Sunday 1 Mark Palios resigns, saying: “My action is essential to enable the Football Association to begin to return to normality.” Sven gossip-broker Colin Gibson is also reported to have offered to quit. At this rate Tord Grip will soon be answering the phones.
The Archive
Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Dear WSC
I’m sure this is very old hat and we’re just being ignorant, but in a recent pub conversation I asked a Brighton fan which team Charlie Oatway was named after. He had no idea. Oatway does indeed have 11 first names. It’s presumably a 1970s outfit, but we couldn’t get past the goalie, Anthony. The rest is Philip David Terry Frank Donald Stanley Gerry Gordon Stephen James Oatway. Can anyone help?
Jeff Moffat, London NW6
It was the end of football as we knew it. With everything set to change with the introduction of the Premiership the following season, 1991-92 saw us wave goodbye to the days when Division One meant exactly that. Philip Cornwall reports
The long-term significance
Played under the shadow of the FA’s Blueprint for Football that spawned the Premiership, this was the final season that the Football League champions were the champions of England, that Division One was the first division. As it has turned out, it was the last time so far that the champions of England had an English manager. It was also a season of transition: neither of 1991’s top two seriously challenged for the title.
With football supporters regularly lambasted for their fast-changing opinions on their sides' staff and players, it sometimes turns out that the ficklest fans can actually be found in the boardroom – as Sir Bobby Robson has found out of his chairman, Freddy Shepherd
Anyone who has looked at football internet message boards will know the form by now. Alongside the well informed contributors, there are always a few who offer only irate bluster and bombast, often expressed in capital letters. Unfortunately for Newcastle United supporters, one such person appears to be in charge of their club.
Paul Doyle hails Shelbourne's Champions League exploits
To get an idea of Shelbourne’s standing in Europe until recently, consider the sheer contempt with which Croatia’s Hajduk Split prepared for their crucial Champions League second-round clash with the League of Ireland winners. Victory would set up a glamour clash with the mighty Deportivo La Coruña and Hajduk were so convinced that honour would be theirs that Shels manager Pat Fenlon claimed his Croatian counterpart simply blanked him when the draw was made in Switzerland and instead went straight up to the Spanish team’s officials to make arrangements.