The Archive

The decline of three o’clock Saturday football has claimed another victim, to Peter McParlin’s regret

On Saturday December 17, 2005, 110 years of Tyneside tradition came to an end when the last edition of The Pink, the Saturday evening results paper published by the Newcastle Evening Chronicle since 1895, rolled off the presses. The paper has become obsolete in an age when mobile phones can deliver instant goal alerts from hundreds of miles away. Who needs a late edition for the results when that little piece of gadgetry in your pocket can even replay the goals on its mini LCD screen? But to those of us of a certain age, new technology can never replace what The Pink, and its like elsewhere in the country, used to add to Saturday nights.

Read more…

A new generation of football magazines has appeared in Europe of late, breaking the monopoly of established, establishment titles. The first of an occasional series looks at the subversion and humour attracting readers in France. Neil McCarthy reports

Publishing its 30th monthly edition in January 2006, S0 Foot is becoming firmly established as France’s main alternative football magazine with a print run of 80,000 and an estimated readership of more than 200,000. It’s not a mean feat, considering that French football is already largely covered by three mammoths: the daily L’Equipe, its bi-weekly stable mate, France Football, and the monthly Onze Mondial. L’Equipe and France Football both celebrate their 60th birthdays this year and Onze Mondial, France’s equivalent of Shoot!, its 30th.

Read more…

A new generation of football magazines has appeared in Europe of late, breaking the monopoly of established, establishment titles. The first of an occasional series looks at the subversion and humour attracting readers in Germany. Philipp Koster reports

The magazine (literally 11 friends) began in April 2000 with a print run of 2,500. There was no marketing department or organised distribution, just two Arminia Bielefeld fans with the desire to produce magazines. Before that we’d had a small fanzine called Um halb vier war die Welt noch in Ordnung (At half three the world was still OK) – and noticed that supporters liked a certain type of writing: ironic and critical of the growing commercialisation of football. We naturally thought that these fans needed a national voice.

Read more…

While a site devoted to the football itself may be the best new discovery, Ian Plenderleith finds himself strangely drawn to the world of groundsmen by memories of a difficult career choice

It’s often been said that 90 per cent of the internet is a load of balls, but the “site of the month” award goes to a domain that has taken this to new and detailed extremes. Soccer Ball World is a football anorak’s long wet dream of history, stats and specifications centred around just one spherical object.

Read more…

Imagine if Roman Abramovich didn’t just own Chelsea but insisted on playing for them. A 58-year-old compatriot does just that back home, writes Dan Brennan

Picture the scene: on a sub-zero Saturday afternoon, in the Russian Republic of Udmurtia, 1,000km east of Moscow, Gazovik-Gazprom Izhevsk are leading 2-1 at home to Neftekhimik in the final game of the Russian Division Two (Urals-Volga region) season. Then, in the 35th minute, a familiar refrain booms out over the PA system: “Tumaev is entering the pitch!” Ten minutes later Gaz-Gaz are awarded a penalty. Vladimir Tumaev steps up and misses, but seconds later he makes amends, firing home a shot from the edge of the area and his team eventually win the match 3-2. It was Tumaev’s ninth goal in almost 150 competitive matches for Gaz-Gaz. Not a great average for a centre-forward. But then, these days, the 58-year-old’s appearances are generally restricted to cameos from the bench. And nobody is going to drop him – he owns the club.

Read more…