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The Archive

Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.

 

March 1998

Sunday 1 Forest go back to the top of the First Division after thrashing Middlesbrough 4-0. Spurs widen the gap between themselves and the trapdoor after an Allan Nielsen goal is enough to beat Bolton.

Tuesday 3 Villa escape with a 1-0 defeat away to Atletico Madrid in the UEFA Cup, the only goal a penalty from Christian Vieri. Atletico could be fined by UEFA after Mark Bosnich has objects thrown at him by home fans, mostly batteries (from radios, not cars). Stan Collymore claims to have been racially abused by Liverpool's Steve Harkness during and after the clubs' League match and may now take a complaint to the FA. Sheffield Utd chairman Mike Macdonald reacts tetchily to Nigel Spackman's decision to step down, saying "I was never 100 per cent sold on him. And it looks as though I may have been proved right." Woooh. Lou Macari is favourite to take over but then the bookies have always liked him. Doncaster draw their lowest crowd ever, 739, for the 2-0 defeat against Barnet that leaves them 11 points adrift at the bottom.

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Chaos theory

In lights of calls to change the Champions League's format, Simon Evans details the controversial idea of forming a European Super League

“There will be a league formed outside of UEFA with a team from each country, sponsored by that country’s biggest company… a super professional football league like American football, which will attract millions of viewers”
– Silvio Berlusconi, president of AC Milan, 1998

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Cometh the hour…

France may not have a reliable striker going into their own World Cup, but Cris Freddi indicates how history suggests that they need not worry yet

Just like old times. As in the days of Platini & Co, France score their share of goals from midfield (Djorkaeff 15 at a rate of one every two games) but can’t find someone to do the job up front. Christophe Dugarry’s scored twice in twenty matches, Patrice Loko’s suffered his second nervous breakdown in three years, and the search seems to be getting desperate. Stéphane Guivarc’h scored an equaliser on his debut but that was back in October; Bernard Diomède’s a surprise choice, David Trezeguet only twenty, Everton’s Mickael Madar good in parts. There’s even been talk of recalling Papin, who’s 34.

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Letters, WSC 135

Dear WSC
Villa Park, Tuesday March 17th. Villa v Atletico Madrid, UEFA Cup quarter final 2nd leg. After half an hour, Bosnich lies down behind a couple of defenders and Caminero makes it 2-0 on aggregate. The new electronic scoreboards stop urging us to get behind the team, and instead inform us that home shirts are now available in the club shop at 50 per cent off… Dark, dark humour indeed.
Bruce Smith, via email

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Read all about it

Mark Foreman discusses the sheer quantity of football books that are ready to hit the shelves

It was only when I was told that bookshops are expecting over 30 new titles to appear on the shelves in time for the World Cup that the full scale of the football publishing boom hit home. These days it would seem that no player, club or fan’s eye view is too ‘marginal’ (a phrase all too common to anyone with a shoe box full of rejection letters) for big name publishers to print.

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