Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.
Mark Poole on the controversy which should lead to the SFA updating their disciplinary proceduresVideo evidence is all the rage. It seems that every time a manager or pundit is unhappy with a decision they ask why we cannot use video evidence, at least to retrospectively punish the opposition. The Scottish Football Association (SFA) are addressing the issue.
Football is popular in India but without a strong domestic competition fans will continue to watch the English game, writes Simon CreaseyIt may play second fiddle to cricket as the national pastime, but football has a big following in India. In July 1997 a record 131,000 people crammed into the Salt Lake stadium in Calcutta to watch the KBL Federation Cup semi-final between bitter rivals East Bengal and Mohun Bagan. In the same decade attendances of up to 100,000 were recorded in Kerala and Bengal. Goa, Bangalore and Delhi also regularly enjoyed matchday attendances of between 25,000 and 35,000.
Alex Lawson on the role of train travel in footballIn the 1970s and 80s Football Specials were used to ferry fans to away games by rail in a bid to contain hooliganism. Supporters’ organisations and the British Transport Police have been investigating the idea of restoring the services in the wake of frequent arrests of fans travelling on regular trains. At the height of hooliganism, spare carriages and redundant trains were used to transport huge numbers of fans. But the Specials became a focus for problems and were largely scrapped in the early 1990s as privatisation made organising services across the networks more difficult.
After financial crises, the 2012 season could emerge as an unlikely success story for Peru’s Primera División, says Nick Dorrington2011 was a terrible year for Peruvian football. The football federation’s flaccid attempts at regulating the financial difficulties suffered by the majority of first division clubs turned the national league into a farce. The death of Alianza Lima supporter Walter Oyarce, who was pushed off a stand by rival fans, highlighted the growing problem of football-related violence. Stricter enforcement was required if 2012 was to offer any improvement.
The best antidote to the money ruining football is a litle retail therapy spent on your fantasy league team, argues Ashley ClarkAs Wikipedia no doubt reliably informs me, fantasy football was created in 1990 by an Italian technology writer, Riccardo Albini, as a casually interactive, just-for-fun gaming experience. Albini was clearly onto something. The game has proved wildly popular, lurching through a variety of vaguely unwieldy mail and print iterations (as well as David Baddiel and Frank Skinner’s 1990s TV show Fantasy Football League) to blossom into the slick, ubiquitous web-based beast it is today.