Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Clubs are spending too much cash on foreign players
Here are some opinions that you might have read in the papers recently. There are too many foreigners playing football in Britain at the moment. There aren’t enough foreigners playing football in Britain at the moment. There are too many of the wrong kind of foreigners playing football in Britain at the moment.
Monday 3 French striker Robert Pires confirms that he is to sign for Arsenal, saying: “I would have preferred to have played for Real Madrid but I am happy to link up again with my French friends.” Middlesbrough announce that they are prepared to give Paul Gascoigne a free transfer.
Tuesday 4 Brazil withdraw from the contest to stage the 2006 World Cup in exchange for getting African support for their bid in 2010. Franz Beckenbauer is aghast: “What happened is horse trading and now their vote will probably go against Germany.” Concacaf ’s Jack Warner claims to have suggested to the FA that they pull out. “They will be humiliated. The writing is on the wall and as a friend I thought I’d tell them.” Valerenga of Norway become the latest club to turn down the chance of taking Paul Gascoigne on loan. “We are not a summer rehabilitation centre,” sniffs their chairman. Dino Zoff resigns as Italy coach a day after being publicly criticised for “amateurish” tactics by Milan owner Silvio Berlusconi. Luton manager Lennie Lawrence is sacked by the club’s new board.
The government believe the Football Disorder Bill can end hooliganism, Ken Gall reports from Westminster
One of the great travesties of history is the legend of King Canute, who is remembered – if at all – as some kind of megalomaniac who thought he could control the tides. Canute, however, was actually the wise man of the tale, attempting to demonstrate to his credulous courtiers that there were limits to the events over which even a monarch could legislate.
He shares a birthday with the club whose fortunes he turned around. Filipo Ricci gets beneath the tanned skin of Lazio chairman SergioCragnotti
Distinguishing features Sven-Goran Eriksson lookalike. Same hair dye, same artificial sun tan 365 days a year. Cragnotti is not as familiar with the Italian language, however. He has taken ages to build up a stand-offish, reserved image, but now avoids any contact with microphones and notebooks.
Ian Plenderleith discovers a brave new world of websites
If you only buy World Soccer to pore over results and league tables from impossibly distant lands, but despair that the scores are usually two months old, then help is at hand. The website of the Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation is a football statistician’s wet dream of both archived and bang up to date results and standings from anywhere in the world where a football is kicked in earnest.