The Archive

Barney Ronay considers the way that a piece of squat, ugly technology, once a source of condescension, changed English football

Desperate times call for desperate publicity stunts. In 1990, with the battle for control of the skies be­tween BSB and Sky TV at its most feverish, camera-shy media mogul Rupert Murdoch took the unusual step of paying a surprise visit to the home of Sky’s millionth UK subscriber. Awkwardly posed in raincoat and inch-thick specs, Murdoch smiled for the cameras with an arm around the shoulders of his hosts, a family of five torn from their expensively assembled tea-time viewing to stand outside in the cold next to a laconic billionaire.

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Alun Rogers on promotion, Cup upsets and having big red neighbours

Are home crowds as big as they could get?
Attendances have long been a sore point. It can’t help having Manchester and Liverpool a leisurely 45 minutes away, but the town and outlying population have been expanding at an incredible rate over the past ten years. The inhabitants display a keen affection for Poundland-style shops; it might just be a cheapskate attitude that afflicts attendances.

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Saturday 1 Leeds are bottom of the Premiership after a 4-1 home defeat by Arsenal. Mark Viduka is left out of the squad after missing a players’ meeting and arriving late for training. “If I started looking over my shoulder with all this speculation, I wouldn’t be able to look forward,” quips Peter Reid. Chelsea beat Everton 1-0 at Goodison Park, but defeat fails to stop Wayne Rooney dressing up as Oliver Hardy for his 18th birthday party, where guests include Atomic Kitten, Robbie Williams and “more than 200 friends”. Man Utd beat Portsmouth 3-0 at Old Trafford, Cristiano Ronaldo pausing long enough between performances of the hokey-cokey to score his first goal for the club, while at White Hart Lane Jay-Jay Okocha inspires Bolton to a 1-0 win over Spurs. Manchester City beat Southampton 2-0 at St Mary’s amid rumours that Nicolas Anelka’s absence from the City side is a consequence of his failure to attend a clay pigeon-shooting trip. “Mills is just a fucking idiot,” observes the usually unflappable Paul Ince after Danny Mills’s altercation with Lee Naylor creates confusion from which Gaizka Mendieta scores Boro’s first goal in a 2-0 victory over Wolves – a surly afternoon ends with police quelling a full-time mêlée in the tunnel.  First Division leaders Wigan beat Crystal Palace 5-0, Andy Liddell’s two goals making him the club’s all-time highest goalscorer. Wimbledon win their first game at Milton Keynes, 2-1 against Bradford, but stay bottom. West Brom’s Darren Williams faces a police investigation for kicking a spare ball off the pitch and injuring a woman in the crowd during the goalless draw with Sunderland. QPR are the only club in the top nine of the Second Division to win, beating Stockport 2-1 at Edgeley Park and moving up to third place. Leaders Plymouth draw 2-2 with Oldham, while Brighton also draw 2-2 against Peterborough in Mark McGhee’s first match in charge. In Division Three, leaders Hull are held 2-2 at home by Macclesfield, allowing Doncaster and Oxford to edge closer as both win.
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Wednesday 1 “If you defend badly you deserve everything that happens to you,” growls Sir Alex as Man Utd concede two goals in three minutes in a 2-1 defeat at Stuttgart. After Chelsea’s 2-0 home defeat to Besiktas Claudio Ranieri defends his decision to make five changes from last weekend’s team: “It is easy to second-guess after the match but I did what I thought was right.” Rangers concede a late equaliser to draw 1-1 at Panathinaikos.

Thursday 2 “We like to think we are a caring and consulting club,” says Leeds chairman Prof John McKenzie, who decides not to sack Peter Reid after consulting with fan groups and shareholders. An Arsenal tenancy at Wembley could still happen after the board admit at their AGM to being £200 million short of the money needed for the new stadium at Ashburton Grove.

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The high number of drug-test failures in Italy compared to England is mainly the result of the seriousness with which the issue is treated there, believes  Gabriele Marcotti

The funny thing about nandrolone is that it has been around for a long time. A team-mate on my university rugby team took it for three years. No, he wasn’t a drugs cheat: as a child, he was frail and underdeveloped, so his doctor put him on a nandrolone course. Whether or not he knew (or cared) at the time that it could reduce his libido, increase his risk of developing tumours and potentially lead to “testicular atrophy” is unclear. Either way, in the 1980s, before serious drug-testing, its use was widespread in a variety of sports, including football. Its benefits – increased concentration, increased aggression, increased lean muscle mass – were seen by some as worth the risk of a couple of shrunken balls.

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