Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
The Homeless World Cup, held this year in the streets of Edinburgh, plays a valuable social role for its participants, as Dianne Millen reports
“Scotland To Face Italy in Semi-finals!” Not the most plausible of footballing headlines, you might think. But Scotland’s national team of homeless players did indeed reach the last four of the recent 3rd Homeless World Cup although they ultimately failed to overcome the eventual tournament winners.
John Chapman recounts the year Wigan Athletic won promotion via the ballot box
The long-term significance
Before 2004-05, this was the last time Wigan Athletic finished second in their league. Like last season they went up, but on this occasion the champions didn’t. Despite winning their fourth title in six years, Boston United’s ground was failed by the Football League inspectors, just four years after it had hosted Derby County and 11,000 spectators. So Wigan, 12 months after their worst ever season but on the back of a good FA Cup run, got put forward for election to the League. After tying 26 votes all with Southport in the first ballot, they won the second 29-20. They were to be the last side promoted to the league in this way.
There is a world outside of FIFA. Steve Menary reports on plans for a world cup of "non-countries"
The breakaway republic of Northern Cyprus is set to host the first ever world cup for nations that don’t exist. Recognised only by Turkey, which invaded the Mediterranean island in 1974, Northern Cyprus will host the 16-team Viva World Cup in November 2006.
Ian Plenderleith finds a Bob Paisley site that eloquently describes one legend’s achievements and a Brian Clough site that allows another to speak for himself. But the managers of today have a poor spokesman
In Germany, the man named as a club’s manager actually manages a team, while the coach is the coach. In the UK, it’s the manager who coaches, while the coach nods and hands out the training bibs. The traditional workplace definition of “manager” as a dour, incommunicative bloke with no personality doesn’t apply to domestic football (Kenny Dalglish aside), which makes it surprising that there are thousands of sites devoted to players, but very few to managers.
The murder of Davor Suker’s business partner last month has thrown the spotlight on a web of intensive wheeler-dealing within the game, as Jules Brandon explains
Davor Suker, once of Real Madrid, Arsenal and West Ham, has made front page news in his native Croatia recently but not for footballing reasons. In the early morning of June 11, Suker’s business partner, Dino Pokrovac, 43, who represented more than a dozen Croatian players, was shot several times at the entrance to his apartment in the affluent Zagreb suburb of Sigecica. Evidence at the scene suggested that the murder had been meticulously planned and the general belief is that it must have been football-related. A wallet that Pokrovac always carried with him, said to contain the names and addresses of his many debtors, was stolen. According to police reports, the debtors owed the deceased various amounts up to several hundred thousand euros. Suker, who flew in from London to be questioned for three hours the day after the murder, is among 20 people to have been interviewed so far.