Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Ian Plenderleith looks at the wobble of football websites
There was more worrying financial news for Football League clubs in March when its internet partner Premium TV (PTV) announced another wave of redundancies and sent its CEO home on “gardening leave”. Yet the company claims that it is not on the verge of collapsing, despite the lay-offs, the huge debts at its parent company, NTL, and the fact that it has already once had to renegotiate its contract with the FL.
Phil Town explores the stadiums being built in Portugal for Euro 2004
Benfiquistas said a fond farewell in March to their Catedral. The last ever game at Benfica’s once magnificent Luz Stadium was a damp squib of a 1-0 win over modest Santa Clara of the Azores, and that with a penalty. For months, though, the Luz had also been a sorry sight, a quarter of it removed to make way for the magnificent new Luz nudging its way in from next door where it is currently undergoing construction.
Racing Santander’s forthright new president-cum-manager has been derided by critics but, says Phil Ball, he might just be on the right track
Dimitri Piterman is no ordinary chap. Shortly after buying a 24 per cent majority shareholding in Racing Santander in January, the new millionaire president of the ailing Spanish top-flight club was stopped outside the entrance to the El Sardinero stadium by a TV journalist and asked if he thought that his stated intention of personally running all aspects of the club – right down to team management – was perhaps a tad over-ambitious, even arrogant? Especially when he was not qualified to do so? Piterman leaned into the beam of the cameras and eyeballed the journalist with a withering stare: “There’s a dork running the most powerful country in the world without a qualification to his name. And you ask me for a diploma to run a football team? Give me a break.” And so began one of the lengthiest media circuses witnessed in Spain over the past couple of decades, with the result that the 39-year-old Piterman has become at least as famous as Jesus Gil.
Saturday 1 Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink thumps in a header at St James’ Park, but it’s for Newcastle who go on to win 2-1 and move into joint second place. Debutant Jonathan Woodgate chances a prediction: “Yes, I think we can win the title.” Juninho marks his Middlesbrough comeback with the equaliser in a 1-1 draw against Everton, who move up into the fourth Champions League spot, though David Moyes is taking it steady: “Our next target is a top-half finish.” “This match was about the players who spilt blood,” says Glenn Roeder as a Di Canio-less West Ham draw level with Bolton after beating Spurs 2-0. Hope is receding for the other two in the relegation area, though Howard talks of a “near top-drawer performance” as Sunderland slide to a late and unlucky defeat, their sixth in a row in the league, 1-0 at Fulham. West Brom lose by the same score at Southampton. Portsmouth fans, banned from visiting the New Den, miss seeing their team thrash Millwall 5-0 . Wigan go 15 points clear in the Second with 3-1 win over Chesterfield. In the Third, Hartlepool’s stately progress is slowed slightly by a 2-2 draw with local rivals Darlington. At the bottom end, Exeter stem a run of four defeats with a home point against the equally desperate Bristol Rovers.
Neil Heath looks at the career to date of a former Nottingham Forest striker, torn between football and rock ’n’ roll and not quite succeeding at either
Paul McGregor was once branded the first “Britpop footballer”. In 1995 he broke into the Nottingham Forest first team and a year later his band, Merc, were brought to the attention of the man who discovered Oasis. There seemed to be no end to his talents. But during the 1997-98 season McGregor was sold to Plymouth Argyle, and he now plays for Northampton Town. Was he a victim of turbulent times at the City Ground or did rock ’n’ roll stall his football career?