Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Sarah Gilmore looks at the reasons for the marked increase in the number of women writing and reporting on football in recent times, and the hurdles they still have to overcome
Over the past few years we have seen an explosion of women writing, editing and presenting on football. They seem to have come from nowhere and arrived at the top of their professions, giving their views with authority.
There are now women working within the game at almost every level apart from team management. Anne Coddington spoke to several who have made football their full-time career
This year’s Carling Report provided the clearest view yet obtained that growing numbers of women are following football. Thirteen percent of supporters are now women and of the fans who started watching football regularly since the change to all-seater stadia five years ago, women represent one in four.
The euphoria surrounding South Africa's recent Nations Cup triumph can't disguise the problems afflicting football on the African continent, as John Sugden and Alan Tomlinson report
Behind the mask of success, African football is in a state of chaos. Take Cameroon, for instance, a country which came within a bad tackle of knocking England out in Italia 90. Prior to the Finals the squad had gathered at a training camp in the then Yugoslavia. According to Joseph Antoine Bell, a goalkeeper in the squad for the last two World Cup campaigns, they only had eight footballs to practice with, “and only one ball was any good . . .”. The team doctor and trainer had no medical gear and the players had to have a collection to buy bandages and other essentials.
Dear WSC,
While I was expecting WSC to cover the issue of the proposed relocation of Wimbledon FC, I was disappointed by the slant of the article (From Here to Where, WSC No 108). Once again you fall into the standard trap of belittling the Dons; “they are not exactly deeply rooted in their home soil”. I’d like to disagree. I first visited Plough Lane over thirty years ago when they had just won the FA Amateur Cup. In the years that followed, was it really any surprise that the supporter base could not keep up with the team’s success, especially given the proximity of other clubs? If Runcorn, Gateshead or Hednesford succeeded in getting into the Premiership they would suffer similar problems. Wimbledon have worked tirelessly to build up community support and recently won an FA award for ‘Football in the Community’ work. When the media claim we have no support, it ignores the hardcore of 5-6,000 to whom keeping the Dons in South London (preferably in Merton) is of vital importance. What I would like to see is an article which looked at Wimbledon’s achievements objectively, echoed the idea that a team’s status should be judged by on the field performances not numbers through the turnstiles or cantilever stands, and finally addresses the real problem of short-sighted local politicians who don’t actually want football in their community.
Paul Jeater, Ingatestone
Matt Stone heard the Labour Party explain why government intervention is the solution to football's problems
I used to be a member of the FSA. I am still a (disgruntled) Labour party member and a Spurs season-ticket holder. I’m also one of those idiots who would find it difficult to name a ticket price I wouldn’t pay. So I thought I’d probably be interested in Labour’s plans for football, which were unelashed on the world by Tom Pendry and Jack Cunningham at a press conference last month.