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
The Archive
Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
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).
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?
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.
Tom Davies gives us our regular update on clubs in crisis
A huge debt to the Inland Revenue is hanging over the future of Grimsby Town, a now wearily familiar legacy of the ITV Digital collapse and some profligate spending in the late 1990s. The Mariners owe the taxman £700,000 and, as WSC went to press, the club were in final negotiations with the Revenue in a bid to find an acceptable repayment schedule. The League Two club have already had two such offers turned down this season, with Town chairman John Fenty complaining that the terms the IR were putting forward were unaffordable. Failure to reach agreement this time could land the club in administration.