Yes, Delia Smith committed quite the faux-pas with her half-time rantings, says Caroline Bailey, but perhaps it's been taken a bit too far
There was a time when “doing a Delia” meant investing in a non-stick omelette pan. But since that infamous night in February when the Norwich City director, eyes rolling like a colicky mare, tottered on to the Carrow Road turf with a microphone, it has come to mean something slightly different.
Dear WSC
Gabriele Marcotti is right (Letters WSC 217) when he points out that none of the performance-enhancing drugs at the centre of the Juventus doping court case were actually illegal – apart from erythropoietin (EPO) – but the rather smug attitude of the club still leaves a bitter taste. As I understand it, it’s only recently that ways of detecting EPO usage have been perfected (in time for the Athens Olympics) which may explain why so few of the players at the club between 1994 and 1998 tested positive – and why Juve’s defence counsel, Paolo Trofino, and others are so confident that the prosecution will fail at the appeal stage. Also, it was never my intention in the article in WSC 215 to portray Robert Baggio, Paolo Montero etc as a bunch of thickies; more that their unhelpful attitude during the hearings had, at best, the whiff of a fudge about it. Sergio Campana, president of the Associazione Italiana Calciatori (the Italian PFA), said after the verdict was announced that he believed that all the players had acted in good faith. Does that then mean that, if the club were indeed administering doses of EPO, they lied to the players about what they were doing? And will the appeal, when it eventually comes round, throw any more light on proceedings? Probably best not to hold your breath.
Matt Barker, via email
Caroline Bailey was dancing in the streets of East Anglia in May and hasn't given up hopes of a repeat performance
Picture a golden evening in May. Fifty thousand people, drunk on unaccustomed success, are clinging precariously to phone boxes and lamp posts as an open-top bus, its passengers playing pass-the-parcel with the First Division trophy, inches into view. With Premiership football to look forward to for the first time in almost a decade, it’s easy to believe, as grown men weep openly around you, that this is just the beginning.
As he has a contact book that reads like George W Bush's most-wanted list, Giovanni di Stefano's decision to take over Dundee has raised some eyebrows, including those of Ken Gall
The arrival of Giovanni di Stefano on the board of directors at Dundee FC marks, depending on one’s viewpoint, either a slightly sinister turn of events for Scottish football or a unique opportunity for a provincial club to match, if not surpass, the Old Firm in financial clout. (A third possibility – that Di Stefano is in the process of perfecting some kind of alternative comedy routine – cannot be ruled out, as we shall see.)
Life is complicated at both ends of the First Division. Norwich's chief executive Neil Doncaster explains how the Canaries are trying to plan for all eventualities
How well off are Norwich compared to other clubs in the wake of ITV Digital?
We certainly weren’t the worst hit, but we weren’t the lightest hit either. There are a number of clubs in the First Division whose aspirations year-to-year are not necessarily promotion and who had not pushed the boat out quite so far in terms of player salaries. Our wage bill this season of £5.5 million was budgeted for on the basis that we would receive £2.5 million income from TV. Even receiving it we expected to make a loss of £2.5 million over the year, so when the ITV Digital situation arose, you’re then looking at a budgeted loss of £5 million – which is why we had to go down the route of the share offer very quickly over the summer.