Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Lifelong Walsall fan Jeff Bonser bought into the club in 1991, eventually going on to become the chairman in 1997. Paul Giess explains how his unpopular methods have given the club finanacial stability
Distinguishing features Looks like a business studies lecturer with a Mercedes.
Preston North End fan Martin Atherton explains that with the exception of a few teams, there was not a lot to choose from the teams in Division One
Having been a Preston North End fan since well before the club were last in the second level of English football 20 years ago, it was interesting last season to see how standards compared to the lower echelons we have inhabited for so long. Overall, I have to say that there was generally not a lot to choose between the top of the Second Division in 1999-2000 and the majority of the First Division last year.
Kate Hoey lost her job as sports minister after the general election, to no one's great surprise. John Williams looks back at her term and argues that her views on Wembley were sound , but doomed
Her arrival was a blaze of brave talk and controversy, her departure something of a whimper followed by a series of moans in the Mail on Sunday, no less. In retrospect, appointing as sports minister in this particular government a women such as Kate Hoey was high risk stuff. Hoey has no strong objections to foxhunting, is at odds with her own government’s policy in countenancing a return to terracing in football stadiums, and, laudably, would rather see decent changing rooms at grassroots for all athletes in all sports than see England host the 2006 football World Cup finals.
Mansley Allen reviews what was an exciting end to the season but points at the overall drop in standards in Division Two
With promotion issues decided in the last minute of the last match, the Second Division was an exciting contest but it was hardly a vintage year. Stoke’s 8-0 home defeat by Liverpool in the Worthington Cup and Brentford and Port Vale’s removal from the FA Cup by Kingstonian and Canvey Island respectively, hinted at the overall standard. This was of course offset to some extent by Wycombe’s magnificent run to the last four in the FA Cup, but this was largely a case of a moderate squad being fired up to play above themselves by an astute management team.
Dave Hill's book Out Of His Skin analysed the racial tension surrounding the arrival of John Barnes at Liverpool in 1987. In an extract from the introduction to a new edition, Dave Hill reflects on the reaction to his book
Ever since the watershed of the Taylor Report, an anti-racist climate has undoubtedly been fostered in British football. Vocal racist elements within football grounds find it harder to proceed as if they have a divine right to define and dominate the mood, to chant, threaten and generally get away with things that would not be tolerated in any other public place. A wide-ranging campaign has been mobilised against racism in a way that would have been impossible as recently as the mid-Eighties. Such is the optimistic reading of the story of racism in English football since Out Of His Skin was written. It has substance and deserves applause. But any suggestion that racism has ceased to have a disfiguring impact on our football would be dangerously naive.