Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Despite ultimately finishing runners-up, in Germany Uli Hesse-Lichtenberger witnessed a new generation of young fans who are happy to fly the national flag
On the early evening of Thursday, June 12, I was comfortably sitting at home in front of the computer, getting everything up and running because there are a few business things I have to attend to when the national team is playing. As they were doing at this moment in Vienna, against Croatia.
In Spain Phil Ball saw a traditionally divided country come together at last, in football terms at least
The world turned upside down – Spain the favourites to beat Germany in the final. Despite all evidence to the contrary, the ever-superstitious and pessimistic population, represented by its ever-pessimistic and superstitious popular press, were convinced that the Germans would still win. It was nonsense, but Spain needed a get-out clause. It is written into the constitution.
Dear WSC
I don’t normally read your magazine as I have no interest in football. However I wanted to read your article about Paul Gascoigne (Crying Shame, WSC 257) and found it very poignant. If I was in a position to help Mr Gascoigne (as obviously he needs this urgently), I would suggest he gets himself an allotment. It’s not as flippant a suggestion as it sounds. As long as he manages to avoid somewhere like Hampstead, he’ll find himself surrounded by solid, down-to-earth people, which is what he needs right now. He’ll be able to use his physical strength, which will be good for his mental health. He’ll be working outdoors and taking part in an activity that is so far removed from the fickle world of the sycophants that have helped drag him down it can only do him good. I hope I don’t sound too patronising, because I have his best interests at heart.
Victoria Lofas, Stockport
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.
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”.