Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Manchester City fan Mike McDonald is not the most loved figure at Sheffield Utd as Peter Salt explains
Distinguishing features Big reputation, big ego, big car, big company, big money, big mouth, big cigar, big Man City supporter, big chip on his shoulder. He is, without a shadow of a doubt, Big Mac.
The various clubs to be affected by Reg Brealey and Steve Morgan
Sheffield United fans will be only too familiar with the reputation of Reg Brealey, the chairman of their club in the 1980s. The one-time jute magnate is now officially bankrupt and has 20,000 luckless shareholders from a previous company failure on his conscience, but he has been far from idle since leaving Bramall Lane. In conjunction with sidekick Steve Morgon he has recently embarked on an unlikely groundhopping tour, sowing further confusion, debt and dissatisfaction wherever he goes.
Economic problems for Norwegian clubs have meant they have looked for outside help in financing player wages and transfers. Ole P Pedersen reports
On the face of it, football in Norway is booming. The national team has qualified for Euro 2000, two clubs are in the Champions League and the Premiership remains a popular destination for Norwegian players. However, all is not as it seems.
With 4,000 miles seperating them and the country's capital, it is safe to say that Spartak Vulkan of Russia are pretty remote. Kevin O'Flynn looks at the the team nearer Japan then any other part of Europe
Find Moscow on your map and head east. Take a breather after 375 miles – Torquay to Middlesbrough – and keep going. After 700 miles you reach Second Division (that is, third-level) Zenit Chelyabinsk. Another 2,200 miles and you’re in Siberia – Lokomotiv Chita, a mid-table First Division club. Go on past Siberia to Kamchatka, the sheep’s tail of a peninsula that hangs down towards Japan in the far east of Russia.
Andy Lyons talks to Rachel Anderson about being the only FIFA registered female agent, her clients and taking on the PFA
In the relationship between clubs and players it used to be that clubs held the upper hand. Has the balance now shifted in the players’ favour?
Only for a small minority. The majority of players are still paid slaves.There’s no freedom of movement until they’re 25, they can get fined two weeks’ wages for whatever misdemeanour the clubs decide. Clubs have always had it their way but there is an emerging sense now that clubs, players and agents have to work together. Even if I can’t agree on a contract with a club I still have to be able to do business with them. It’s no good anyone making impossible demands, so if I do a deal for a player it has to be something that the club can afford. Straight away, as soon as a deal is done, that boy has got so much pressure on him. If he doesn’t score the goals or stop them going in, he’s dumped and that doesn’t do me any good, or him. Backing the club into a corner over terms isn’t a very clever thing for an agent to do and the people who do that are here today gone tomorrow. Though when I first started people probably thought I was going to be like that and in fact I probably thought I was too.