Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Ken Booth, the current Rotherham United owner, has been trying to sell the club almost since he bought it. Nigel Wilkes tells us exactly who the chairman is
Distinguishing Features Has been described as a cross between Bill “I love scrap” Fraser in the Barnstoneworth episode of Ripping Yarns and Uriah Heep (the Dickensian character, not the ones who sang Gypsy), but I think he looks more a superannuated ferret.
Gary Oliver on a breakaway "SPL2" becoming reality
The skewed values of Scotland’s sports editors were never more apparent than on January 18. While back pages devoted inordinate space to Stan Collymore’s declared interest in joining Celtic, in most papers the day’s most important football story was tucked away near the racing form. And the hot tip there was that soon the Scottish Football League would be further weakened by yet another breakaway.
In an edited extract from his new book, Morbo, Phil Ball explains how Spain owes its patient style of football to an Englishman, Fred Pentland
Fred Pentland came to manage Athletic Bilbao in 1923, following in the footsteps of another Englishman, a trained masseur by the name of Mr Barnes. The arrival of Pentland, who had played for Blackburn Rovers (among others) in the first decade of the century, coincided with the first clear signs of professionalism in the Spanish game. Pentland had been interned in Germany during the First World War and seems to have spent most of his time training German officers. In 1920 he managed the French football team at the Antwerp Olympics and then spent a year at Racing Santander, whereupon Athletic literally bought him from the Cantabrian club, offering him 1,000 pesetas a month – a decent sum in those days.
Thanks to the influx of foreign players, British football now attracts an increasing number of journalists from countries which previously paid it scant attention. We cornered three of them – Ronnie Reng from Germany, Marie-Jose Kleef from the Netherlands and Italian Filippo Ricci – to find out what impression it had made on them
When you first came to England, what was the one thing that most surprised you about football here?
Ronnie Reng That it’s still conducted in a childish manner – and I mean that in a positive way. Both in the way they play and how the supporters watch the game. One of the first matches I saw here was when Dortmund were playing at Man Utd. About half an hour before kick-off I thought I had the wrong day because there was nobody there. The fans didn’t show up until five minutes before kick off. I think that’s a good thing – they clap if they like something or they boo and then they go home. So it’s still pure entertainment. And it’s also played in a childish way. Players want to attack all the time, they don’t want to stop and think, and the supporters clap if somebody really hoofs it forward or if someone makes a great tackle, even if it would have been more sensible to look up and pass.
Marie-José Kleef The amount of tackles in a game is unbelievable. This season I was at Leicester v Aston Villa and the only thing happening was people tackling each other. There weren’t two passes in a row. The players were never waiting for the right moment, just pushing all the time.
Filippo Ricci For me it was Chelsea v Liverpool and to find that the away fans were just one row away from the press box. When people stood up, the journalists were asking if they could sit down – and people did. Having no fences in the stadiums and having opposing fans in the best position to see the game was very strange. In Italy they would be stuck in some corner surrounded by police with the worst views of the game.
Steve Field appreciates of I See It All by Gil Merrick, the former Birmingham City and England goalkeeper
This book has a curiously casual approach to games and events long since regarded as seminal. You would expect some acknowledgment that 23 England appearances in goal – all between 1952 and 1954 – was, for a Second Division player, rather an unusual record. Or that setting up the Nat Lofthouse strike which confirmed the “Lion of Vienna” legend was a notable achievement, or even that the 6-3 Wembley defeat against Hungary in 1953 actually took place. The explanation probably lies somewhere between Gilbert Merrick’s famed coolness and a clearly hurried printing deadline hot on the heels of the World Cup campaign which ended his international career.