Glory years Bristol City go with Swansea, Rovers go with Cardiff. Well, up to a point. City’s flirtation with the First Division in the late Seventies matched Swansea’s march to the top, though Swansea got there just as City were sinking. The early Eighties also saw Newport’s last fling, reaching fourth in the Third Division and the quarter-finals of the Cup-Winners Cup. Cardiff’s great days were in the 1920s, when they were league runners-up (1924), Cup finalists (1925) and finally Cup winners (1927). But their last decent First Division spell was in the Fifties, also when Rovers got to their highest league position (sixth in the Second Division) and twice reached the sixth round of the Cup.
Book reviews
Reviews from When Saturday Comes. Follow the link to buy the book from Amazon.
Football has a longer history and bigger support in a rugby-infatuated region than most people give it credit for. Grahame Lloyd reports
Welsh rugby fans might not like it – some probably won’t believe it – but Wales are currently the best-supported team in European football. Even though they lie 108th in the FIFA rankings, an average attendance of 63,000 for the last three internationals at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff has put the Welsh ahead of Italy, Germany, Spain and co-Euro 2000 hosts Holland. Cheap tickets – £10 for adults and a fiver for children – and a magnificent setting have combined to satisfy the huge appetite for football and given the lie to the longstanding but often overstated claim that the national sport of Wales is rugby.
Cheltenham have suddenly left their neighbours Gloucester City far behind. NOw they kind of miss each other, says Mark Herron
Since Cheltenham Town joined the Nationwide League, not everything has changed for the better. One of the most significant differences in the match-day routine has been brought about by the sudden lack of a genuine local rival. No more opportunities to cheer as news of another goal conceded comes through on the radio. Half the enjoyment has disappeared overnight.
Diego Maradona's new book has been the talk of Argentina. Chris Moss found few surprises in it
When it comes to resurrection, Diego Maradona is up there with the saints and prophets. Banned from playing for cocaine abuse, then ephedrine-laced cocktails and now under doctor’s orders, hopeless as a manager, aged 40 but looking 50, he has turned to literature. A new autobiography, Yo Soy El Diego (I am Diego), to be published in Britain next spring, is the edited recordings of chat, babble and bluster taped in Cuba by two “journalist friends” from Buenos Aires
Jim McLean severed his links with Dundee United in spectacular style. Ken Gall reflects on the fall of a hero who became an embarrassment
In a recent poll, the Great British Public selected the Apollo moon landing as television’s greatest moment, with the funeral of the Princess of Wales, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the release from prison of Nelson Mandela listed among other cherished memories of our time.