The Archive

Tim Springett wonders why Kevin Davies has gone downhill after a promising start to his career, and if it is already too late to do something about it

All the talk in Southampton concerns James Beat­tie’s prospects of earning an England call-up. Yet five years ago Kevin Davies was seen not only as Saints’ brightest hope but one of England’s. Now, however, he languishes in the reserves, his copious ability dimmed by a seemingly insurmountable crisis of confidence. He has gone from being an international star in the making to the scrapheap by the age of 26. How – and why – has this happened?

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He might have been the answer to one of Liverpool's perennial problems, but the call never came. Ben Lyttleton goes in search of Anfield's wasted winger

The reception area at Nîmes stadium was heaving before France’s 1998 World Cup winners took on Marseille in a charity match in aid of flood victims in early November. The France coach Aimé Jacquet was getting stressed out at the late arrival of Christophe Dugarry, muttering: “It’s worse than at the World Cup, because with Stéphane [Guivarc’h] injured, we haven’t even got one forward.” Didier Deschamps was trying to get Marcel Desailly to speed through the traffic by promising the game would earn him a senior cap, while Frank Leboeuf was causing hilarity with his Scot­tish hunting get-up. And then the Liverpool winger Bernard Diomède walked in. He went to register his arrival with the receptionist, who was heard saying: “You’re a player? And where do you say you play? At Liver-what?”

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Roger Titford takes the pulse of our readers again and finds they have cut down on football slightly, but are unhappy at their increasingly sedentary lifestyle

In WSC 187 we asked for readers’ responses to a ques­tionnaire we had first used way back in 1991, before the start of the Premier League and the all-seater era. How much had changed? Eighteen per cent of our respondents actually recall answering that questionnaire and another 37 per cent thought they might have done. So, although the two surveys were 11 years apart, we’re looking at a lot of the same people’s views on the same issues. Not that surprisingly, a lot of the answers were the same too.

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Seven seasons with seven different champions has made for an exciting domestic scene but European impotence, reports Marcus Christenson

Djurgaarden fans could be forgiven for celebrating as if there were no tomorrow after their team won their first league title in 36 years, before beating Stockholm rivals AIK with an extra-time winner in the cup final to complete the double.

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Dear WSC
Being a lifelong Leicester City fan (and having the facial lines to prove it), I too read the letter in the Observer (referred to in WSC 190) from the person who claims to not to have had the courage to visit either Filbert Street or Filbert Way for ten years. While no doubt true, does this represent an accurate picture? I sit yards away from dozens of non-white fans who don’t seem to face any problems. To suggest that no progress has been made in ten years is simply nonsense and an insult to those fans who have worked tirelessly around this issue for many years. I don’t know what progress has been made at other clubs (any more than this writer can have at Leicester) but nobody need feel unwelcome at our new stadium. Racism is not primarily a football issue. He or she will risk facing it whenever leaving home and it cannot be defeated without the potential victims having the courage to stand with the rest of us and declare it unacceptable. There is only one colour that matters at Leicester City and that is blue. Wear it and you might find that there was nothing to fear all along.
Chris Lymn, Oadby

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