan, with the favoured option being a pre-season tournament staged in various cities around the world. Our spy in the building, disguised as one of Newcastle’s commercial vice-presidents (football sector), tells us that jackets are off and they’re working through lunch – extra baps have been ordered – to come up with a name for the competition. Options not yet ruled out include: Premier League Global Family Bucket; Kick and Rush International Vase; Super-Size Soccer Shield; and World War Three.

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Badge of the week
Valenciennes are a French club recently returned to the first division. There are many interpretations of their club crest, none of which is particularly satisfactory for an adult football team. Perhaps we see a fish caught on the end of a line, thrashing around and causing the angler (out of shot, probably on the phone to his mistress) to lose control of his rod. This would imply that Valenciennes either never know when they're beaten or can be served up at weekends on a plate. Or is it a line representation of a squirrel-like critter rearing back to avoid a wayward 20-yard blast from a defender eager to get back in position after a corner? Or is it, as we surely must conclude, a duck or a swan, in a very good mood by the look of it, heading the ball on neatly into space? Whichever it is, this image has pace, movement, technique (to momentarily channel Alan Hansen). It has a little football too, possibly in order to pacify those who believe a duck on its own lacks fire. Cameron Carter

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The UK press failed to mark the recent death of one of Peru's best-known players, winger Oscar Gomez Sanchez. So we ought to share few excerpts from a tribute to him in one of our favourite magazines, Conmebol, the official publication of the South American football federation. “He joined skill to efficacy. An uncontrollable dribbling and goal, two features that unmistakably rocket an attacker upwards, to the category of crack. The memory brings back unpredictable gambols to the line, swaying his body and his long arms – that seemed to scratch the turf – and submitting the winger who tried to stop him to a terrible suffering. On which side was he going to appear? The question was right, because although he was left-handed, he also stayed on the right and the riddle arose to defy them.” There will never be another. 

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Tales From The Landesliga ~ No 8
WSC contributor Matt Nation's series about watching lower-league football in Hamburg
As Borussia Mönchengladbach proved over a decade ago when destroying Arsenal in the UEFA Cup, black shirts are instrumental in cowing a superior opponent into submission. They exude an air of formality. They mystify, they dominate. They cover up beer guts. It’s no coincidence that refereeing standards have plummeted since the men in the middle have been able to wear what the hell they like.

So middle of the road that they ought to be wearing white lines on their jerseys, FC Teutonia Ottensen von 1905 owe their Landesliga survival solely to decades of wearing black. So why on earth their sponsor, Nobby The Ice-Cream Man, has decided to splash out on new clobber for the home game against Sport-Club Egenbüttel von 1953 is anybody’s guess.

The hosts are turning out in shirts the colour of a flapper’s lipstick, and it doesn’t become them. They treat the ball as though it’s somebody else’s baby that’s icked over itself. As soon as passes are received, they’re hurriedly got rid of, flicked up and then wellied to the opposition, out for a throw-in, anywhere. It’s like watching Johnny Wilkinson with concussion.

Suitably relaxed in an all-white strip, Egenbüttel play like a top-of-the-table team ought to. Due to a cuddliness borne of too much mum’s home-cooking that’s common in teams from Schleswig-Holstein, the players don’t even think about running. The ball does the work, zigzagging up the pitch with ECG-like regularity. They soon go a goal up, after a Michael Owen lookalike, Jan Koller weighalike centre-forward takes a brisk stroll through a defence showing all the composure of your mother at a Tom Jones concert and pops the ball into the net. They double their tally almost immediately, a speculative shot beating a goalkeeper who appears to have frozen in the glare of his team-mates’ shirts.

The home team have soon soiled themselves to the point of immobility and the game is over as a contest. Egenbüttel change down to neutral and the crowd amuse themselves by speculating on which Teutonia player’s going to make the most outrageous blunder. It’s a close-run thing, but the left-back eventually clinches it, conceding a corner from a goal-kick by blasting the ball against a team-mate’s back.

On the way out, you pass a clump of home defenders having a pre-shower fag at the rissole stand. When one of them says “We could have done them easily if only our forwards had put their chances away”, you find yourself closer than you’ve ever been before to launching into a diatribe that concludes with the sentence “And, most of all, you've let yourself down”. Maybe Nobby The Ice Cream Man will enjoy bumper takings this summer and invest in something slightly more sombre for next season’s campaign. A set of sackcloth jerseys with ash-coloured shorts and socks would be as good a place to start as any.

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from Peter Strachan
“Recent editions of the Howl have documented some football-related Wikipedia vandalism. Here’s another one, concerning Scotland defender Lee Wilkie.”

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WSC Trivia ~ No 18
To promote our first annual, Offside, in 1989, two members of the WSC staff appeared on Night Network. This was the Channel Four arts review show that became known for the off-camera laughter of the studio staff which punctuated almost everything the presenter said. Chris Evans must have been an avid viewer. We were to chat with Mick Brown, a Capital Radio DJ whose catchphrases included “’Ello gang!” and “A lotta wonga!”. Moments before going on air, he leaned over and whispered: “It’s not serious, this, is it?” We didn’t know what he meant but sensed from the imploring expression that the right answer would be “No”. The interview raced by, accompanied by waves of cold mirth. Petula Clark was the next interviewee, promoting a remixed version of Downtown. She flashed a pained smile in passing. We heard Mick Brown say “Petula!” before the lift doors closed.

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Stickipedia  
A mine of information constructed from sticker cards

Vicente Pernia, Argentina The Wonderful World of Soccer Stars, World Cup 1974
A fearsome full-back with Boca Juniors, Vicente Pernia never played at a World Cup despite featuring in this album published for the 1974 tournament. He was also in Argentina’s squad in the build-up to the next finals, winning his last cap in a 1977 Buenos Aires friendly against Scotland when he was sent off for punching Willie Johnston in the kidneys. Johnston was dismissed too, by the Argentine referee, presumably for having leaned into Pernia’s fist. “Sometimes the ball gets past Pernia, sometimes the player, but never both,” commented a (wisely) anonymous team-mate at the time. Pernia might be able to blame his loss of temper on sleepless nights as his son, Mariano, had been born just a month before the Scotland match. Mariano, who also became a full-back, did play at a World Cup – for Spain in 2006.

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