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When Saturday Comes The half decent football magazine

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The Archive

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

Draw to a close

Andrew Ward tells the story of the 1971 FA Cup tie between Alvechurch and Oxford City, which remains the longest match in the competition’s history

Forty years ago, in November 1971, Alvechurch and Oxford City played six matches in 17 days to decide an FA Cup tie. It was more a World Series than sudden-death. At Villa Park, at the end of the fifth replay, Aston Villa chairman Doug Ellis poured champagne for all the players, to celebrate their entry into the Guinness Book of Records. The record will never be broken.

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011 - The Archive

Unqualified success

Ronnie Esplin relfects on an encouraging Euro 2012 campaign for Craig Levein’s Scotland

Craig Levein sat defiantly in the basement of the Estadio José Rico Pérez in Alicante on October 11, following Scotland’s Euro 2012 qualifier defeat by Spain, and told the media the future of the national team was bright. The manager bullishly claimed his side had “improved enormously in the last year” and looked forward to building on that for the 2014 World Cup qualification campaign.

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011 - The Archive

Parental guidance

Damon Green warns that sparing your kids when choosing their team will only spoil their heritage

A colleague at work, drawn and tired, complained to me recently that he doesn’t want his son to grow up supporting his team. Their performances have been so shameful and the management of the club has been so dire that he would be ashamed to pass on such a legacy. I looked at him for a second, then laughed in his face. He supports Arsenal.

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011 - The Archive

Complex issues

Adam Bushby and Rob MacDonald discuss Manchester City’s proposed new youth facility

Manchester City’s application for a new youth academy and training facility, covering 80 acres and set to cost £100 million, will be considered by the city council on December 22. It is perhaps the most audacious of the various methods by which clubs have sought to emulate Barcelona’s La Masia academy. While the latter has evolved – it moved to a new location on June 30 as Masia-Centre de Formació Oriol Tort – and facilities all over the world have been refurbished and updated piecemeal, City are the only club attempting to drop an entire state-of-the-art complex on top of an already successful academy.

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011 - The Archive

Live and kicking

A pub landlady’s legal victory over the Premier League could be good news for all concerned, but we shouldn’t worry too much about negative consequences for Sky, claims David Harrison

Once the knee-jerk media response to the recent ruling on EU televised football rights died down, we were left with a commodity notably lacking during the broadcasts in question – silence. Predictably lazy images – grinning pub landlady pulls celebratory pints in Southsea boozer – were duly filed below celebratory headlines proclaiming Karen Murphy’s “victory” in the European Court of Justice. Well, possibly.

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011 - The Archive

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