Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
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.
Dear WSC
I drove my family to Cardiff for the Championship play-off final, although I wasn’t going to the match. As a gnarled veteran of 35 years of away trips and big games, I planned my campaign with meticulous detail, with five separate contingency routes. It goes without saying that I totally ignored the official travel suggestions, while I treated the soothing advice of my friends who are Cardiff residents with amused, patronising disdain. Travelling football fans are deprived of their human rights as martial law is imposed for the duration and I’m the only man who can save us. What I experienced was a masterclass in football event management. I dropped them off 400 yards from the stadium and drove back later to collect them. There were orderly queues with fans from both teams mingling. Publicans had got together to designate certain pubs for West Ham or Preston fans. Not a single window was boarded up. Food and drink were at reasonable prices. Local residents could finish their shopping and catch their trains. Travel routes were clearly signposted. Stewards asked people if they wanted help. On the radio on the way home, the delays to Wembley stadium were being airbrushed out of existence by the builder’s spokesperson. There were no problems, it would just take two months to “hand the project over” (surely, uh, it’s the stadium, yes, the one over there…). I’ve always been a staunch supporter of Wembley; football needs its own home, yes the old facilities were crud and the transport diabolical, but the atmosphere made it all worthwhile. Suddenly that’s just not enough. After Cardiff, the new Wembley has lot to live up to and I fear that too much time and energy has gone into seductive architecture at the expense of the simple things that enable football people to have a good time. Prove me wrong, or else take us back to Cardiff.
Alan Fisher, Tonbridge
Everton took home the spoils a year previous but 1985-86 was to be Liverpool's season as Graham Hughes recalls
The long-term significance
1985-86 was the first of five consecutive seasons in which English clubs would be banned from European competitions, in the wake of the Heysel disaster at the end of the previous season. The Bradford fire was also fresh in people’s minds and, with politicians and club chairmen threatening a host of draconian measures to combat hooliganism, English football went into the new season in a decidedly sober and chastened mood.