Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
The annual statement of football's accounts does not make good reading for fans of Nationwide clubs. Patrick Harverson looks at the numbers
Ask most fans how they think the European commission’s 1995 Bosman ruling, which allowed out-of-contract players to move clubs on free transfers, has most changed domestic football and they will talk of the hundreds of foreign players who make a living in England today.
We asked for your views about the 1998 World Cup and Roger Titford sifted through the responses to find out, among other things, who you blamed for that famous defeat to Argentina
Younger readers may not believe this but many years ago, before the widespread use of radios,TVs and mobile phones inside football grounds, there was another way of getting all the half-times. A bloke walked the ground in the second half selling the evening newspaper which had the half-time scores printed, somewhat haphazardly, in the Stop Press. You found out your other team were 0-2 down and, generally, threw the paper away.
Andrew Fraser explains how a recent court case involving a Stockport steward highlighted widespread concern about ground safety
Football safety experts fear a renewed smug-ness about stadium safety, plus financial restraints on clubs outside the Premiership, could threaten a new Hillsborough in English grounds.
A summer of unprecedented World Cup hype has done nothing to slow down the football juggernaut. We invited three critics, Simon Inglis, Alyson Rudd and John Williams, to ruminate on the shape of things to come
The onset of the football boom in Britain is usually dated from the 1990 World Cup. Two tournaments on from there it still appears to be racing ahead at ever greater speed. Are there any indications that the boom is nearing its end?
Dear WSC
There wasn’t room on the questionnaire (WSC No 138) to record my favourite World Cup moment. Given the paucity of the “entertainment”, the presence of the Paraguayan defender, Arce, was a blessing. Credit must be given to Barry Davies, who never slipped up with his pronunciation, as the rest of us surely would have. Thus, Arce was constantly announced as “Ah-Say!” in the grand manner of the blustering cartoon rooster, Foghorn Leghorn, and never once degenerated into “Aaaarse” like the yokel in The Fast Show sketches.
Martin Callaghan, Wakefield