Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Ian Plenderleith approves of the attempts to throw off the shackles of British footballing attitudes in North America
A panel of US football journalists arrived at the national coaching convention in Baltimore at the start of this year for a general discussion about media coverage in the States. In the time allowed, however, there was only one topic that interested the few dozen present – the importation of British television commentators, and how it reflects on the state of the US game.
Andy Brassell looks at a confusing and controversial TV deal for the Conference
It normally takes comedians or cover bands to pack out the bars at AFC Wimbledon and Kingstonian’s Kingsmeadow stadium on a night without a home game. But on a cold Friday evening in January, a few hundred were crammed in to watch live football. Wimbledon were playing at Gateshead and such is the relative obscurity of Premier Sports, the TV rights holder for the Football Conference from this season, that fans squeezed into the hostelries behind KM’s main stand to watch the transmission.
While the big clubs claim conspiracy, Matthew Barker believes that Verona don’t receive enough credit for a famous title in the 1980s
The popular back story to Hellas Verona’s one and only Championship win, in 1985, tends to focus on the introduction of a new public balloting system for the selection of referees. Claims had been repeatedly made that the bigger clubs would block the use of certain unfavoured match officials. Juventus had just won two controversial scudetti in a row. Surely, the argument goes, it was no coincidence that the one season when referee selection was kept in check, a smaller team were able to take the top prize?
Saul Pope explains the monetary chaos, calendar change and political factors affecting the Russian Premier League
The new Russian Premier League season will be different, but not in a way many fans hope. With the gulf between the big boys and the rest growing ever wider, the league is getting more predictable – the top places will go to Zenit St Petersburg, CSKA Moscow, Rubin Kazan and Spartak Moscow. The difference is in the length – 2011-12 is to be a transition season of 18 months’ duration, with the season that follows swapping from the current spring-autumn calendar to, like much of Europe, an autumn-spring calendar.
Bohemians are the latest League of Ireland club facing struggles to stay afloat. Aaron Rogan reports from Dublin
Prolonged contract negotiations between players and clubs often end in ignominy, but recent events at League of Ireland club Bohemians had a lot more at stake than loss of face. Days before Christmas the club was served with a winding-up order by two players who, along with eight others, had been negotiating severance packages after Bohemians revealed they could not honour their contracts for next season and that they hoped to provide a budget in line with the FAI’s licensing criteria.