Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Ian Plenderleith assesses the ability of players to take media criticism
Students of both football players and the internet might be inclined to reach an unscientific conclusion about the utterances of one and the content of the other. Namely, 98 per cent of what you hear from footballers, or read on the internet, is utterly forgettable. Imagine, then, the challenge of searching the internet for something of genuine insight and interest from an active professional.
Jon McLeod looks back on the season Liverpool were last crowned champions of England.
The long-term significance
Tremors that would come to shape the landscape of English football were felt in 1989-90. UEFA announced that clubs would be readmitted to European competition following a five-year ban due to the Heysel disaster, while Aston Villa appointed the first foreign manager in the English top flight when Jozef Venglos replaced England-bound Graham Taylor at the end of the season. Liverpool claimed their last title to date and Alex Ferguson dodged the bullet at Man Utd.
The revamped stadium has been open since March 2007. Despite trying his best Cris Freddi just can't get used to it
I went to the opening game at the new Wembley. That sounds like a minor boast, I suppose. If there were anything to boast about. You can only judge a stadium in daylight. Lights at night gloss over things. On an overcast afternoon, the Wembley arch looks like a giant concrete rope. And you stand under it and think: what’s that all about? What’s an arch got to do with it?
A late summer night out in Selhurst. Manchester City breeze down to south-east London for the early rounds of the Carling Cup where Crystal Palace huff and puff against mega-rich opponents. David Stubbs reports
It’s grim down south. The freshly mint Manchester City and their supporters come down to Selhurst Park like a delegation from Italy’s Lega Nord descending with wrinkling noses on one of the more malodorous outlying districts of Naples. What a culture shock it must be for visiting fans from the regenerated and nouveau riche north-west as they emerge from Selhurst station, with its unappetisingly urinal-like walls, down a ginnel flanked with mistrustful barbed wire and as rank as the breath of an alcoholic in the afternoon.
League restructuring in Italy has been discussed for several years but it is now coming to fruition. Paul Virgo reports
After a long fight to save their marriage, Serie B finally accepted it had irreconcilably broken down in August and agreed to an amicable divorce from the Italian top flight. Serie A chairmen had been threatening to walk out for years, as they looked on at the Premier League’s success with envy, only to end up half-heartedly agreeing to give it another try. But they showed they meant business this time when they appointed Maurizio Beretta, an executive from outside football, to run the top flight as an independent entity from next year.