Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Jan Lotze takes issue with the webs leading purveyor of exclusive nonsense about top players, which it is keen to keep a firm grip on
First came the internet, with unlimited free access to all the information that was on it. Then came people who thought that the internet would be a good way to make themselves some money, which was inevitable. Then came people who wanted to have their cake and eat it, like icons.com.
Players threaten to strike over money
It’s rare for newspapers to get the chance to report on an old fashioned trade union dispute these days. But the coverage of the PFA’s row over the share of revenue from the new TV contract has provided an opportunity to trot out some of the old stand-bys that were common currency in the strike-heavy Seventies.
Saturday 1 Germany 1 England 5, and a hat-trick for Michael Owen after the home team had taken any early lead. “For a non-German it must have been a brilliant spectacle,” sighs Franz Beckenbauer. “I would have been happy with 2-1,” says Sven, containing his excitement. “When we scored the third, fourth and fifth goals we just looked at each other, trying to figure out what the hell was going on,” says a shocked David Beckham. Ireland’s 1-0 win over Holland means they will make the play-offs at least, while their opponents are out, tactical maestro and all. “The pitch was too dry, which made it more difficult for us to pass the ball,” Louis van Gaal explains. Wales and Scotland are held to goalless draws by Armenia and Croatia. Northern Ireland get a 1-1 draw in Denmark. An Englishman also makes the decisive contribution to events in Group 1 as a dubious last-minute penalty gives Slovenia a 2-1 win over Russia – referee Graham Poll is denounced as “a snivelling creep” by Russia’s Alexander Mostovoi. Former ITV commentator Brian Moore dies.
In the aftermath of the world trade centre attacks, Charles Armitage explains how social issues and football are very much interlinked
The recent atrocities in the US have thrown the spotlight on the changing way in which football is regarded as a public event. Football was once a diversion from “real life”. Now it seems to be taking on the role of representing real life. Society, the media and the game itself may even be on the way to according it a quasi-religious role.
Roger Titford leafs through responses to our survey on TV football and concludes that viewers are overwhelmed and irritated by the sheer volume on offer
Even before the first remote control of the new season had been punched in anger, the backlash against the “surfeit” of TV football had begun, with two muted BBC voices, John Motson and Kenneth Wolstenholme, to the fore. Our survey (WSC 174) looked back to our readers’ experiences of the past season’s TV football. Our readership, of course, is not representative of all viewers, but the 700-strong sample is bound to include a higher proportion of dedicated, active and informed fans than your average sofa-full.