The Archive

Are players from abroad really good value for money?

Just the other week someone phoned up claiming to be Frankie Dettori (“you know, off the telly”) and offering a dead cert tip for the 3.30 at Wincanton. With not a moment to lose we raced out with the petty cash tin and emptied it into the hands of the nearest bookies on a horse that, wouldn’t you know it, strolled in last. So you can appreciate that we felt for Graeme Souness a few weeks back when it was revealed that the ‘George Weah’ who phoned him up to recommend Aly Dia, a Senegalese player who played for Southampton against Leeds in mid-December, was in fact Dia’s agent, and that the player had been previously hawked around several lower division clubs.

Read more…

In the build up to the 1998 World Cup Simon Harris assesses whether Hungary's fortunes may be changing for the better – and explains how they came to sink so low in the first place

Poor old Ferenc Puskas. It doesn’t matter which Hungarian team is playing in Europe, his old club Honved, Ferencvaros, Ujpest or lesser names like Videoton or MTK, the foreign press are there waiting for their Puskas quote.

Read more…

Manchester bids to become the new natioanl football centre even though the odds are firmly stacked in Wembley's favour. Adam Brown reports

It is now a year since the Sports Council made the curious decision of asking Manchester and Wembley to revise and re-submit their bids for the national stadium. The ‘race’ for the national stadium saw the final, final bids re-entered on 6th November.

Read more…

Richard Darn pays tribute to Bradford's HSG stand which would be even better if you could actually watch the game

Got a swish ground yet? New stands, dazzling snack bar menu, toilets with hand lotion? Well, if you’re an Arsenal or Manchester United supporter you’ll probably answer yes. But as a die-hard traditionalist watching my footie in the lower divisions you can keep your corporate-style entertainment and £20 admission fee and just give me a decent view of the game.

Read more…

Footballers keep doing things that bother Matt Nation, but in the long term they'll thank him for pointing it out

In an attempt to outline just how difficult it is to be a footballer, Brian Clough once drew parallels between the respective lots of a cameraman and a centre forward. The cameraman, he reckoned, could spend an age perfecting his angles, positions and profiles, but then see the whole lot disappear down the toilet as a result of somebody deliberately knocking everything over just as he reaches for his clapperboard. Similarly, Cloughie’s number nine could spend an equal amount of time perfecting his shooting position (particularly if the number nine in question is Justin Fashanu) and then be brought down in one fell swoop by a carefully-aimed kick to the Achilles tendon.

Read more…