Dear WSC
Along with Alastair Walker and Dave Bartley (Letters, WSC No 138 and 139), I also feel that too many of your correspondents are obsessive about subjects that are essentially trivial. I must point out, though, that Bam Bam wasn’t actually adopted in the conventional way. Barney and Betty Rubble found him.
Matthew Rees, Downend
The Archive
Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Powder puff ideas are making the dreaded Super League a laughing stock before it's even begun
Be mightily afraid, there’s a super league a-coming and damned if it doesn’t keep changing shape. One day it’s going to be a midweek league involving 16 clubs, or two divisions of 16, or 20 clubs. Then it’s going to be an invitational end of season tournament running through the close season. It might be a sealed competition with no promotion and relegation, or it might be opened up to new members after the first two years.
Wednesday 1 "I have apologized to the England players and I want every England supporter to know how sorry I am," says David Beckham as the England squad return from France. "There is an empty feeling inside," says Glenn, "but I have had an encouraging call from the prime minister." Ex-Rangers boss Walter Smith changes his mind about joining Sheffield Wednesday in order to become the new Everton manager, their fourth in four seasons. "I am under no illusions about the size of the task," he says, which is handy. Ron Noades makes himself manager of Brentford, saying: "I can spend and do what I like and I am very excited," words that may come back to haunt him by, ooh, the end of September. John Hollins takes over at Swansea. Bolton allegedly beat off Paris St Germain to sign Jamaica's teenage winger Ricardo Gardner for £1 million.
Thursday 2 Steve Bruce becomes player-manager of Sheffield United. Caretaker boss Steve Thompson stays on as assistant, with Wigan manager John Deehan coming in as coach. Got that?
Monday 6 Danny Wilson leaves Barnsley to take over at Hillsborough. He'll be replaced by John Hendrie. "I told Wednesday to go away, but I was honour bound to tell Danny of their approach," says miffed Barnsley chairman John Dennis. Man Utd will face either LKS Lodz of Poland or Azerbaijan's Kapaz in the second qualifying round for the Champions League. Celtic will play Croatia Zagreb if they get past St Patrick's Athletic. Cup winners Hearts meet Estonia's Lantana. In the UEFA Cup, Rangers also go to Dublin to take on Shelbourne, while Kilmarnock play Zeljeznicar from the newly recognized Bosnian league.
You'd think with a heavy police presence at least one of the officers would arrest any violent football fans, wouldn't you? Well as Paul Mathews discovered, not even the policemen want to hear about trouble at games
It’s five o’clock on a Saturday afternoon in October. You return to your car after a typically fiery local derby, comforted by the presence of a number of uniformed police officers, who stay close to the main contingent of away supporters. However, at some point you must peel off from the main group and negotiate the side streets. Seconds later, a rival supporter suddenly comes alongside you. Seeing several police officers in the distance, you decide to ignore him and keep your head down. The rival fan decides to exorcise his frustration at his own team’s 4-0 stuffing by acquainting his right fist with your face.
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.