The Archive

Co-editor Paul Hutton  mulls over The Absolute Game's revival and concludes the market for articles about Luncarty Juniors remains untapped

Sometime in April, presumably fairly early in the morning, a few hundred lovers of Scottish football will have had a bit of a fright. And that’s before having seen Craig Brown’s squad for the Poland game. Leafing through their morning mail they will have found a copy of The Absolute Game. Perhaps they gazed in a bemused way at the throwback design, wondering where they had last seen its like. And maybe they afforded themselves a wee smile as they realised their subscription money hadn’t been invested in some ropey dotcom after all.

Read more…

Gonzalo Anton's is a typical rags-to-riches story. Phil Ball tries to establish exactly who he is

Distinguishing Features Tubby but tough, slicked-back hair with blazer and tie – more British Legion than Savile Row. With the flattish nose of an ex-boxer, not the sort of chap you’d cross too often. Cuts a respectable figure, without looking as though he’s been dressed by his wife. Anyway, he’s divorced.

Read more…

FIFA's favourite marketing company, ISL, is in trouble. Alan Tomlinson assesses the damage its demise may do to the world governing body and its leader.

Jean Marie Weber is a tall, imposing man with a mane of white hair. At most big world and European football tournaments and a number of Oly­mpic Games he’s been there, patrolling in the back­ground, making sure the big sponsors are secure in the swankiest hotels of the world’s glitziest cities. He looked pleased in the Paris convention hall in 1998 when Sepp Blatter strolled to election victory to take the FIFA presidency.

Read more…

Shrewdness is the key to success

Bear with us, this month’s issue isn’t entirely about Tottenham. But the current state of the club does raise some intriguing questions about where English football has come from and where it’s going to. When WSC started in 1986, the three men in charge at White Hart Lane were Irving Scholar (chairman), David Pleat (manager) and Glenn Hoddle (lead artiste). Strange, then, to see them all together again, even if it was at Highbury in an atmosphere that was both sombre because of David Rocastle’s death and frosty because of the long-standing differences between Pleat and Hoddle.

Read more…

The sanitised Premiership fan experience is increasingly an exception around Europe. Uli Hesse-Lichtenberger  expalins why German clubs have insisted on keeping terraces open

He looked like somebody out of an American movie about college nerds: the thick spectacles, the greasy hair, the slight speech defect and the frail body. Still, he was a pretty good long-distance runner, and that’s how my brother had come to know him. He was always standing right behind us at games, next to that bunch of bikers who called themselves The Ghostriders.

Read more…