Dear WSC
“Something inside him broke. It wasn’t the inside of his knee this time. It was his heart.” It may seem like a line from a Mills and Boon tear-jerker but it’s actually from the Daily Record’s coverage of Gary McAllister’s decision to quit playing for Scotland. Oh how a nation was thrown into mourning. Well, no, actually. About bloody time was the general opinion. The truth is that McAllister has never really been accepted by the Tartan Army. Of course the Euro 96 penalty miss is always mentioned but it started long before then. Since his debut in a glorious friendly defeat against East Germany in 1990 nobody has ever been really convinced by him. As early as 1992 there were calls for him to be left out of the squad travelling to the European Championship.Over the next few seasons there was much talk in the Scottish media of McAllister being tracked by Italian giants. Roma were mentioned, so were Sampdoria. When he did finally make the switch to that home of international playboys, Coventry City, no one was more relieved than Rangers fans who had also had to put up with constant rumours of his impending arrival. But it was the way he was booed from the park in Scotland’s recent defeat by the Czech Republic which convinced Gary to go. Showing a Hoddle-like thought process he whined: “There is an element of the media and the support which has exhibited a negative attitude towards me.” Hang on. What actually happened was as old as entertainment itself. You were rubbish therefore you were booed. No negative vibes, no bad karma. You were no good. McAllister’s attitude seems typical of the modern day Premiership footballer who seems to think we should be honoured to be breathing the same air as them. They expect us to stand like slack-jawed yokels who are delighted that the circus has come to town. Sorry Gary and every other footballer in the world. That’s not how it works. Enjoy your big money contracts, boot deals and multi-million pound transfers, but remember whatever changes about football the fans can still tell when the Emperor is naked.
David Lee
The Archive
Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
The rise in players' wages continues to grow at an alarming rate, causing Deloitte and Touche to call for clubs to show a harder stance during negotiations
The strangest publication to arrive at WSC for a long time was a glossy brochure called, with no apparent sense of irony, UEFA Champions League: A solidarity system for European football. Published in February this year, it appears to form part of UEFA’s campaign to head off any attempt to challenge the central marketing of TV rights to the Champions League.
The latest political attempts to counter hooliganism are a step too far, argues Stan Pearce
As the political landscape of the country has changed – so runs the conventional wisdom – so has the attitude of Westminster to football. However, anyone who believed that Trade Secretary Stephen Byers’s decision to prevent the takeover of Manchester United by Rupert Murdoch signalled another stage in the evolution of politicians’ thinking towards the game should have witnessed a low-key debate in the House of Commons in the week of the Byers decision.
Saturday 3 Liverpool's first derby win in ten attempts, 3-2 at Anfield, is overshadowed by a row over Robbie Fowler's celebration when scoring the first of his two goals, when he mimics snorting cocaine from the white line, geddit, of the penalty area. Gerard Houllier, game for a laugh, claims Fowler was pretending to eat grass but the FA are expected to whip out another of their misconduct charges. Chelsea and Leeds make ground at the top after beating Charlton and Forest while Man Utd are held 1-1 by Wimbledon and Arsenal get a goalless draw at Southampton. In the First Division, Sunderland's 11th successive home win, 3-0 over West Brom, equals a club record. Ipswich stay second after thrashing Swindon 6-0 at the County Ground.
Bayern Munich club president Franz Beckenbauer has one of the most enviable CVs in the game, and Uli Hesse-Lichtenberger tells us how the man can do no wrong in his native Germany
Distinguishing features Awesome, really. He looks like the royalty he is and doesn’t even need the normally imperative elephant’s ears and protruding noses the less noble employ to stress their status. Actually, he may very well be the first person to rule Germany who’s not an ugly gnome, a shrivelled old fogey or a walking glandular disorder. Has the healthy tan that betrays the good golfer, sports the receding hairline which proves he’s been there and seen it all, and took up wearing understated glasses to suggest he might even be a bit of a thinker.