Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
In an extract from his new history of German football, Tor!, Uli Hesse-Lichtenberger recalls the sensation of the 1971 Bundesliga bribery scandal
Despite his name, the German-born Spaniard Horst Gregorio Canellas was not a Cosa Nostra don but an importer of bananas. Legend has it he supplied the DFB (German FA) headquarters. He had a raspy voice worthy of Al Pacino and was a chain-smoker, despite persistent asthma problems. He had also been the president of Kickers Offenbach since 1964.
Football managed to soldier on without the devious involvement of television, and the Football League does not have to lie down and die when the money is taken away
The Football League are getting all kinds of advice from the press about what to do in their dispute with ITV Digital, most of it accompanied by fingerwagging. The News of the World, for one, wonders why lower division clubs “think they have a right to such money in the first place” given that they have “wallowed in a swamp of debt for too long”.
Shaul Adar reports on a team that has inspired hope and relief in a beleagured Israel
It has been an annus horribilis, for Israel in general and for Israeli football in particular. On one recent Saturday evening, during the broadcast of a live game from the local league, a suicide attack took place in an Orthodox part of Jerusalem. For 12 minutes the shocked viewers could see the game continuing on one third of the screen, while the other two thirds carried live pictures from the carnage scene.
Friday 1 Portsmouth chairman Milan Mandaric threatens to withhold the wages of his players and coaching staff: “They expect to go through the motions and then to receive a huge wage packet. It’s extortion.” The PFA’s Gordon Taylor is unimpressed: “It’s quite naive really, it’s going back to the Dark Ages.”
Saturday 2 “You are blessed to to witness something like that,” says Arsène as Dennis Bergkamp scores another spectacular goal in a 2-0 win at Newcastle that keeps his team second. Frank Sinclair nearly matches that with a 30-yard lob at Middlesbrough, but it’s past his own keeper for the only goal of the game. Liverpool go third after winning 2-0 at Fulham. Andy Cole’s dismissal for a foul on Mike Whitlow during Blackburn’s 1-1 draw at Bolton prompts a right old rumpus, with a scuffle between players and a home steward, and both managers exchanging unpleasantries. Stan Ternent rounds on Burnley fans who boo their team after a home draw with Norwich keeps them fifth in the First: “They have champagne tastes on beer money.” Halifax are ten points adrift at the bottom of the Third after losing 3-1 at Leyton Orient.
Carolyne Culver watches a film aimed at dispelling a myth or two
“Anyone can cook aloo gobi, but who can bend it like Beckham?” From this bizarre strap line emerges a comedy drama about women’s football that kicks many celluloid efforts about the men’s game into touch. The tale of a British Asian teenager who outclasses her male counterparts in the park and has a shrine to David Beckham in her bedroom, Bend It Like Beckham takes two British obsessions – football and race – and produces a pacey comedy-drama that takes the women’s game seriously.