Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
The birthplace of Napoleon is enjoying a football revival. Dan Brierley reports on how Ajaccio and Bastia are getting on in the French first division
Football isn’t the first thing you associate with the island of Corsica, but this season, for the first time since 1972-73, SC Bastia were joined by AC Ajaccio in the French first division. Fifty-two thousand people took to the streets to celebrate.
Wednesday 1 Arsenal stay five points clear but only after a nervous last few minutes in which Chelsea score twice before losing 3-2. “I like to win games like that when you’re tired,” says Arsène, making an excuse even though he doesn’t need to. “It was like watching the tide coming in,” says Howard Wilkinson as Man Utd score two late goals to beat Sunderland 2-1 having trailed for 75 minutes. Liverpool drop down to seventh after a tenth winless match, a 1-0 defeat at Newcastle, but Gérard sticks his chin out, sort of: “I don’t want to commit suicide before the end of the season.” Several fixtures are postponed due to bad weather, and one, Reading v Leicester, is called off at half-time due to a waterlogged pitch.
Dear WSC
I’m glad Brian Gibbs can gain pleasure from hearing Ray Wilkins (Letters, WSC 192). Us QPR supporters can’t help remembering Ray Wilkins presiding over the start of the long decline we’ve had to endure at Loftus Road. Ned Zelic is the “versatile as an egg” player referred to. Wilkins wasted a big chunk of the money QPR got for Les Ferdinand on buying him. What was Wilkins thinking of? Ferdinand was approaching his peak, you could guarantee 25 goals (and probably more) from him in a season. He was incredibly popular with QPR fans, even when he scored for Newcastle at Loftus Road a couple of months later in what turned out to be the first of the relegations QPR would suffer all too quickly. Zelic turned out to be a very bad egg, not versatile at all. We could forgive him for not being any use. It was the fact that he didn’t even try that annoyed us.
Pete Harris, via email
Huddersfield Town have not had the best of times recently, but Steve Wade looks at their colourful history for comfort
To what extent is manager Mick Wadsworth being blamed for Huddersfield’s recent decline?
A very vocal section of the crowd regularly call for his blood. But despite a few questionable decisions, Wadsworth isn’t entirely responsible. The rot started to set in after the sacking of Peter Jackson and responsibility must be accepted by a number of players, too. The awful irony is the pain of that first home game this season against Brentford, when the PA voice announced the beginning of “the Wadsworth era”.
Looking to build a club up from nothing? Everything you need – and quite a lot you don't – can be found online according to Ian Plenderleith, from players to speakers for the end-of-season awards
You have won the lottery and have millions to spend. Your family and your investment analyst are all pleading desperately with you to think of their long-term security. The problem is, you always wanted to sit in the directors’ box of your own football team, and so with a manic gleam of distant glory in your eye, you buy your local struggling Ryman League Division Two outfit and announce at a press conference, “Champions League within the next ten years”. But where do you start to build a team of champions? The internet, of course!