The Archive

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?

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Chris Taylor sifts through the fantasy and the reality to explain the compulsive appeal of the Championship Manager computer game

When all but two of an Economics A-level class fail the subject there are going to be inquiries. We all had the same teachers, the same opportunities to learn, the same text books, but not all of us had Championship Manager. So, in turn, not all of us spent the night before our exam trying to take Bury to Premier League glory. And while I ended up only with the UEFA Cup and an E grade in microeconomics, I feel satisfied that the right choice was made.

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Goalkeeping fans, budding writers and followers of non-league football in Sussex all have their concerns addressed in  Ian Plenderleith's website round-up

The cyber-slimming of the past few years has seen the crash of numerous financially and conceptually flimsy foot­ball internet ventures, but late­ly some interesting in­de­pen- dent websites have em­erged from the digital carnage. While highly financed schemes have been bounced into the Deleted Items box, a trend for small-scale, hobbyist home­pages has slowly returned and yielded a few pleasant surprises.

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Despite the national side’s impressive displays at last year’s World Cup, America’s domestic league desperately needs to expand, says Mike Woitalla

US manager Bruce Arena allowed cameras into his 2002 World Cup dressing room to film the doc­umentary Our Way. Before sending his men out, he reminded them that they were representing “the greatest country in the world”. Perhaps the phrase provided the extra inspiration needed for his team to reach the quarter-finals. Or maybe Arena was trying to prevent post-tournament defections to Norway, No 1 according to the UN Human Development Index of “most livable” nations. As for the veracity of the “greatest” claim – one heard commonly in a nation where just ten per cent of the population holds a passport – let’s just consider it too subjective to squabble over. But clearly the USA isn’t the greatest place for a professional soc­cer player.

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Dear WSC
The Bristol City player captioned in the picture on page 32 of WSC 194 is Danny Coles and not Louis Carey as stated. Should you be inundated with correspondence from City fans claiming you should take note of his face as you’ll be see­ing it playing for some Premiership outfit in the near future, fear not. He’s the usual average journeyman the academy turns out.
Tony Rogers, via email

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