The Archive

It may have only been in the playground, but Neil Reynolds can remember coming to blows with somebody about a football match for the first time

I thumped him in the stomach; he reacted with a punch to my eye which jolted my head backwards. My reply was a jab to the nose which drew blood, and he countered with a hard left to my face. A teacher then stepped in and dragged us apart with honours even, or maybe even me marginally ahead; in truth, though, had the contest lasted more than a few seconds, I would have probably been pulverised.

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He was already a veteran supporter of Newcastle, but Matthew Roche remembers the first time he saw them play in Minsk

Sorting through my Newcastle videos the other day I noticed several were missing. Where was the “Abject failure dressed up as excitement” compilation? Who had swiped my record of the abortive 1990-91 campaign? Then a guilty thought struck me – Dynamo Minsk must still have them.

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There's nothing quite like the floodlights, reminisces Jeffrey Prest

It wasn’t the normal route to night-time football. There were no alluring floodlights visible above the rooftops; no hordes funnelling expectantly past my window. No, it was down to the Airey brothers, excused the last ten minutes of our Scout meeting every Wednesday so they wouldn’t miss Spennymoor Utd’s kick-off. I grew to envy them. The idea that the heroes I occasionally watched on Saturday afternoons were reconvening in the midst of a working week had the exotic flavour of stolen pleasure. The Aireys had sold me.

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Illegal payments are no laughing matter

"Bung" is a comedy word, close to bungling, an activity that generates derision, not to be taken too seriously. Bungs, as the Premier League inquiry established, are passed over in motorway service stations or transport cafes in plastic carrier bags or even, in one case, on an Icelandic trawler. It is a pity that ‘bung’ has become the standard shorthand phrase for corrupt transfer dealings in football because it trivialises an activity that can often involve huge sums of money changing hands.

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It may be winter, but Ian Plenderleith points out that the football can continue indoors

There are some things in football as sure to come around every year as Ian Wright’s suspension and Thomas Brolin’s attempt at career rehabilitation. In Germany and Switzerland it is the litany of the coaches moaning about the tough playing schedule when the annual fixture lists are produced, as if they thought perhaps this year they would only be playing their opponents once and that the national cup had been abolished. They carp on about too many “English weeks”, meaning that their poor oppressed players have to some-times turn out on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. And that the summer break is far too short.

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