Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Neil Forsyth, like millions of Scots, is still pinching himself after James McFadden’s winner in Paris gave the team a sight of Euro 2008. What will Berti Vogts make of it?
Before the memorable night of September 12, Scotland’s last visit to play France in Paris had been a friendly in March 2002. That was the first game in charge of Scotland for Berti Vogts.
Walking to the ground is not only a traditional part of the matchday experience, it’s good for you, too. Strangely, it’s becoming much more difficult to achieve. Pete Green reports
“The pedestrian remains the largest single obstacle to free traffic movement,” said a Los Angeles planning report in the 1960s. Four decades and billions of tonnes of carbon emissions later, some UK planners are seeing the light and pedestrian access figures increasingly in new developments. Except for football stadiums, that is – where careless designs and cheap locations threaten to make walking to the match a thing of the past.
Or, the mysterious case of the grandmother killer. But Stephen Ireland’s ever-changing excuses for pulling out of a game in Prague finally arrived at a genuine personal tragedy. Pat Daly reports
“So how did you feel when you found out you were dead?” That’s how the RTE radio host began his interview with Patricia Tallon, whose sudden demise had forced her grandson, Stephen Ireland, to withdraw from the Republic of Ireland squad on the eve of last month’s match in the Czech Republic. “Oh, it was an awful shock,” answered Tallon, who, careful readers will have deduced, wasn’t dead at all.
The Euro 2008 qualifiers between Armenia and Azerbaijan will remain pointless and unplayed. No one comes out of the affair well, including UEFA, as Dan Brennan explains
The decision by UEFA, after 18 months of bureaucratic fudge, to cancel September’s double-header between Azerbaijan and Armenia was depressing on all fronts. Depressing because it underlined that, over a decade after a ceasefire officially ended armed conflict between the two countries, they still can’t agree on anything. Depressing, too, because of the failure on UEFA’s part to act swiftly to resolve a situation where alternatives were available.
It may not be the best phrase to use around QPR, but “trigger happy” describes Milan Mandaric’s attitude to managers at Leicester. How will new boss Gary Megson fare against another man in the firing line, wonders Al Needham?
Leicester is a strange city. It’s actually the biggest in the east midlands, but it keeps it quiet. Until recently, the airport within its boundaries was called Nottingham East Midlands. It’s got a National Space Centre for no discernable reason whatsoever (unless they knitted a jumper for Neil Armstrong, or supplied NASA with space crisps) and, when you make the horribly long walk from the station to Walkers Stadium, you could swear blind you were in a rugby town. You spend most of the journey on Tigers Way (the part of the A594 dedicated to the local egg-chasers), craning your neck to see if there’s anyone in blue shirts ahead of you, and that you’re actually going in the right direction and the game is actually on.