Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
As the divisions change names again, Tom Davies listened to those championing the Championship and came away unimpressed
S o goodbye Nationwide League Divisions One, Two and Three, hello Coca-Cola Championship and Leagues One and Two. The Football League’s name changes have attracted so much ridicule that to deride them already feels too much like indulging in a fish-in-a-barrel shooting contest.
With Atlético Madrid plumbing new depths of design disaster, David Wangerin traces the history of kit advertising from Kettering Tyres to Spiderman 2 and wonders if club identity has been lost along the way
Look at any football photograph from the mid-Seventies. The glue-pot pitch, the plain white ball and the wild sideburns of some of the players certainly call to mind an almost primitive era, as does the enormous terrace of fans crammed into the background. Yet one anachronism in particular reveals just how the visual elements of British football have changed: the remarkable austerity of the playing strips. There are no manufacturer trademarks and no league logos or appeals for fair play on the sleeves. Most conspicuously of all, nothing is displayed across the chest. It’s undeniably an outdated image, yet one that happily draws the eye closer to the tiny club crest, instead of toward some gargantuan commercial message. An age of marketing innocence, some will bewail, but one certainly to be admired for its aesthetic appeal, to say nothing of its integrity.
As Raymond Domenech steps up from the Under-21s, some believe the national team just don't pay enough to lure the country's top coaches, writes Ben Lyttleton
In a rare moment of candour, France’s football federation president Claude Simonet recently admitted that, in an ideal world, Arsène Wenger would have replaced Jacques Santini as France’s national coach. “He would be the perfect choice but he is light years away from the job,” Simonet said. “There’s no way we could get him, not only because of his club but also because of his salary.” Santini was paid a basic annual salary of £300,000 and Raymond Domenech, the new coach who was promoted from his post as Under-21 boss on the sixth anniversary of France winning the 1998 World Cup, will earn the same. “For me it’s not a question of money,” said Domenech. “I work for the federation and have done for the past 11 years. They’re just offering me a different post.”
What was your club's never-to-be-repeated greatest moment? For Limerick fan Emlyn Begley it was almost beating Real Madrid, as he recalls in the first of a series
There was a time when Real Madrid didn’t spend £40 million on a galáctico every summer. There was a time when Limerick FC were not bottom of the Irish First Division. There was a time when these two sides met.
From being a park footballer to making his international debut in a few months, Luton's new terrace hero has enjoyed an amazing rise, as Neil Rose writes
There are few park footballers under the age of 40 who do not secretly harbour the schoolboy dream of being spotted by a canny scout and thrust into a starring role at a League club, before graduating within months to the national team.