The Archive

Sol Campbell's departure from Spurs calls into question the level of players' wages

In the last week of May, the golfer Andrew Oldcorn collected more than £300,000 for winning the Volvo PGA tournament at Wentworth. Not a bad return for four days’ work by anyone’s standards, but few in the press were lining up to savage the mild-mannered Oldcorn for his rampant avarice. No matter how he performs on the tour this year, he will not be greeted on the tees of Europe by snarling fans chanting that there is “only one greedy bastard”.

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Despite a magnificent cup run, German minnows FC Union's success may not last long, writes Markus Hesselmann 

In the weeks between promotion and cup final, Union were all the rage in Germany. The club made head­lines in the arts pages of the national newspapers. There were television features about the upright working-class blokes from the eastern district of Köpenick, who had always been sub­dued by the Stasi but would now arise as the true team of east Berlin and the whole of east­ern Germany.

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Ian Plenderleith takes a look at the latest football wesbites 

Now that the phrase “for the fans by the fans” has become a cliche mostly peddled by money-backed websites looking to cash in by feigning crush-barrier credibility, it’s pleasing to note that From The Terrace, one of the few sites that genuinely fits the much-abused phrase, has recently revamped, expanded and improved.

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After their performance in the UEFA Cup final the Basque side Alaves found themselves with few enemies, even in other regions of Spain. But, says Phil Ball, things have already started to go wrong

When Jordi Cruyff headed the equaliser for Alavés that took the UEFA Cup final against Liverpool into extra-time, there seemed a reasonable case for stopping the game and awarding the cup to both teams. Right now they’ll be squabbling over the rights to the official video, and desperately brainstorming an alternative title to Game of the Century.

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Boavista, the second club in Porto, have broken the domination of Portugal's big three. Phil Town tries to work out how they did it 

The old David and Goliath cliche was wheeled out for some heavy use by newspapers, TV and radio stations to describe Boavista’s title triumph, but it was a cliche well employed. Boavista are indeed dwarfed by the big three of Benfica, Sporting and Porto. In the week before the game against Aves which decided the title, Boavista proudly announced that their subscription-paying fan base had risen to a club record 15,000. This compares to Porto’s 60,000, Sporting’s 80,000 and Benfica’s whopping 115,000. Those three clubs had budgets for this season of £25 million, £20 million and £25 million respectively. Boavista’s was £4.5 million, of which just £1 million was spent on players.

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