Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Luke Chapman says two new hooligan documentaries show the viewing public's appetite for violence is undiminished, especially if it has a good soundtrack
It was the adverts that gave the game away. The usual parade of booze, car and financial services promotions, clearly aimed at the programme’s target market: males, 18-45, high disposable income – with perhaps a penchant for a bit of fisticuffs. Welcome to Football’s Fight Club, where viewer and subject were perceived to be one and the same.
The Football League play-offs present altering patterns in hooliganism, writes Tom Davies
If there’s a World Cup in the offing, one thing you can always rely on in the preceding weeks is the “spotlight” falling on “fears of hooliganism”. With it comes the obligatory bout of documentaries on “the problem that never went away”, as a seemingly endless stream of ageing young men queue up to tell us about where and why it’s kicking off. Proclaiming yourself to be a former football hooligan must surely be the easiest way to achieve TV fame these days – such people make the contestants on Pop Idol look like dues-paying footsloggers by comparison.
Ian Plenderleith discovers a Swede with an addiction to Slough Town, what Colin Addison's main failing as a manager was, and where the Jail End can be found
How far would you travel to watch Slough Town? It’s one of those questions consistently posed in philosophical and political debating salons across the nation. In the case of Mats Tallqvist, leader of the Slough fan group the Swedish Rebels, the answer is “all the way from Halmstad”, and with great regularity, judging by the diary accounts on his Unofficial Slough Town Web Page.
He helped keep Luton up and won Euro 92 with Denmark, but then some even more unlikely things started happening. Neil Rose takes a sympathetic view
You know what you are getting with Scandinavian imports, by and large. They like British football and settle in quickly, sharing our admiration of work rate and commitment. And they speak the lingo, even adopting local accents in an amusing way. But then there is Lars Elstrup, who played merry hell with this stereotype by chucking in the game and embracing anarcho-Buddhism. Elstrup’s fire burnt briefly but, for Luton Town fans, brightly.
Letters, WSC 184
Dear WSC
While Ian Kelp (Letters, WSC 183) makes some valid points about the bizarre soft spot banks have for football clubs in allowing them to trade on nought but promises year after year, I fear that he is too puritanical in his approach to business planning. Page one of the Company Treasurer’s Handbook tells us about cashflow planning and a seemingly valid contract promising revenue at fixed future times is a reasonable thing to make plans on, or, if necessary, borrow against. No business waits until the money is in the bank account before planning how to spend it, or indeed actually spending it. Would Marks and Spencer wait until it had a queue of unsatisfied customers waving bunches of tenners in the branch until it ordered a batch of knickers from its suppliers? Where the clubs have probably been naive is in what appears to be a less than watertight contract. If it is true that Carlton and Granada can walk away without liability for their little joint venture, the clubs should be looking at the quality of their legal advice. The fact that the share prices of both Carlton and Granada rose once the situation became public is a pretty depressing sign of what the City thinks of that contract.
Jonathan Gibbs, via email