Reviews from When Saturday Comes. Follow the link to buy the book from Amazon.
Ray Spiers explains some new arrivals in the Doncaster boardroom
Doncaster Rovers fans are beginning to think that the nightmare of recent seasons might be over. The morning after Channel 5’s revealing documentary on last season’s sick comedy was shown, the club announced that the “Irish consortium’s” takeover from Ken Richardson and his Dinard Trading Ltd would be completed on July 31st.
Archie MacGregor salutes a long overdue win for St Johnstone
Twenty-six and three-quarters years of hurt. Doesn’t exactly roll poetically off the tongue, does it? But then again, we St Johnstone supporters don’t sing much anyway in the sanitized confines of McDiarmid Park, where the noise levels often barely exceed those of the nearby crematorium. Besides, to have finally beaten our jinx team – Glasgow Rangers, no less – after all this time left many of us in a state of shock just a couple of stops short of stunned silence.
This season may have had a happy ending of sorts, but Everton fans know there as more hard times ahead, as Robert Mimms explains
An English Summer wouldn’t be complete without the sound of leather on willow at Lord’s, and Everton FC floundering in the transfer market. About this time every year the curtain rises on a new Goodison farce. It usually runs over most of the close season and stars some of football’s leading names. Collymore, Ince, Bobby Robson, Andy Gray, Ravanelli and Nigel Martyn have all taken centre stage in recent years.
Howard Kendall has ruled Everton out of the chase for big names so this summer’s performance may not be of the same quality. But there’s plenty of scope for drawn out pursuits of B-list names such as Lee Carsley and Alan Stubbs to come to a farcical close before August is upon us.
Tottenham fan Martin Cloake begrudgingly accepts that Arsenal are not only winning, but winning in style
Columns of black smoke billowed into the night sky from the wasted shells of burning cars, helicopters clattered overhead and the sound of sirens pierced the air. Arsenal had just completed the Double, and some of their fans were trashing their own manor. A strange way to celebrate, but it was a strange season.
Stoke's season began with optimism but ended with relegation, as Penny Davies explains
On Saturday August 30th 1997, 23,859 people sat down in Stoke City’s new home, the Britannia Stadium, to watch the first League match there. Earlier, Sir Stanley Matthews had officially opened the ground. The idea was that he would roll back the years by scoring in front of admiring fans. This didn’t go to plan. The 82-year-old couldn’t get enough power behind his shot and the ball stopped well short of the goal. The more prescient among the crowd knew that this cock-up was a taste of the season ahead.