In this exclusive WSC Supporters’ Club edition of the podcast, magazine editor Andy Lyons, writer Harry Pearson and host Daniel Gray find a peeved Random Topic Generator urging them to talk about Greed and then Monstrous Hubris. Resulting subjects include the bungled folly of the recent Super League plot, the murky world of closed-shop divisions, wacky penalties, George Reynolds and Harry Kewell’s marble fittings, and new stadium follies from Brunton Park Butterfly World to John Hall’s Leazes dream. Record Breakers takes us to Kaiserslautern, Kinshasa and Moscow.
Search: 'Harry Kewell'
Stories
The Socceroos’ narrow win over Syria did not pacify a country who expect more from their national team, despite the relative lack of talent available
The autobiography
of Tim Cahill
by Tim Cahill
HarperSport, £18.99
Reviewed by Jamie Rainbow
From WSC 350 April 2016
When Tim Cahill’s contract with Shanghai Shenhua was terminated, a number of A-League clubs approached the midfielder offering him the chance to finish his playing career in Australia. But, as he reveals in Legacy, he’d already snubbed an earlier return to his homeland for commercial reasons. The 36-year-old, fast approaching the end of his playing career, was already thinking about life after football. Or, to use Cahill’s own slightly nausea-inducing phrase, he had to “strategize as a businessman”.
Looking at football in print, Harry Pearson discusses how the game has become more important to the broadsheet press
In the late-1980s I decided to investigate an incident that had occurred at Ayresome Park just after the Second World War. Within my family the incident was infamous, or celebrated, it was hard to tell which, because it involved my grandad’s cousin, Davey. Middlesbrough were playing Arsenal and, after a mêlée in the goalmouth, Boro’s goalkeeper Dave Cumming had walked up to the Arsenal centre-half Leslie Compton, decked him with a right hook and then marched off the field. As Compton rose groggily to his feet a group of fans had run on the pitch and one of them – possibly Davey – had felled Compton again.
It’s been a funny season for the A-League with financial chaos tempered by a record-breaking climax. Robert Forsaith explains
“What a fantastic game, what a fantastic spectacle for the A-League. The game has been crying out for something positive this year.” That was the verdict on the final match of the season from Graham Arnold, the coach whose side Central Coast had just been beaten in a penalty shootout.