The Archive

John Chapman looks back on a highly successful season for Anderlecht

The long-term significance
This season was a highwater mark in Belgian football. Not only did Anderlecht retain the championship but they also reached the second group stage of the Champions League. In the decade since, no Belgian team has achieved anything like that in Europe. Unfortunately, success was a double-edged sword, as an exodus of players led to Anderlecht losing their way. Only recently are the club beginning to return to 2000-01 levels. Further down the table, promoted Antwerp finished 12th in the first of their two seasons in the top flight – this was the peak of their collaboration with Manchester United. The Old Trafford hierarchy had expected much more.

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Simon Tyers watches ITV and Sky attempt to outdo each other in the calamity stakes as television football coverage slowly becomes a parody of itself

The comedic songwriter Tom Lehrer once said that satire died on the day that Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize. Seeing Neil Ruddock cast as an expert on a show entitled England’s Worst Ever Football Team, I knew exactly how he felt. At the other end of the scale, ITV’s commentary is the satirical equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel.

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Dear WSC
Simon Goodley’s excellent piece about Notts County (WSC 280) sums up the feelings of many long-standing Notts fans. Following the so-called takeover of the club by the Munto charlatans, the Notts fanbase was taken over by arrogant, intolerant glory hunters. Simon refers to the abuse heaped on the doubters on the internet, I know of two people who were physically attacked for the sin of professing to be less than wholly enthusiastic about the riches supposedly bestowed on us. Many supporters actually turned their back on the club, as a friend of mine said: “This is not the club I have followed for 30 years.” Getting promoted was in many ways the worst thing that could have happened as we may have to put up with these interlopers for a bit longer. Like Simon, I and many others I know actually hoped the team we support would lose matches so that it could regain the soul and good humour that attracted us to it in the first place. Here’s to a long winless run and relegation scrap – let’s see how many of the glory hunters remain then.
Tony Meakin, Nottingham

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Ian Plenderleith bursts the bubble of naive writers and big corporations who claim that football can cure the world's ills

“The beautiful game of football is a religion that unifies the people of the world,” Anand Datla of Indian website the Sports Campus blogged a couple of weeks prior to the World Cup. Once every four years this candied, candle-holding view of football enjoys an airing from all quarters of the game – its fans, writers, players and officials. Oh, and its sponsors too.

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This year saw the first ever Champions League final held on a Saturday. Alan Tomlinson considers the real reasons for a switch from mid-week

It was all over by the Monday. At 1pm the desks were down in Madrid’s Westin Palace Hotel, the signs to the UEFA operations room were all gone, only the occasional Ford – proudly boasting its longevity as a UEFA Champions League sponsor – pulled up outside the hotel, and the fleet of luxury VIP coaches had disappeared. The noticeboards in the hotel lobbies announced business as usual for the dealmakers of the corporate world, or the richer end of the conference business.

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