Search: ' Tom Finney'
Stories
Preston North End 1 Reading 0, 19/08/2017, Deepdale, Championship
Bill Shankly was not just a manager: he was a communicator. In WSC 205 Barney Ronay listened and was reminded of a thousand pale imitations
After losing Fernando Torres to Chelsea, Liverpool supporter Rob Hughes explains why player disloyalty is not a new phenomenom
The media circus that trailed Fernando Torres’s move to Chelsea once again raised what is fast becoming a dominant issue in today’s game: club loyalty. Liverpool fans’ dismay was complete when, at his first press conference at Stamford Bridge, their departed idol coolly batted away accusations of traitordom and justified his switch of allegiance by declaring that “romance in football has gone”. Yes, he said, he’d had three good seasons at Liverpool but he wanted to play for a team who actually won things. What’s more, he was never a Reds fan (though, in his defence, he was candid enough to admit he’s no Chelsea nut either). Club loyalty counted for nothing when it came to winning trophies.
John Morrow examines a season in which football took a backseat to politics as Derry City were forced to resign from the league
The long-term significance
The Northern Irish Troubles, which had broken out in earnest in 1969, cast a long shadow over football in the province as nationalist-supported side Derry City resigned from the league during the course of the season. Derry, whose Brandywell ground is located near the city’s Bogside area – the scene of fierce rioting in 1969 and Bloody Sunday in January 1972 – had been forced to play home games at Coleraine’s Showgrounds since September 1971 due to the fears of unionist-supported teams entering the area. Unable to sustain senior football, Derry City were put on the road to joining the League of Ireland in 1985 and remaining outside Northern Irish football to this day.