Sorry, your browser is out of date. The content on this site will not work properly as a result.
Upgrade your browser for a faster, better, and safer web experience.

The Archive

Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.

 

Drop in the market

There has been little action in the transfer market, but young talent is a talking point

Anyone who has managed to stay awake while reading reports about Frank Lampard’s contractual wrangling may have noted a comment by his agent that negotiations with Chelsea been going on “for two years”. Nuclear non-proliferation treaties have been wrapped up quicker. So what have they been discussing for all this time?

Read more…

Irish union

Financial restraints are making the Irish leagues consider dramatic changes, writes Geoff Wallis

As AGMs go it was as cosy as they come when the Football Association of Ireland met in Castlebar, County Mayo, on July 26. Chief executive John Delaney reported a healthy increase in turnover, that financial plans were well in place to secure the FAI’s role when the rebuilt Lansdowne Road reopens in 2010, and that their assumption of control over the Eircom League had seen an aggregate attendance rise of 100,000 over the last year. That figure represents slightly more per game than the mere 320 who attended the 4‑0 victory by Waterford (Delaney’s local side) over Longford the previous night.

Read more…

Bristol Rovers, Southampton, Boston

There seems little sign of any good news for the clubs struggling financially, writes Tom Davies

When Bristol Rovers announced ambitious plans to redevelop the Memorial Ground in conjunction with a student flat development, it was hailed in many quarters as a model for similar sized clubs, but the £35 million project has hit the skids after the property company due to fund most of it pulled out.

Read more…

Back to business

Euro 2008 was a  success on the pitch, but off it, the quality of the media coverage was poor and appears stuck in the past

Euro 2008 will be remembered fondly, not just in Spain. There was a lot of good football as a series of teams discovered the virtues of positive play over cautiousness, and there was some glorious drama. Russia disappointed in the end, but were deserved semi-finalists. Turkey’s progress to the same stage was more remarkable; they ran out of luck while putting in their best performance, against Germany, but that 3-2 defeat was the most memorable of a series of fine games.

Read more…

Patriot games

Too many papers and websites were interested in everything but the teams actually playing at Euro 2008, Ian Plenderleith discovers

England may not have played any football at Euro 2008, but their representatives did them proud. The members of the media who travelled to Austria and Switzerland could not get England off their minds. The Independent’s Nick Townsend was so taken with the Germany v Portugal quarter-final that he wondered if there was “anyone sitting at home seriously bemoaning the fact that Becks and the boys were not there to enliven things”. Fuelled by the fresh Alpine air, he mused on how the atmosphere might have been sullied by England travelling “as always, not in hope but in a heady atmosphere of lager-fuelled, St George flag-strewn expectation”.

Read more…

Copyright © 1986 - 2025 When Saturday Comes LTD All Rights Reserved Website Design and Build C2