Dear WSC
The theme of recent letters regarding the playing of ironic music after games reminds me of when Brentford started playing Suicide is Painless at the end of home defeats a couple of years ago. I can’t remember if it was the original Mandel/Altman version or the Manics’ cover, but the experiment ended as the team set about achieving a humiliating relegation to the bottom division.
Alan Housden
The Archive
Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Their 1990 victory over Austria traumatised the opposition and the Faroese have been reopening old wounds, reports Paul Joyce
The Faroes’ first competitive international, on September 12, 1990, has passed into football folklore. As none of the 18 islands that comprise the North Atlantic archipelago had a suitable grass pitch, their opening Euro 92 qualifier took place in Landskrona, Sweden. Their opponents, an Austria side that had just played at Italia 90, were so dismissive of the Faroese amateurs that striker Toni Polster predicted a 10‑0 landslide. The Austrians even cancelled their final training and went to watch Denmark play Wales in Copenhagen.
Media reaction to the violence that followed the north-east derby
In the aftermath of crowd trouble at the Stadium of Light following Sunderland’s derby win over Newcastle on October 25, the comments made by Northumbria police were at distinct odds with the majority of press reaction. There were 29 arrests on the day, 11 of which were prompted by a pitch invasion at the final whistle. A police spokesman said that more arrests would follow based on CCTV evidence, suggested that drunkenness played a major role in the disturbances and expressed concerns about behaviour outside the ground. He believed the pitch invasion was not premeditated violence but a “spontaneous celebration which spilt over into confrontation”.
AC Milan looked to Sweden for inspiration and three players came to help them lift the title, by Luca Ferrato
The long-term significance
Most of the foreign footballers in Italy in the 1930s had come from South America, often from migrant backgrounds that enabled them to be selected for the national team. After the war clubs widened their search for playing talent, notably into eastern Europe and Scandinavia. In 1950-51 Serie A featured nine players from Denmark and 13 from Sweden. Seven of the latter had been gold medallists at the 1948 Olympics, including a trio who went on to play for AC Milan: midfielders Gunnar Gren and Nils Liedholm plus striker Gunnar Nordahl. Often referred to collectively as “Gre-No-Li”, these three were to play key roles in Milan’s title, the club’s first since before the foundation of city rivals Internazionale in 1908. Liedholm and Nordahl had previously played under Milan’s Hungarian coach Lajos Czeizler when he was in charge of their Swedish side, IFK Norrköping.
Chelsea's money has raised standards, but has it put other clubs' finances under pressure?
Many people in Britain hold ceremonial titles, positions of office that sound grand but involve no real responsibilities. The Queen Mother used to be Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, which once involved collecting taxes and dealing with criminals in five towns on the south coast, while the actress Penelope Keith was similarly honoured with the title of High Sheriff of Surrey. Another such position is the chairman of Chelsea Football Club. This post is wholly meaningless, because all power in the club is invested in their billionaire owner, who can do what he pleases, when he pleases, with no constraints on the amount of money he chooses to spend and no requirement to justify any of his actions. The chairman’s role is simply to pretend to the world that Chelsea function like any other club, with a limit on their purchasing power and a long-term business plan.