The Archive

Referees seek respect with the help of the FA's new season guidelines

Every football season begins with a “clampdown”. Traditionally this involves new FA directives intended to punish foul play accompanied by a healthy dose of moral hysteria about the state of game. On the pitch, referees attempt to implement the new rules, producing a spate of early bookings and a subsequent outcry from managers. Match officials feel the need to loosen their interpretation of the new disciplinary regime a little, often after a meeting with managers at which “robust views” are exchanged. We end up roughly back to how things were before, except that at least one match official will have been maligned in highly personal terms.

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Cameron Carter casts his eye over the BBC's football presenters

With no summer tournament as a distraction the new season has been a long wait for all of us. Even so, it is still irritating of Gary Lineker to preface each Match of the Day with a promise of “enthralling” games and “high drama”, as if a significant amount of those watching were still debating whether to commit to the whole programme. Match of the Day is one of the few commodities left, along with milk and weapons-grade uranium, that does not require a hard sell. Lineker is dangerously close these days to resembling the kind of schoolboy no one ever liked until his parents invited all the neighbourhood kids to his birthday party with a bouncy castle (symbolically, Lineker’s 1986 World Cup goals) and a chocolate fountain (the 1990 World Cup goals). This makes the boy popular for a while, but not, as he mistakenly believes, forever. In other words, we’re not actually winking back at you, Gary.

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In southern Spain, former England manager Glenn Hoddle is rebuilding the careers of young players. Steve Wilson reports

It would be understandable for the players of Notts County to be pinching themselves at the thought of pre-season under the guidance of Sven-Göran Eriksson. The chance to work with a former England manager, despite career paths that appeared to have closed off such a possibility, might appear unique to them. Elsewhere, however, the same, equally unexpected opportunity has befallen another set of hopefuls. At least four of whom would give glowing reports as to the redemptive qualities such an experience brings.

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Al Needham remembers a time when foreign clubs, footballers and national sides were a complete – and enjoyable ‘ mystery

We live in a world where (barring the news, and even only every now and again) we are devoid of surprises. We hear singles on the radio months before they’re released, which go straight to No 1 and immediately fizzle down the charts. We download films and American TV shows half a year before they come out over here. By the time a video-game comes out, anyone remotely interested in it knows what it looks like, how it sounds, what you have to do in the final level and how to cheat at it.

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Barcelona turn up with barely a first-teamer in their ranks, Celtic show off a new away shirt, Spurs struggle in their latest kit abomination, while Al-Ahly make up the numbers. Taylor Parkes welcomes you to the Wembley Cup, summer's latest soporific pre-season tournament

The English summer: airless buses, flies in the wheelie-bin and pre-season tournaments we'll never, ever forget. It's that time of year again (this morning was so summery, a hailstorm set off all the car alarms down my street), so it's off to the Wembley Cup, a star-studded spectacular in the grand tradition of the Araldite Trophy, the Dr Pepper World Shield and the All-England Esso Bauble, or whatever the hell they were called.

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