Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Ian Plenderleith burrows through the heaving mass of World Cup sites to discover the debut official song and the meaning of Korea's "intangible cultural assets"
Predictably enough, there has been a huge amount of cyberspace set aside for online coverage of the coming World Cup. The following is an attempt to help you focus on the least drivel-ridden websites.
Next season the Bosnian league will finally include clubs from all parts of the fractured country. Nedim Hasic reports on the slow process of unification
Next season Bosnian football will be united for the first time since the war. After the Dayton peace agreement was signed in November 1995, Bosnia became the only country in the world with three different football leagues. The Premier League, organised by the Bosnian Football Federation (BFF), was recognised by UEFA and FIFA, while the Croat-controlled part of the country maintained its own tournament, as did the “ethnically cleansed” Bosnian Serb enclave, Republika Srpska.
Aside from the chevron on their shirts, Filippo Ricci explains that Sampdoria are now unrecognisable from the team that came so close to European glory just a decade ago
On April 21, Sampdoria lost 2-0 at home to Serie B’s bottom club, Crotone, a team from a tiny town in Calabria. The result left the once-mighty club just four points above the relegation zone with six games to go. Ten years ago, Sampdoria lost the last the European Cup final before the start of the Champions League, 1-0 to Barcelona at Wembley. On paper, it’s a long journey, on the pitch, a quick and irreversible plunge.
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