Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
No, you haven't picked up Roy of the Rovers by mistake. A kid on holiday has really signed for Mallorca after a scout saw him having a kick–about, as Neil White relates
Not since Steve Norman and Martin Kemp moved from Spandau Ballet to Melchester Rovers in the early 1980s has there been as unlikely a transfer as the one that took 18-year-old apprentice mechanic Jimmy Stevenson from Alloa Athletic to Real Mallorca.
Tom Bower's new book looks into the financial irregularities and running of football. Here he tells WSC why these issues will sooner or later shatter the game
The publishers make play of the fact that you are the first non-sports journalist to write on this subject. Do you consider that football journalists are too reliant on clubs as sources for stories to be adequately dispassionate on business matters?
I don’t criticise them for that. I think football journalists write brilliantly. I came to this as an outsider who didn’t read the football pages before. Their problem is they need access to the players and so it’s very difficult for them to do what I’ve done; it just comes with the turf. Where the failure has been is with the business sections of the newspapers. It’s regarded as just sport whereas in fact it’s a huge industry.
Leeds United's financial dealings are coming under scrutiny
Televison cameras picked up Peter Ridsdale slumped in his seat during Leeds United’s match at Goodison Park, to where travelling fans had brought banners reading, among others, “Lies United” and “PLC = Pathetic Leeds Chairman”. In view of the fact that he is receiving advice from PR expert Max Clifford, he might have unveiled one of his own: “Blame Liverpool”. If it hadn’t been for the latter’s cave-in over the last few fixtures of 1999-2000, Leeds wouldn’t have finished third and qualified for the Champions League, with all the unfortunate effects it has now brought.
A Swedish television show recently hooked up the national coaches with microphones, similar to Graham Taylor. As Marcus Christenson notes, it also hasn't gone down well
In hindsight, Sweden coaches Lars Lagerbäck and Tommy Söderberg should probably have asked Graham Taylor for advice before agreeing to have microphones on them during last summer’s World Cup. But they didn’t – and now sections of the media are calling for their resignations after television broadcast some of their conversations during the team’s games. Like Taylor, who was filmed giving nonsensical orders to substitute Nigel Clough during a game with Norway in 1993, the two Swedish coaches have not come out of the project looking particularly clever. The fiercest criticism has been reserved for their half-time chat against Senegal when they discuss whether to substitute Aston Villa striker Marcus Allbäck.
The official Italians blame for their World Cup exit has defended his decisions and now entered the world of politics. But not, as Ben Lyttleton writes, to good effect
Ecuadorean referee Byron Moreno took advantage of a suspension recently to confront the critics that blamed him for Italy’s World Cup defeat to South Korea. Moreno appeared on RAI TV’s Stupido Hotel carrying a briefcase stuffed with bank-notes before claiming he was right to dismiss Francesco Totti and disallow a Damiano Tomassi golden goal in the summer. “I don’t think I was the major cause of Italy’s World Cup exit, and I don’t need to apologise,” said the man nicknamed El Justiciero – The Sheriff – in his homeland. “I’ve always fought against dishonest players and dangerous play. After the Portugal v USA match I was marked 8.5 out of ten and I got an even better mark for the Italy v Korea match. The Italians were looking for excuses.”