The Archive

Steve Field remembers the awesomely ramshackle South Bank at Molineux

I think it was the hero’s driving-instructor father in Gregory’s Girl who enthused over the advantages of learning to drive in a new town. He might have been right, too, but it’s bloody awful growing up in one. They are soulless and sterile, and basic demographics dictate that their football teams are a long way down the evolutionary scale. If you want anything remotely resembling a top match you are obliged to travel to the nearest proper town. In my case, Wolverhampton.

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The relaxation of restrictions post-Bosman has seen clubs across Europe experimenting with bulk importation of foreigners. Some have got their fingers burned, but Spain's Celta Vigo are a surprising success story. Phil Ball sizes them up

As you drive on west from the lush dairy pastures of Asturias in the north of Spain, the road sign that greets you with “Welcome to Galicia” seems like some kind of joke. Ahead stretches a bleak and barren countryside, about as welcoming as the blasted heath where Macbeth met his witches. The settings were not lost on Luis Buñuel, who shot two particularly depressing films using the region as back­drop. No phony weather sets were needed in a region that boasts an average of 320 days of rain a year, plus swirling mists, howling winds and a western seaboard called “The coast of death”. As if all that weren’t enough, General Fran­co himself was born a Gallego, in the ugly little town of Ferrol, and the region, unsurprisingly, is not exactly renowned for its ultra-liberal persuasions.

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A brief guide to football on the English riviera from Nick House

1927 Torquay take Aberdare’s Football League place following a controversial second ballot. The new boys promptly lose 9-1 at Millwall and finish in the bottom five in all but two of their first seven seasons. Unusually bad results each August suggest the signing of holidaymakers on fortnightly contracts.

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The biggest shock of the FA Cup first round came at Bedlington, and Ken Sproat saw it all

Bedlington Terriers are a new name to many, but have gained a massive profile following their debut in the FA Cup first round. New unless you know me, that is. I have been preaching Terrier lore with wide-eyed zeal since moving to the town in 1990. Strangely, it is only in retrospect that I realise it was love at first sight. The early matches were turgid, lower Northern League Second Division fare.

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John Sugden and Alan Tomlinson look at the bidding process for the 2006 World Cup, and England's chances of staging the competition

Sir Bobby Charlton features prominently in the calendar produced to promote England’s campaign to host the 2006 World Cup, which was recently mailed across the football and media networks of the globe. This slick bit of marketing covers 15 months from January 1999 to March 2000 – the month when FIFA is due to announce the winning bid. Sir Bobby appears in two of the pictures – straddling the nostalgia of a black-and-white image of his youth (in a back street of his home town) and the multicoloured glory of England’s 1966 World Cup victory.

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