Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Georgina Turner is sick and tired of an inane background hum – constant chirrupings from the extra in the commentary box
“I’ve got to say that to get away with that in such a hostile environment, you’ve got to count your chickens” – the wisdom of Ray Wilkins, following Peter Crouch’s second bookable tackle early in the first leg of Real Madrid v Tottenham Hotspur.
Mark Segal questions whether an overtly strict approach to players’ use of Twitter is precluding an exciting new opportunityDuring his undistinguished seven-match England career, striker Carlton Cole has failed to put a smile on the face of Fabio Capello or his bosses at the Football Association.
Mark Brophy isn’t surprised that both clubs and players take the big-money gamble on promising teenagersI wouldn’t recognise Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, the Southampton winger, if I saw him in the street. Thanks to the footballing gossip columns, I know that he’s 17 and the same kind of hot property Theo Walcott was in his Saints days, supposedly worth £10 million and interesting the very biggest English clubs. Ipswich’s Connor Wickham, perhaps better known, is another to be the subject of speculation on a close-season transfer. Should either make a move this summer they will be embarking on a well-trodden path.
Continuing our anniversary series we look back at how the spectator experience has changed in the last 25 years. David Wangerin was fascinated with English football in the 1980s as everything was so different to his native US. Times have changedI was unlucky, I suppose, that both of the first two English football matches I ever saw ended without a goal. But what I remember most about my first trip to Villa Park, on the first Saturday of February, 1984, wasn’t the score, the weather, or even the opposition: it was all the empty seats.
A West Midlands derby leaves the home team just about over the safety line, while the visitors are left with the volatile mood swings familiar to anyone who has experienced a relegation scrap. Adam Bate relives the actionI’m meeting an old school friend to go to the game. Although we are both Wolves fans, he lives behind enemy lines – near the Mailbox in the centre of Birmingham. He greets me at the door with a sheepish raise of the eyebrows. No words. We both know this is not a social call. Such is life for the supporters of a team in the midst of a relegation battle.