The Archive

In spite of Sepp Blatter's recent crass remarks, football females are on the rise and England may soo have a professional league, as Dianne Millen writes

As tantrums go, it was almost Keeganesque. When Albion Rovers went down 1-0 to Montrose earlier this season, then manager Peter Hetherston was in no doubt about where to direct his fit of pique: at Morag Pirie, Scotland’s most senior female official. “I knew it wasn’t going to be our day when I found out we had a woman running the line,” he ranted. “She should be at home making the dinner for her man after he has been to the football. This is a professional man’s game.”

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Yuriko Saeki became only the second woman to manage a Western European men's professional team. Luke Gosset talks to the Japenese coach – briefly manager – of Spanish lower division side Puerta Bonita

FIFA president Sepp Blatter’s comments linking the popularity of women’s football to a lady’s willingness to wear tighter shorts left Japanese coach Yuriko Saeki decidedly unimpressed.

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Nowhere is the women’s game more buoyant than in Germany. Margot Dunne  reports on the homecoming for the World Cup winners and the hopes for a full-time league

Six months ago, all the average German male knew about women’s football could be written on the back of a beer mat with a blunt bockwurst. But all that was before October 12 last year when Nia Künzer’s golden goal in the final against Sweden shot her country to World Cup glory. The team returned from America and were over­whelmed by the kind of frenzied reception to which their male counterparts grew accustomed in recent decades. The trophy was paraded in front of thousands of screaming fans in Frankfurt; there were chat show appearances for coaches Tina Theune-Meyer and Sylvia Neid; and end­less magazine covers featured the new world champions in all their fresh-faced whole­someness. Journalists voted them “Team of the year” at Germany’s Sports Personality Awards – a title bestowed the previous year on Rudi Völler’s men.

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Spartans FC have overcome two Scottish second division clubs and have garnered much media coverage since the draw sent Livingston to City Park, but  Spartan's Cup campaign has also highlighted Scotland's chaotic non-league situation, as Neil Forsyth writes

Unless their Scottish Cup fourth round tie against SPL outfit Livingston is postponed, Spartans Football Club are unlikely to be in the competition as you read this. If the lopsided clash ends with victory for Goliath, it will have done little to demean the most celebrated Scottish Cup story of recent years.

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Some unexpected names are shining in the FA Youth Cup these days. Gavin Willacy  explains why lower-division teams are suffering hammerings as the result of an educationl initiative

Anyone who glanced at the FA Youth Cup results this winter might have wondered just what was going on. Second Division Hartlepool lost at home to Ches­ter-le-Street, who then put five past Port Vale; Stevenage Borough thrashed Oxford United 6-1 away; Hayes beat QPR; Crawley Town won at Bristol Rovers

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