The Archive

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.

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The latest "new Maradona" is ready to fly the nest but, as Ben Collins asks, where will he land?

It was only a matter of time before Carlos Tevez left Argentina, especially after some spell-binding performances at last summer’s Olympics. However, the team that tempted the latest “new Maradona” away from Boca Juniors was not a star-studded Champions League regular, but Corinthians of Brazil; a fascinating choice for a number of reasons, not only because the US$22 million (£11.4m) transfer may have been instigated by a certain Russian billionaire.

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Brian Barwick is just getting settled at the FA HQ, so John Morgan has decided to find a little bit more about the man charged with managing English football

After the tabloid mishaps of Mark Palios’s tenure and the glitzy extravagance of Adam Crozier’s reign, the Football Association will hope that the appointment of Brian Barwick as chief executive heralds an era of quiet competence. But when Barwick moves into his office at Soho Square, the last thing he will find is quiet. As the FA come under increasing pressure over the next year, he may find that his main task is to justify the organisation’s very existence.

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The Vikings are leading the way in Europe: a new competition for the top teams in Denmark, Norway and Sweden is attracting plenty of interest, including from Margot Dunne

There is, as anyone who has ever witnessed the voting at the Eurovision Song Contest can tell you, a bond between Scandinavian countries born of more than a shared love of herrings, saunas and flat-pack furniture. It was perhaps inevitable that Norway, Swe­den and Denmark would sooner or later link their football together in some way as there have been mutterings about it for many years. Thus the formation of the Royal League (so named because the three nations are all monarchies) comes as no surprise. They are, after all, broadly similar countries whose football clubs face roughly the same problems.

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Milan Mandaric has taken Pompey to a crossroads – and while the club head in one direction, Harry Redknapp chooses another after this straggly defeat. David Stubbs reports

The first time I saw Portsmouth play was in the first game I ever attended – September 1971 at Hull City’s Boothferry Park, a post-holiday birthday treat en route back home from a drizzly week at the Golden Sands Chalet Park in Withernsea. Hull City won 3-1, I vividly recall, except that they didn’t – a check on Soccerbase has confirmed that my lifelong belief to that effect is erroneous. In fact, it was Pompey who won by the same score. Still, what has stuck is the allure of what was doubtless a dismal occasion for the reg­ulars. The combined stench of drifting cigarette smoke and fried onions acts like one of Proust’s cakes on me even now. I remember the bloke two rows down shouting “You Portsmouth pigs!” – the height of terrace in­vective to me. Mostly it was the floodlights that im­- ­pressed me: tall, imposing and HG Wellsian, they were like giant cyber-sentries from another world.

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