Wednesday 2 “There was nothing kick and rush about that,” says Martin O’Neill as a Matt Elliott goal takes Leicester to the Worthington final at the expense of Villa. “We had our chance and we choked,” says John Gregory, who also claims that Leicester are about to take Stan Collymore off his hands, though the clubs are yet to agree on a fee. Swindon, eight points adrift at the bottom of the First, call in the administrators. They are currently losing £25,000 a week. “I believe we’ll be the first of many,” says chairman Cliff Puffett. The football authorities lobby the government to bring in restrictions on the number of non-EU players used by English clubs to two per team. “A Premiership team without one player from the UK sends out the wrong signals,” says the PFA’s Gordon Taylor. Ears burning, Gianluca Vialli says: “A quota might protect young English players but clubs won’t be able to compete in Europe if we stop some non-EU players joining us.”
The Archive
Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Neville Hadsley gets beneath the mask of Coventry City chairman and Gordon Strachan advocate Bryan Richardson
Distinguishing features Lived-in face that does not appear have deprived itself of too much.
An evening out at the Victoria Ground in Hartlepool would provide Ed Parkinson with an opportunity to see the new ten yard dissent rule in action. Or so he thought…
As a lifelong Hartlepool United supporter I had made a solemn pledge never to throw good money after bad by attending the dire clutch of virtual friendlies which masquerade as Auto Windscreens Shield matches. This single wise move saves me an average of £60 per season, including petrol.
Mick Slatter looks back at the highs and lows of Africa’s Cup of Nations which ended with Cameroon being crowned champions following a controversial penalty shoot-out
Maybe Victor Ikpeba will wind up wearing a brown paper bag over his head and advertising stuffed-crust pizza (or whatever the Nigerian equivalent might be). But he doesn’t deserve such ridicule. His penalty hit the crossbar and crossed the line. There was no need for video replays or freeze-frames or any other visual jiggery-pokery; it was clearly a goal. But the Tunisian referee saw it differently and his (obscured?) view cost the Super Eagles the African Cup of Nations.
When the Ivory Coast unexpectedly tumbled out of the African Nations Cup at the first hurdle, the military junta took the extraordinary step of jailing the entire squad. Mick Slatter takes up the story
If losing is a crime, then the Ivorians were suitably punished. On arriving home after their elimination, the players and staff had probably expected to encounter nothing more serious than a few disappointed fans and an awkward press conference at the airport. Instead they found themselves imprisoned and their passports confiscated.