Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Carson Yeung's takeover of Birmingham City results in the departure of a notorious trio
In a month of notable returns, including Avram Grant to Portsmouth and chairman Adam Pearson at Hull, there was also the long goodbye of a famous threesome. After a first takeover attempt failed in November 2007, Carson Yeung finally completed his purchase of Birmingham City on October 6. But the former regime, David Sullivan, David Gold and Karren Brady, did not depart quietly.
The most famous export of Ecuador's Chota Valley is footballers, as Henry Mance discovered on a visit to the region
One day, when football wastes as much of academics’ time as it already does of everyone else’s, some PhD student will spend three years working out which area in the world has produced the most professional players per capita. And he or she will eventually conclude what Ecuadorians already know: that the winner is the Chota Valley, hands down.
Newcastle United are in the headlines as Mike Ashley prepares to sell the naming rights to St James' Park
Newcastle businessman Barry Moat has been depicted in the press as the club’s potential saviour for several months now but, like someone running up a down escalator, he never seems to get any closer to his goal. With Moat having reportedly failed to come up with the £80 million required to cut a deal, owner Mike Ashley has now taken the club off the market, appointed Chris Hughton as full-time manager and, to general dismay, auctioned the naming rights for St James’ Park.
Gunther Simmermacher explains how the pressures of hosting a World Cup may be getting to South Africa
Even by the standards of South African football, the appointment of Brazilian coach Joel Santana to lead the national team, Bafana Bafana, at the 2010 World Cup was an eccentric decision. In April 2008 Carlos Alberto Parreira, the 1994 World Cup-winning coach, quit as South Africa coach to be with his ailing wife. South African Football Association (SAFA) president Molefi Oliphant asked him to recommend a successor. Parreira suggested Santana, then at Flamengo.
With Setanta gone, ESPN has immediately stepped into the gap. Cameron Carter reports
It is confusing to start to grieve for a lost channel only to find that its replacement fills the gap completely. No sooner had Setanta politely dropped off the twig than ESPN took its place, offering a Premier League match on Saturday, an Italian game on Sunday and European Cage Fighting and Bundesliga Review filling most hours in between.