The Archive

As Ian King observes, the media now defines football supporters by their fanatical behaviour. Is this encouraging some to behave in an increasingly irrational, negative and anatagonistic manner?

When the retail chain Sports Direct (SD) makes news it is usually in connection with their owner, Mike Ashley. But in mid-August several newspapers carried the story of a man who went to an SD store and spent £55 on a replica Man Utd shirt. He decided to have “YSB” (which stands for “You Scouse Bastards”, apparently), “96” and “Not Enough” printed on the back of it. He then posted pictures of his purchase on Facebook. Sports Direct say that they will now only allow the printing of current players’ names on their shirts and that the sales assistant who had the design made up didn’t understand it. This  line was not accepted by Margaret Aspinall of the Hillsborough Support Group: “I don’t believe it is possible someone printing football shirts wouldn’t know what the message meant.”

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The US college system is offering an increasingly popular way into the professional game for British footballers. Gavin Willacy examines the latest phenomenon in Major League Soccer

With Five no longer airing MLS games during the milkmen’s breakfast slot, even fewer British viewers will have seen the impact Darren Huckerby, Ade Akinbiyi and Danny Dichio have had on the American top flight than saw David Beckham try to inspire the hapless LA Galaxy last summer. While a string of English thirtysomethings understandably use MLS as a preferable last stop to Brentford or Brighton, there is another growing group of British footballers emerging in America.

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One club's promotion to the Argentine top flight also means the return of an infamous hooligan gang, as Sam Kelly writes

It was, perhaps, fitting that when Mariano Echeverría scored the only goal of the match away to Platense, which confirmed Chacarita Juniors’ promotion back to Argentina’s top flight, he celebrated in front of empty stands. The match was played behind closed doors – and in La Plata, well away from Platense’s stadium in the north of Buenos Aires – because of security fears surrounding the Chacarita barra brava (hooligans).

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'Iranian footballers banned for political protest' ran the headlines. James Montague investigates what really happened

It was the image that encapsulated a nation’s struggle for freedom: 11 stern-faced Iranian footballers, some wearing prominent green armbands, huddled together on a foreign pitch while their homeland burned, moments before a crucial World Cup qualifier. Tehran had been in the grip of street protests following the country’s heated presidential elections, won by the hardline Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but contested by the reformist-leaning Mir Mohammad Mousavi. With the regime wildly thrashing about to restore order, the players appeared to be expressing their feelings about the crisis moments before they took on South Korea.

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The football team may not have won a game yet but Timor-Leste has a side to be proud of, as Matthew Hall writes

In his own words, Alfredo Esteves lives a different reality to many of us and that’s not just because he’s a defender for Wollongong FC in the New South Wales Premier League, a regional competition in Australia. In 2008, as well as helping Wollongong win the championship, the 32-year-old lined up alongside Cristiano Ronaldo, Edgar Davids and Raúl in an All-Stars team selected by Luis Figo for a charity. That’s not the amazing part of the story, however.

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