The Archive

The FA Cup final should be back at Wembley in May, but what was once the English game’s great showpiece is now almost a sideshow, argues Jon Spurling

On the eve of Leeds United’s defeat of Arsenal in the 1972 FA Cup final, captain Billy Bremner said: “I’ve won a Championship medal, a European medal and countless Scotland caps, but sometimes I think I’d swap the lot for an FA Cup winners’ medal.” A few hours later, Bremner professed delight “with my new prized possession”. How attitudes have changed. In his autobiography, Roy Keane described the showpiece occasion as “little more than an afterthought”, and Patrick Vieira admitted that Arsenal’s triumph in the 2005 final “can’t possibly make up for the disappointment of losing the league crown”.

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Few countries were as desperate for a lift from the World Cup as Trinidad & Tobago, whose team provided some much needed national unity, as Mike Woitalla explains

XTrinidad & Tobago defender Marvin Andrews was 12 years old the last time his country came close to qualifying for a first World Cup. The Caribbean twin-island nation needed to draw against the United States in Port of Spain on November 19, 1989. Dwight Yorke, who had turned 18 two weeks earlier, started in midfield. Schools lifted their dress codes so the children could honour “Red Day”. The 30,000-strong crowd at Hasely Crawford Stadium looked like a scarlet blanket. Calypso bands played tunes about going to Italy. The Mighty Sparrow sang: “I never know Trini did love football so.” Lincoln Phillips, a former T&T national team goalkeeper, said: “It’s crazy. It’s the first time in the history of the country that everybody has gotten behind one thing.”

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The problem with a campaign to clean up sport's governing bodies is knowing where to start, as Steve Menary reports

Anti-corruption coalition Transparency International has put together guidelines aimed at stamping out corruption in international sport, including football.

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With a new ground, booming crowds and one of the game's cult heroes in phenomenal striking form, Swansea fans aredreaming of the Toshack era writes Huw Richards

SPRE – the letters visible on seats behind the North Stand goal at Liberty Stadium, indicative not of the efforts of a dyslexic Roman signwriter but what happens when the OSPREYS branding of Swansea City’s rugby-playing co-tenants is partially obscured.They are conspicuous not only for their location, but for being just about the only untenanted seats in the stadium. A crowd of 19,288 is Swansea’s largest since Liverpool visited the Vetch Field for a First Division match in September 1982.

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The player's personal website: a wonderful way for starrs to keep in touch with their fans, or gigantic ego-trips by names big and small wth nothing worth saying? Ian Plenderleith examines the evidence

If footballers have anything of interest to say nowadays, they tend to keep it to themselves, or they save it for their post-retirement, tell-all memoirs. In the meantime, they offload their mental leftovers on to the internet. This month’s column takes you on a whistle-stop tour of players’ online diaries to save you the trouble of surfing the net for trite nothings.

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