Sorry, your browser is out of date. The content on this site will not work properly as a result.
Upgrade your browser for a faster, better, and safer web experience.

The Archive

Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.

 

Letters, WSC 219

Dear WSC
While listening to Alan Green’s Five Live commentary on Chelsea’s game with Barcelona I was struck by the big Ulsterman’s remarkable similarity to the voice of Shaggy from Scooby Doo at excitable moments. Have any other readers noticed similarities between commentators and their cartoon characters? I’ll certainly be keeping an ear open for it in future.
Steve Morgan, Kingston

Read more…

Southern League Division 1, 1900-01

James Medhurst takes us back to the turn of the century when the Southern League was teaching the Football League a thing or two

The long-term significance
This was the peak season of the Southern League as a credible competitor to the Football League, characterised by Tottenham’s success in winning the FA Cup, the only non-League side to do so since 1888. The strength of the eventual champions, Southampton, was also demonstrated by an England international against Ireland at The Dell, featuring three Saints players, plus one each from Bristol City and Millwall, a record Southern League contribution to the national team. However, it was also the beginning of the end, as second-placed City successfully applied to join the Football League, to be followed in later years by Spurs and Fulham. In 1920, the top division of the Southern League was swallowed up, as Division Three (South).

Read more…

Fighting talk

The scuffle at St James' Park was anything but savoury, but let's not get carried away

If you look outside for a moment, it’s likely that the streets will be awash with children scrapping with each other in imitation of the fight broadcast from St James’ Park on April 2. Some will be pretending to be Lee Bowyer or Kieron Dyer, others will have been assigned the roles of peacekeeper Gareth Barry and bystander Lee Hendrie. Who knows where it may lead? When will footballers realise that they are role models whose every action, however stupid, will likely be mirrored by impressionable youngsters?

Read more…

Complex issue

According to Gavin Willacy, Wembley isn't the FA's only major project not going to plan

Most of the Football Association’s many problems at present are dealt with on the back pages. But one major story has slipped through the net. The new Wembley has been beset by industrial action, financial difficulties and schedule set-backs, but these have been forgiven by everyone who catches a breath-taking glimpse of it taking shape.

Read more…

Feet of engineering

Are self-deprecation and sexual repression at the heart of English football? Harry Pearson thinks it may be so

The English are routinely disparaging about English football. Part of it is frustration at years of failure, but mainly it is a way of distancing ourselves from other English people. Our ancestors long ago perfected the art of self-deprecation once removed. When the English speak of the English they are not speaking of themselves but of, you know, those other “typical” English people. Thus when an English person says that “the English are sexually repressed”, what they are actually telling you is: “I am not sexually repressed.”

Read more…

Copyright © 1986 - 2025 When Saturday Comes LTD All Rights Reserved Website Design and Build C2