Tuesday 1 The FA pull out of financing the new Wembley, claiming that it could bankrupt them, and ask for government assistance. “It is not right for us to act as sole sponsor of the scheme,” says Adam Crozier. Plans for a new stadium in the midlands may now be revived. Gary McAllister’s fifth goal in as many games helps Liverpool to a 2-0 win at Bradford. Huddersfield move five points clear of the relegation zone in the First Division with a 1-1 draw at Wimbledon (whose fans probably wouldn’t have minded losing). Rushden (and, of course, Diamonds) are promoted to the League after rivals Yeovil lose to a last-minute goal at home to Hereford.
The Archive
Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
The job of refereeing is being made even more difficult than before because players and managers increasingly refuse to admit when they are in the wrong, says Philip Cornwall
Anyone who doubts how much pressure referees are under these days needed only to listen to David O’Leary explain just why his Leeds team had failed to qualify for next season’s Champions League, after they came up one point short of Liverpool’s total. It all came back to the fact that in the last minute of their match with Manchester United on March 3, with the score at 1-1, a Wes Brown own goal was disallowed for offside. “Those two points have cost us. One man’s decision has made a big difference to us.”
Mike Ticher thumbs through some of the classics of ref literature and finds a world of egotists and backstabbers
One of the first referees to write his autobiography (assisted by Kenneth Wolstenholme) also had one of the best stories to tell. At 37, Arthur Ellis was the youngest Wembley Cup final referee when he oversaw Newcastle v Arsenal in 1952, ran the line in the final match of the 1950 World Cup in front of 200,000 at the Maracana and was in charge of the notorious “Battle of Berne” (Brazil v Hungary) in the 1954 World Cup.
Sunday 1 Blackburn move into the second promotion spot in the First Division with a 5-0 thrashing of Burnley, prompting Graeme Souness to issue a warning: “We’ll be treating every fixture like it’s the last game of our lives.” After a 1-0 home defeat by Wolves, Birmingham’s sights are now set no higher the play-offs, where they could yet be joined by Sheffield United, who win their local derby, 2-1 at Hillsborough. Leicester’s European hopes fade with a 2-0 defeat at Charlton, but Peter Taylor has identified the problem: “We are missing a footballer.”
After 22 years of sponsoring the top division in English football, Barclays is as big a part of the football fraternity as the clubs themselves
When Barclays first sponsored the Football League (as it then was) in 1987, the angry young men (as we then were) at WSC wrote: “What the deal says about the League is this: they believe that Barclays Bank enjoys more warmth and respect in society than football itself.” It was a fair point, particularly as the sum involved was only £4.55 million over three years, which might just be enough to attach your company’s name to Patrick Vieira’s socks these days. It seemed that it wasn’t so much the money the League needed, but reassurance from the corporate world that football had not sunk irredeemably beneath its notice.