The Archive

Four goals in his first nine Cardiff games have revived the stock of a player who had seemed to be just a momentary over-achiever. Helen Duff investigates

Sod’s law: it’s never the players we want to hear more from who develop a taste for confession. Most of us could die happy if we never had to read any more of David Beckham’s over-publicised disclosures, but – conversely – would love to know what goes on inside the heads of those whose form is so bafflingly inconsistent it must have a root in their psyches.

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There’s nothing wrong with living in the past: the oldest clubs in England, Scotland and Wales are justly proud of their heritage. But, writes Ian Plenderleith, they can’t agree on who invented the crossbar

Fancy boasting that you’re in the same club as Sepp Blatter and Sven-Göran Eriksson? No, it’s not GOAL (the Grand Order of Ageing Lotharios), but the world’s oldest football club, Sheffield FC, founded in 1857 and still very much proud of the fact. And for £2.50 a month you can boast not just an enamel badge and four free tickets to a North Counties East Football League game of your choice, but fellow membership alongside the game’s balding but well tanned elder statesmen.

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With the launch of the new A-League and a looming World Cup play-off, the game could be on the verge of a major breakthrough – or perhaps not. Mike Ticher reports

September is the biggest month for football in Australia, though not usually the round-ball version. So it took a certain amount of chutzpah for the promoters of the new A-League to launch it just as the climax of the Australian rules and rugby league seasons were dominating the sports pages. On the other hand, it had been 17 months since the last gasp of the old National Soccer League, so perhaps there was little to be gained by waiting any longer. After the first few weeks of the eight-team league there is some cause for optimism, but still plenty of doubts.

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Roger Titford takes us back to a time before the days of Sky, the offside rule and the prawn sandwich brigade, to the inaugural League season, when Preston North End reigned supreme

The long-term significance
On April 17, 1888, the Football League was founded as the first professional league in the world. So obviously a powerful idea, its first imitator, the Combination, was launched only 10 days later. The League set the template for such structures all around the world for a century or more.

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Dear WSC
Harry Pearson’s review of Farewell But Not Goodbye (WSC 224) is to be applauded for refraining from trotting out the usual platitudes when the words “Sir Bobby Robson”, “beloved” and “Newcastle United” appear anywhere near each other. While there is no doubt Robson is, and always has been, a Newcastle fan, unlike others who jump on and off the black ’n’ white bandwagon, the fact is that he turned down the chance to manage Newcastle at least five times. Indeed, he even refused to come to Newcastle when his Barcelona job title was the equivalent of dogsbody. What might have been achieved had he jumped at his “dream job” when first offered is a matter of great debate on Tyneside. There is absolutely no argument that he pulled Newcastle back from the brink and for a while established us as a major European force. However, it should not be forgotten that Sir Bobby was given the chance to work at Newcastle despite his reluctance to do so several times earlier.
Alistair WS Murray, Newcastle Upon Tyne

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