Dear WSC
If Chic Charnley (Reviews, WSC 281) had had a longer fuse, it’s a racing certainty that he’d have played for Scotland and, in all likelihood, have drawn the attentions of bigger clubs in Scotland and down south. But, in gaining a model pro, we’d have lost a character who inspired love and loathing in equal part (depending on whether he was playing for your club). For a fan Chic was a uniquely interactive experience – if you got on his back he’d react and, as his disciplinary record shows, on 17 occasions that reaction led to a red card. As a fan you knew it. He’d be looking at the crowd trying to pick out his tormentors and on a good day you’d get a gesture. What better motivation could there be.At McDiarmid Park in Perth, on New Year’s Day 1997 Chico had a particularly fine blow-up. With the St Johnstone fans full of New Year spirit (spirits?) the abuse directed at Chic was ripe. With the match at 1-1 the red mist descended, and he thumped one of his team-mates. What followed was one of the high points of the last 20 years for Saints fans – a 7-2 victory over the bitterest local rivals.Equally, when playing for Partick Thistle against Motherwell in 1994 or 1995, I recall the crowd focusing even more relentlessly on the man. My memory says that again he got wound up, launched a kung-fu tackle at an opponent and earned an early bath. I’m less certain of this though and would welcome confirmation that I twice played my part in taking Chico off the pitch, definitely my most significant footballing achievement. At a later date I met Chic in a Glasgow pub. He was holding court to a rapt audience of Celtic fans whose devotion to him was greater than to many of the club’s long-term players. They knew he was one of them and they knew he’d come within a whisker of fulfilling his/their dream of playing in the hoops. Down-to-earth, frank about his errors and damn funny, it’s a shame there aren’t more like him. But if there were, there’d be chaos.
Alistair Smith, Forest Hill
Search: ' Denis Smith'
Stories
Jonathan Paxton recalls how an almost famous season for Stoke was ruined by manager and star player falling out
“All teams have their era,” my Grandad often tells me. “It’s just that Stoke’s came between 1939 and 1945.” Most biographies of Adolf Hitler focus on stronger crimes against humanity ahead of denying Stoke City their chance of winning silverware but few in the Potteries would argue that the club’s golden generation lost their best years to the war. In 1938-39 the team managed by former player Bob McGrory finished seventh playing some of the finest football in the country. Freddie Steele scored 26 goals at centre-forward, centre-half Neil Franklin was just out of the youth team and, on the right wing, the Potters had Hanley-born England superstar Stanley Matthews who made his debut aged 17 in 1932. Fans were rightly optimistic.
Dear WSC
I write to you concerning Simon Creasey’s fascinating article Parting Shots (WSC 259), in which Ignacio Palacios-Huerta of the London School of Economics describes that, in penalty shootouts, the team that taking a penalty first wins 60.5 per cent of the time. He then goes on to say that the team kicking first “has a 21 per cent greater probability of winning the shootout”. I don’t cast doubt on Mr Palacios-Huerta’s abilities as a statistician, but it is possible that he meant 21 per cent more probability of winning. If Team X has a 60.5 per cent probability of winning, then Team Y therefore has a 39.5 per cent probability. Team X’s probability is [(((60.5 / 39.5) -1) x 100) =] 53 per cent greater than Team Y’s of winning the shootout. Or, in other words, that Team X wins 21 per cent more matches means that their chances are 53 per cent better than Team Y’s for any given shootout. We can be sure that this is precisely what was going through Rio Ferdinand’s head after extra time in Moscow.
Patrick Finch, Eskilstuna, Sweden
The Autobiography
by Denis Smith
Know the Score, £17.99
Reviewed by Andy Thorley
From WSC 264 February 2009
When Stoke beat Arsenal recently, Arsène Wenger became really upset. Stoke’s players, he said, were dirty and tried to injure his side. Thank goodness he didn’t see Denis Smith play. Such is the frequency of the accounts of on-pitch violence that this autobiography of one of the Potters’ greatest ever players reads like a new Danny Dyer show, Naughty Tackles of the 70s.
Dear WSC
After the thrilling second leg of Chelsea’s Champions League tie against Valencia, I have found that the only way to get through ITV’s woeful coverage is by marvelling at how retarded the commentary team must think we are. Having lived through Andy Gray’s 18-month-long reconciliation to the “crazy” offside rule, and survived two seasons of Five’s head-scratching over the “barmy” UEFA Cup groups, I was amazed at just how often ITV’s team felt we needed to have the away goals rule explained to us.
I realise the networks want to make their coverage accessible to all, but even the casual football observer understands the away goals rule. If I had a pound for every time the commentary team explained to me that, if Chelsea score now, then of course Valencia will need to score twice, then I would probably have collected enough to get a Setanta subscription.
Gareth Allen, Normanton