Dear WSC
Re the letter regarding Paolo Di Canio’s favourite referee and his apparent total lack of a sense of humour (WSC 170). I hate to further tarnish the man’s reputation, but he recently refereed the Brighton v Hull game at Withdean. Sitting in our seats prior to the game, we were informed that, due to a mysterious technical problem, no music would be played in the ground before kick-off. Probably down to our somewhat ropey PA system, we thought, or the local residents complaining again. But no, for it was later revealed that Mr Alcock, tucked away in his dressing room, found the music to be objectionable and demanded it be turned off. Unable to isolate the ref’s room from the speaker system, the club was faced with the choice of silencing the airwaves or having the game called off, as our beloved referee refused to start the match unless he had a bit of quiet.Perhaps he needs peace to get himself in the right frame of mind to put in his usual outstanding refereeing performance.
Vicki Lank, Via email
The Archive
Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Mike Woitalla explains why the NASL wasn't an elephants' graveyard
The depiction of the North America Soccer League as a circus of geriatric home escapees lives on – especially in the British press, which can’t mention the NASL without ridiculing it. Alas, even WSC has bought into this one. A recent review of the biography of Giorgio Chinaglia, the Welsh-raised Italian World Cup striker who came to New York at 29 and scored 193 goals in eight years, said: “The world’s stars descended on the US to play on astroturf, wear garish strips and generally make fools of themselves while topping up their retirement funds.”
Ian Plenderleith takes a look at the diverse range of football websites
Welcome in to my exciting life, declares Crystal Palace’s Finn Aki Riihilahti at the start of his official homepage. As player websites go it’s a treat, and you can follow the ups and downs of Aki’s existential mood swings that correspond to his fluctuations in form.
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.
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.