Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
The eternally controversial former Rangers goalkeeper took the high road to Elgin in the autumn – but, as Dan Brennan relates, the low road would have led, amazingly, to Brazil
For all its merits, Elgin is not Rio. Ask Andy Goram. This summer, the 39-year-old former Rangers goalkeeper appeared close to an improbable move to Brazilian top-flight side Botafogo, after a chance encounter with the club’s representatives in Selkirk, where he was organising a six-a-side tournament.
Wales’s journey from outsiders to group favourites to narrow play-off failures leaves Paul Ashley-Jones unsure whether to despair at another defeat or celebrate progress
It’s the Euro 2004 draw and, despite my shutting myself in the other room, my wife insists on shouting out who’s in which group. I’ve not quite reached the fingers-in-ears stage but it’s getting pretty close.
Latvia may be the least expected qualifiers for any major tournament, but Daunis Auers believes they travel with a realistic aim: to overcome indifference to football at home
In November, Latvia, a tiny nation of 2.4 million wedged at the northern end of the Baltic, trampled all over World Cup semi-finalists Turkey, home and away, to win a lucrative place (worth eight million Swiss francs, apparently, £3.6m or 3.4m Latvian lati) at Euro 2004. This is all too much for the small band of long-suffering Latvian football fans, accustomed to years of tediously predictable underachievement. Success has usually been measured by the odd victory over neighbours Estonia. Just a few years ago there were a half-dozen Latvians plying their trade on the substitute benches and reserve teams of English professional football. Now only Marians Pahars (in the cosy Southampton treatment room) and Andrejs Stolcers (Fulham reserves) remain. Yet Latvia have suddenly started playing well, winning and attracting sell-out crowds.
Dear WSC
I enjoyed Roger Titford’s nostalgic piece about half-time scoreboards (WSC 202). Many people will remember Huddersfield Town’s big scorebox at the old Leeds Road ground. It was manned from within and, although it couldn’t boast Fulham-style coloured lights, it was still a complicated business to fathom its information. Scores were displayed in three groups (A, B & C) of eight and unless you watched it constantly, you couldn’t be sure whether the scores shown were from Group A or Group B. I missed many a goal and other dramatic incidents early in second halves through over-attentiveness to my programme to see how (for example) Plymouth and Blackburn were getting on. It was usually 0-0.
Stuart Barker, Carlisle
Footballers’ autographs are big business these days. Al Needham went to an exhibition at the NEC to snub Jimmy Greaves and see what an old Tony Woodcock would be worth
The first autograph I ever got was a signed photo of Tony Woodcock kneeling behind the League Cup, in exchange for my Dad moving house for him. I would dig it out now, but I chucked it away when he was transferred to Cologne. I filled up assorted notebooks with autographs purloined at the Nottingham Forest training ground and outside dressing rooms after matches. Brian Clough always wrote “Be good” after his name, Martin O’Neill always had a face like a smacked arse when he did his and John Robertson always said: “Jesus, not you again.”