Tuesday 2 Nine Austrian players refuse to fly to Israel for Saturday’s World Cup qualifier. “It is far too dangerous there,” says one of them, Walter Kogler. Joe Royle says he is suing Man City for a £500,000 pay-off, on the basis that they were still a Premiership club when he was sacked in May, even though they had finished in a relegation spot.
The Archive
Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Dear WSC
Whilst sleeping my way through the recent Varteks v Villa game, the aftermath of a rather nasty tackle by George Boateng reminded me fondly of the late Brian Moore. On seeing the verdict of the referee, Barry Davies announced with a resigned air that “the card is red” when, correct me please if I am wrong, it was quite obviously yellow. Either dear Barry is colour blind or he’s taking it upon himself to replicate the obvious inaccuracies that Brian was regularly capable of. Trouble is, I used to laugh at the old planetarium head, but just found myself shouting “That’s crap Barry, it’s yellow” at the screen in a really irritated manner. I suppose it livened up the worst game this millennium though.
Dave Wallace, via email
For a season at Stoke City he could do almost anything, except pass to a team-mate. Mark Blakemore celebrates a talent before it was made to conform
Earlier this season, while enduring the sight of Exeter City thrashing helplessly about in the bottom division, I beheld something wondrous. The opposition’s left midfielder watched a high ball as it fell over his left shoulder, cushioned it out of the air with his instep, and brought it instantly to rest in front of him. Then he immediately placed an inch-perfect pass through the middle of Exeter’s defence, enabling a team-mate to run through and sky it hopelessly over the bar, which didn’t matter because his team was already 4-0 up. It was comfortably the most beautiful thing I’d seen on a football pitch in four seasons of watching Third Division football.
Belarus missed their two best players as Ukraine pipped them for a World Cup play-off spot. Paul Roberts explains why some saw sinister motives at work
"It was treachery and disgraceful,” said the Belarus coach Eduard Malofeyev. He was referring to the performance of his two key midfielders, Oleksandr Khatskevich and Valentsin Belkevich, after his team’s 2-0 home defeat in the crucial World Cup qualifier against Ukraine on September 2. Khatskevich was substituted at half-time and Belkevich on the hour. The two players then refused to travel to Wales for the final qualifier (“still ashamed of themselves” according to Malofeyev) which a demoralised and weakened Belarus lost 1-0. This allowed Ukraine to snatch the group five play-off place at the death, thanks to a controversial late goal by Andriy Shevchenko in Poland.
Finally, China have made it to the World Cup finals. They can hardly wait and nor can the Korean tourism industry. Zhang Wenya reports
If England fans think “30 years of hurt” was tough, pity their Chinese counterparts. China have been trying simply to qualify for the World Cup finals since 1957. Nearly 50 years of hurt – and considerable heaps of humiliation – have been the fate of fans in the world’s most populous country. Among a people for whom “face” (and not losing it) is of considerable importance, the procession of defeats in vital qualifying matches has been soul-destroying.