Dear WSC
Well, I’m really sorry to moan, especially as it was your 150th issue. But your Nick House (Football League Review, WSC 150) was watching a different Division Three to me last season. I’ll just say five things. Firstly, it was a tremendously exciting season. You wouldn’t think so to read this review. It culminated on the last day with first playing second for the championship. And it’s not often that happens. Secondly, how can Peterborough possibly be described as an enigma? One of the great certainties of Division Three football, and one of its great entertainments, is that Peterborough United consistently underachieve. It’s called the Barry Fry effect. Thirdly, there are some tremendous young players in this division, but you would need to be very blinkered indeed to name messrs Thomas, Breslan and Bastow among them. What about Martin Butler at Cambridge United, for goodness sake! Fourthly, he must be a really cautious punter if he wouldn’t have bet on any of the top v bottom games. If he had done, he would have made himself a tidy profit. Finally, eventual champions Brentford merited just one mention in the entire article. This despite one of their most eventful seasons ever, with the Ron Noades saga, a host of talented youngsters and that exciting final game. By contrast, Exeter City were mentioned five times, Devon clubs in general 11 times. Hey – that Nick House couldn’t be a Torquay fan, could he? Simon Knott, via email
The Archive
Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Thursday 1 The Department of Employment issue new rules on work permits. Players will be given permits for the length of their contracts rather than having their cases reviewed at the end of each season, and the rule stipulating that non-EU players must be among the top five wage earners at their clubs is scrapped. Forest's search for a manager ends with the appointment of the impressively tanned David Platt, who says: "The two months I had at Sampdoria were a massive learning curve." That's just what Sampdoria fans will have been thinking when they went down. The charges against Sol Camp≠bell for assaulting a steward after the Derby v Spurs match last autumn are dropped. Arsenal spend £3.5 million on a Brazilian full back, Silvinho, who says: "I have been following Arsenal ever since I knew they were watching me."
Friday 2 The PFA's Gordon Taylor criticises the changes to work permit rules. "We already have more foreign players than anywhere else in the world. Removing the wages criteria means you are opening the door to players who are not neccesarily top quality". Terry McDermott joins the Barnes-Dalglish dream team at Celtic as "social manager" – a highly specialised position which involves a lot of shouting and laughing plus the collecting of betting slips.
Our round-up of the season outside the Premiership begins with Gavin Barber's assessment of the beached whales and battling plankton all at sea in the First
History was made in the First Division this year. The streets of Oxford rocked, fanfares sounded and choirs of angels sang, as the Manor Ground played host to English football’s first-ever pay-per-view bonanza – a 0-0 draw with Sunderland. Bizarrely, adverts urging Sky subscribers to cough up £7.95 for the privilege of watching Niall Quinn were being broadcast on Talk Radio well into the second half of the game.
Cris Freddi tracks down the players and teams fated to misfortune, in the latest part of his series on the dark side of 20th century football
Imagine it. It’s 1951. Australia lose to a touring English FA XI in Sydney and you’re the keeper who lets in the 17 goals. Naturally you don’t win another cap, but you can live with that; your worst bit of bad luck arrived at birth, when you discovered you had parents who thought they had a sense of humour. Their surname’s Conquest and they christen you Norman. Thanks a bloody bunch. They presumably get together with the parents of Norman Rule, who follows you into the Oz team.
John Secker bids a fond farewell to Walsall's balti pies and Macclesfield's tented village
This was the season when Little and Large came into the division from opposite directions, played each other, then departed in the direction from which they had come. Two years ago Manchester City and Macclesfield Town were three divisions and a world apart, now they were starting on level terms.