Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Matt Barker reports on why Italy's youngsters are so good
Italy’s Under-21s – the Azzurrini – have dominated the junior-level European Championship since winning their first title in 1992. Under Cesare Maldini’s ten-year stewardship, a succession of sides won three titles on the trot (in total the Italians have triumphed in five of the last seven tournaments), blooding an impressive turnover of players, from Demetrio Albertini and Francesco Toldo, to Fabio Cannavaro and Francesco Totti.
It may have been minus ten in August, but things are warming up at Millmoor. Slowly, the South Yorkshire club are adjusting to life without a managerial legend. Is the same true for the visitors? Pete Green investigates
It is a bore to draw parallels between football and love affairs. Too many tiresome blogs talk about the magic having gone, the need to rekindle the spark, and flirtations with other clubs. But if every cliche hides a kernel of truth then maybe this one tells us something about management, because the longer a manager has been in charge, the longer it seems to take the club to get over it once the record collection is divided up.
Being dismissed by Brian Clough did as much harm to Harlow Town as it had done to Jan Tomaszewski. Jon Spurling recalls the Essex club's FA Cup heyday – and decline
With its modish housing estates, flourishing light industries, new-fangled dry‑ski slope, award-winning Henry Moore sculpture on the walk into the town centre and upwardly mobile football club, a 1980 government white paper cited Harlow as “one of the main successes of the New Town programme”. Twenty-three years on, the “chronically underfunded” town with its “shabby” housing estates was in serious trouble. Local youths had removed the head from one of the figures in the Moore sculpture and the ski slope was dismantled. Harlow Town FC had also fallen into serious decline; their Sportcentre ground was ramshackle and decent players were prised away by rival clubs. Rarely had the fortunes of a town and its football club been so tightly entwined.
The Spanish aren't happy, but UEFA could soon have another member if the British territory can see off some last-minute objections. Tim Stannard reports from the sunny Mediterranean
The British territory of Gibraltar is famous for a number of things – purse-snatching monkeys, tax-dodging businessmen and a giant rock, for starters – but certainly not football. All that is about to change, as UEFA are on the brink of making the pint-sized peninsula their 53rd member, enabling a team to join the 2010 World Cup qualifying campaign.
Ian Plenderleith enjoys mascots as much as the next man – as long as the next man isn't intent on practising his best costume-related moves in front of the mirror while concentrating on "the three Es"
There are a few cardinal rules for club mascots. They must be smiling, at all times. Their names must be alliterated or rhyming, like Donny the Dog or Scunny Bunny. And, in theory, they should have some sort of historical connection to the team they represent. A website that shows several dozen English club mascots on one page has, however, revealed the scandalous truth that most clubs are breaking at least one, if not all three, of these basic good-luck guidelines.