The Archive

Belgium have everything in place to host next year’s European Championship, except a reasonable football team.  Jan Antonissen reports on the co-hosts’ disarray

What the hell is wrong with Belgian football? At the 1998 World Cup Belgium were clearly the most cowardly team. The team didn’t lose in France, not even to the Dutch, yet they were sent home after the first round. Since last summer, the inappropriately named Red Devils have even lost the ability to draw. They lost five games in a row, and on March 30th were humiliated by Egypt in front of an outraged crowd in Liège. Belgium has become a Third World football nation.

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Steven Heath gives us a brief history of Southend

1906 A group of local worthies gather in the Blue Boar in Prittlewell (of which Southend was once the south end) to establish a rival to local amateur side Southend Athletic. In a fit of optimism, the proposed name, Prittlewell United, is dropped.The team turn professional and gain entry  to the Southern League Second Division.

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Cris Freddi’s look back at the downside of football during the 20th century continues with some terrible Wembley occasions.

I may have bitten off more than I can chew here. With so many cup finals having been played at Wembley, you would assume it wouldn’t be hard to pick out a fair selection of turkeys.

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Hankies out for the European Cup-Winners Cup, which ended its days at Villa Park on May 19, 1999. Cris Freddi looks back on a trophy largely unloved outside Magdeburg.

So farewell then ECWC. No more clogging up sentences with “European Cup-Winners Cup quarter-final second leg”. The last of the three Euro com­petitions to be founded is the first to disappear. Fair enough, perhaps, and I suspect it won’t be unduly mourned.

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Jamie Rainbow takes a look at club websites from Yorkshire, Wales and the West Midlands 

Being defined by whom one hates, rather than who one is, can cause no end of problems. Just look, for example, at The Square Ball, a fanzine-cum-website devoted to Leeds United. In terms of who to support, the forthcoming European Cup final between Manchester United and Bayern Munich has caused much anxiety. Should Leeds fans be influenced by a “long-term dislike of Man U” or a “burning sense of injustice from the 1975 European Cup Final”? Or, like the rest of us, should they get on with their life and just enjoy the game on its merits?

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