The Archive

In Genk, the former mining town in Limburg, the team most likely to challenge Anderlecht is making waves again, as John Chapman reports

Nestling in the centre of the Brussels-Liège-Eind­hoven triangle, Genk was once home to a thriving mining community. No more. With the clos­ure of the first pit in 1966, the Ford motor company moved in and now dominates the town. But the legacy of coal lingers on. In the Fifties, thousands of Italians came to Belgium to work in the mines – including Enzo Scifo’s dad. In multicultural Genk, the Belgo-Italians are now the predominant immigrant population and their presence at home games helps fan the atmosphere. Indeed, so many flares were being lit during games that spectacular firework displays are now arranged for before and – something of a hostage to fortune this – after every home match.

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Ed Parkinson recalls a striker who failed to break through at Chelsea, but scored the goals that took Hartlepool up and returned to save them from relegation

On a wet Wednesday in October 1988, desperate Hartlepool manager Bobby Moncur drove to Swansea to watch Newcastle reserves. At the final whistle, believing he had seen the answer to his goalscoring problems, Bobby invited Joe Allon into his car and persuaded him to sign for Hartlepool.

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Mathias Kowoll examines Berti Vogts' managerial history and questions the wisdom of putting him in charge of the Scottish national team

“We’re going to take off his kilt,” Hesse’s reg­ional governor Roland Koch said on hearing that Berti Vogts’s Scotland would be in Ger­many’s Euro 2004 qualifying group. So while the Scottish FA picked “the terrier”, back in Germany a pop­ulist politician feels he can get a few cheap laughs from picturing the former national team coach mooning from the Hamp­den dug­out. Such a difference in opinion needs explaining.

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After two weeks on air, ITV's new soap Footballers' Wives has been met with praise and scorn alike.  Joyce Woolridge explains why she hasn't been taken in by the show

Footballers’ Wives is ITV’s contribution to the small sub-genre of football soaps, which also includes BBC’s Playing The Field and Sky’s Dream Team. It has garnered praise in some un­likely quarters: Richard Williams in the Guardian admired its “lean script, functional direction… [and] underplayed acting” and on Radios 1 and 5 a range of BBC employees from Chris Moyles to the Drive “team” enthusiastically plugged their rival channel’s product.

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Is women's football is due to make a big breakthrough on to the UK sport scene? Two writers have conflicting opinions

Yes ~
“Football is all very well as a game for rough girls, but it is hardly suitable for delicate boys.” So said Oscar Wilde. If the women’s game continues to develop at the pace wit­nessed during the past decade, this observation could soon gain common currency.

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