Reviews from When Saturday Comes. Follow the link to buy the book from Amazon.
With player power becoming a bigger issue in football, Rutger Slagter explains how the Dutch FA's ruling kept a lid on a potentially huge can of worms, for now
At the end of July, a Dutch FA tribunal presided over the most important case since the Bosman ruling. If the De Boer brothers Frank and Ronald won the right to tear up their contract with Ajax, players around Europe would be able to follow suit. Football in general would be in danger.
With their team expected to struggle in the Second Division, Oldham Athletic fans are preparing for a season of protest against the board, as Steve Ragg reports
Easter Monday 1994: Oldham Athletic, occupying 16th place in the Premier League, go down 3-2 at Old Trafford, in a dress rehearsal for the following week’s FA Cup semi-final.
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.