Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Controversial chairman Bernard Tapie is back at Olympique de Marseille. Patrick Mignon looks at the impact the returning chairman will have and whether he can banish the negativity that surrounded his previous tenure
Bernard Tapie, the most controversial chairman in French football history, has returned to run Olympique de Marseille, eight years after he was driven out after being found guilty of match-fixing.
While the Premiership clubs can afford costly measures to keep hooliganism out of their stadiums, the price is being paid lower down the leagues and out of sight of the camera. Mark Rowe reports
Graham Hodgetts has the lives of an admittedly less than full Villa Park in his hands. In the control room under a stand roof he stands with his shirt sleeves rolled up, spectacles dangling from his right hand. As Villa’s safety officer – all league clubs have one – he looks calm, but then he was a police officer for 30 years, retiring as superintendent. Leeds are visiting on a January midweek night. There are about a dozen people in the control room, half of them uniformed officers, looking at a dozen CCTV monitors and taking most interest in the images of fans on their feet at the back of a stand, well guarded by police and stewards.
Gunther Simmermacher reports on a culture of buck-passing in the aftermath of South Africa's latest disaster
Never again, the football establishment of South Africa vowed after more than 40 fans died at a match between the country’s most popular clubs, Soweto teams Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs. Fast forward a decade, and the well-meaning platitudes – voiced after 42 fans were crushed to death in the remote town of Orkney on January 13, 1991 – proved less than prophetic. On April 11, 43 more fans died outside Ellis Park stadium in Johannesburg during the Chiefs v Pirates derby.
Ian Plenderleith look at some non-League websites
One of the most user-friendly and comprehensive football sites is Non-League Football: Conference & Pyramid Leagues Soccer, which provides an overview of all the latest news, results and tables down to the Unibond, Ryman and Dr Martens leagues, with easy intra-site links from competitions to teams to players.
Oceania's masterplan to attract the attention of the football world paid off spectacularly as an avalanche of goals in the World Cup qualifiers set new records. Matthew Hall counted them all in
Nicky Salapu picked the ball from his net 57 times during his country’s four World Cup qualifiers over Easter, but then he is the goalkeeper for American Samoa, officially the worst national team in the world.