Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
England may have failed to live up to the promise of September 1, 2001, but as Pete Green will tell you the slide from a rare high has been even worse for Grimsby
In 2001 Grimsby Town were a second-flight football team and binge drinking was called “going out”. Quite a few England fans probably indulged in that pastime after the 5-1 win in Germany on September 1. So imagine the double hangover that awaited Town supporters as their side chose the same day to move top of the Football League.
While most of the country was focused on the climax to the football season, some, as always, were seeking to exploit the game for political gain, writes Barney Ronay
Last month a survey named Wayne Rooney as the number-one choice among children under 13 for prime minister – narrowly edging out Harry Potter and Charlie from the defunct boy band Busted. News of Rooney’s popularity will surely have made waves among the image handlers and style technicians in Whitehall. At some point in the run-up to the general election a process of Wayne-ing up of the Prime Minister will have been tentatively focus-grouped; the potential pull of the retrosexual number-three crop debated; and yak fur Wellington boots with matching, custard-coloured gilet ordered in Cherie’s size.
Spam email often claims that it can help with feelings of inadequacy, but Ian Plenderleith is using the internet to make up for sortcomings he's been feeling for 27 years now: in his Panini collections
When Panini fever hit my school in the late 1970s, I couldn’t run with the pack. A search of my closet reveals the sad truth that for the two years I was an active collector, I fell short every time – 21 stickers shy of a full Euro Football album and nine too few for a total Football 78. Meanwhile the huge gaps in World Cup 78 and Football 79 reveal a young teenager tiring of the pre-pubescent norms and possibly collecting pictures of a different nature altogether.
Dan Brennan reports on the fall of a Soviet-era bureaucrat and rise of a new national coach, as Russians stage football revolutions at home as well as at Stamford Bridge
This spring a wind of change is sweeping through the dusty corridors at the top of Russian football. On April 2, Vitaly Mutko replaced Vyacheslav Koloskov, president of the Russian Football Union, who reigned, seemingly untouchably, over the Russian and Soviet game for a quarter of a century.
Dear WSC
After reading Ian Plenderleith’s web review (WSC 219), I immediately logged onto www.standupsitdown.co.uk to add my support to a cause very close to my heart. Growing up on the Shelf at White Hart Lane, I eventually reached the age and height to leave my half milk crate at home and stand at the back and sing with the “Tottenham boys” I had idolised for so long. Then to my utter disgust the bastards made the last remaining terrace at the Lane all-seated. I am now one of the few season-ticket holders who stand in front of my seat where the Shelf once was and add my vocal support to the Park Lane’s efforts (still a lame substitute for jumping up and down on the terraces). But, not content with destroying a piece of my childhood, Spurs now seem intent on making me sit on my uncomfortable piece of Sky-sponsored blue plastic. Stewards are randomly throwing out the most vocal following because they won’t sit down. Health-and-safety jargon is boomed out of the jumbotron screens at half time, cheesily complemented by a James anthem telling Spurs fans to “all sit down”. Fans of other clubs from all over the country seem to be experiencing the same problem. As much as I love the “sit down stand up” campaign, we really don’t stand a chance against the advertising machines that once used be our clubs. I can’t see them forking out millions to change the seating areas back into safe terracing and then having to charge less for tickets.
Martin Gowers, via email