Wednesday 1 A David Bellion goal after 18 seconds is enough for Man Utd reserves to beat their counterparts from Arsenal in the Carling Cup. Liverpool also put out a shadow side, but still knock out Spurs on penalties after a 1-1 draw nicked through a Fredi Kanouté handball (“unforgivable” says Martin Jol) four minutes from the end of extra time.X
The Archive
Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Dynamo Kiev were blue, rivals Shakhtar Donetsk orange – simple enough, until recent political upheavals gave colours new meaning, as Dan Brennan explains
Sporting one’s colours is politically loaded business in Ukraine these days. Orange – the traditional colour of Shakhtar Donetsk – is also the colour of Viktor Yushchenko, the pro-Western presidential candidate, who defied a dodgy first ballot and an alleged attempt to poison him to gain power in December at the second time of asking. Meanwhile, his opponent, current prime minister Viktor Yanukovich – the man endorsed by Moscow and outgoing president Leonid Kuchma – opted for blue, the colour of Dynamo Kiev.
Dear WSC
Is anyone else irritated by the increasing tendency of radio and TV commentators to refer to a shot hitting “the frame of the goal” or, even worse, “the frame of the goals”? How many sets of goals do they think the attacker is shooting at? Commentators should drop these expressions ad return to using post, bar or, where appropriate, the nicely precise “angle of post and bar”.
John Perry, Chelmsford
Mike Ticher recalls Arsenal's first championship – the same season that saw Manchester Utd relegated
The long-term significance
Arsenal’s first League title (and the first by any southern club) set them on their way to their domination of the 1930s. The previous year’s FA Cup final victory over manager Herbert Chapman’s old club, Huddersfield, was neatly symbolic, but the championship cemented the north Londoners’ arrival. It had taken Chapman six years to win it, but then the floodgates opened, with three in a row from 1933-35, another in 1938 and a second Cup win in 1936 – though he didn’t live to see most of the silverware, having died in 1934.
Fewer mistakes or free-flowing football? Choosing the lesser of two evils is the problem
In the days when there were only three UK television channels, science programmes often sought to predict what technological innovations might be commonplace by the start of the 21st century. There would be commercial flights to the moon, robots would do domestic chores in suburban homes and technology would be used for decisions in football matches. The first two seem as far off as ever but finally, the third, long a favourite hobby horse of that emperor of pundits, Jimmy Hill, is going to happen.