Wednesday 1 Holders Spurs slink out of the Worthington Cup at Fulham, their 3-1 defeat described by George Graham as "by far our worst performance since I became manager". A crowd of 17,000 sees Aston Villa trounce Southampton 4-0. "The crowds have been crap because we've played crap until tonight," says the forthright John Gregory. In the Scottish equivalent Rangers' mini-crisis continues with an extra-time defeat at Aberdeen (yes, Aberdeen). Huddersfield threaten legal action against the Football League for referee Jeff Winter's failure to award a penalty during their Worthington match against Wimbledon. That'll work. Darlington are the lucky losers drawn to play at Villa in the third round of the FA Cup. "I have a direct line to the big man upstairs," says their safe-cracking chairman. The government rejects plans for the new Wembley, on the grounds that it would not be able to stage major athletics tournaments as well as football matches.
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Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Tuesday 2 Man Utd finish top of their Champions League group with a 2-1 win over Sturm Graz. "The competition will be more exciting for everyone from now on," yawns Alex. Arsenal's magnificently meaningless last group game ends in a 3-2 win in Stockholm. The FA are to take no action against Neil Ruddock over garlic-related remarks allegedly made to Patrick Vieira. "We fully accept that he is not racist ñ as his many black friends in the game will testify," says one of those FA spokesmen. Charlton regain second spot in the First Division after winning at Crewe. Moneybags Wigan, still unbeaten, go top of the Second by beating Chesterfield. Another bad day at the office for Barry Hearn as Leyton Orient slip to the bottom of the Third after losing at Darlington while rivals Chester win at Shrewsbury. Exciting times ahead in the Potteries, possibly, as Stoke City are bought by a consortium of Icelandic businessmen.
Dominic Smith attended England v Scotland and got a view of the two differing types of England fan
It’s been a few years since I watched a group of England fans – all replica shirts, union flags and Blackburn Rovers tattoos – follow a middle-aged woman down Wembley High Road, jeering and repeatedly calling her a “Paki”. Part of the dark old days which the FA and the media – all eagerly campaigning for the English 2006 World Cup bid – would have us believe are long gone.
The 'Battle of Britain' had all the papers talking, but as Archie MacGregor discovers, the tabloids can take things a little to far
So that was the Battle of Britain. To paraphrase an apposite remark, surely never in the history of Scottish journalism has so much hype and mindless posturing been so relentlessly sustained by so few. In Scotland, the sight of the national team once again performing its party piece of glorious failure has been greeted with something approaching fatalistic acceptance. Yet mixed in with the anguish, ennui and glee (at the Wembley result) there is also a tangible sense of relief that the goddam war is over. All that remains in the run-up to the season of goodwill is a deep-seated wish that the tabloids abide by the terms of the ceasefire. Some hope.
Two top-ten teams in their group and trips to war-torn countries and earthquake-affected Turkey made the Republic of Ireland's qualifying campaign tricky, but Piers Edwards tells us how they came so close to success
“For us it is a football match, for them it is a matter of life and death.” Ireland’s manager Mick McCarthy was actually talking about the earthquake in Turkey, but he may as well have been discussing the football. For the Irish, it was another unbelievable episode in a campaign full of them. For Turkey, the earthquake meant the nation desperately craved the opportunity for celebration that the play-off promised.