The Archive

Northern Ireland’s shock victory over England was a welcome tonic on and off the pitch, as Robbie Meredith reports

Strange as it seems now, the visit of England to Windsor Park wasn’t originally particularly important. Sure, it was a rare chance for us to ogle at the Team England circus and gain some attention from Motty, Wrighty and… um… Woolnoughy, but many Northern Ireland supporters initially viewed the Azerbaijan match the preceding Saturday as more vital. It was a realistic chance to pick up a rare win, whereas most of us assumed that England would stroll into town, patronise us with a load of guff about how they expected a tough contest, then cuff us with relative ease. 

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The success of players such as Michael Chopra and Zesh Rehman may be an advance on the position ten years ago but, Steve Wilson writes, this is not enough and those behind a new report – Asians Can Play Football – are challenging the game to reform

On the day in September when Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, warned that “we are sleepwalking our way into segregation” and Home Secretary Charles Clarke outlined his “commission on integration” to combat anti-Islamic feelings in the wake of the July London bombings, a group of Asian football fans were lamenting a wasted decade for the advancement of British Asian footballers and challenging the football authorities to back up good intentions with the resources and actions needed to foster genuine change.

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Two sides that met in the Premiership in 2001 are in the Championship’s bottom half and selling key players isn’t the way to get back to the play-offs writes Al Needham. Cue protests…

X On the face of it, laughing openly at the home team’s protest against their board while sitting in their end isn’t the prudent thing to do. “PLEASE HOLD THIS BANNER UP AS THE PLAYERS GO INTO THE HUDDLE BEFORE THE GAME, AND THEN AFTER THE FINAL WHISTLE,” it says. In actual fact, it is a sheet of A4 that looks as if it has been run through an office photocopier and I spend a good ten minutes arguing the toss with it.

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Few players have made more impressive starts at a club than scoring 30 goals in half a season; few have then done less to earn their wages, writes Gordon Cairns

Marco Negri’s four years at Glasgow Rangers is one of the strangest episodes in the club’s history. Signed from Perugia for £3.5 million, the Italian striker scored 30 goals before Christmas in 1997-98, then barely made another appearance as he saw out the remainder of his four-year, £18,000-a-week contract.

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The world’s largest continent wants a World Cup and to end European football’s colonialism. Matthew Hall reports from the latest FIFA congress on Asia’s big plans

“Thank you and enjoy your dessert,” said Youssou N’Dour, the Senegalese music star as he ended his performance at FIFA’s 55th congress in Marrakech in September. N’Dour was the musical entertainment during the “gala dinner”, an opportunity to hit the trough with 600 people from every country on Earth (except Yemen, suspended, and Libya, who got lost on the way, apparently).

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