Search: ' Matt Derbyshire'

Racist incidents in games between Serbian and British sides have rightly led to condemnation – but not always of the right people, argues Jonathan Wilson. Some of the outrage is counter-productive, too

There is no subject more certain to set forth tidal waves of sanctimony than racism. Discussion has become impossible, largely because British football has been so successful in its campaign against racism that it now feels compelled to lecture the rest of the world on the subject. It isn’t helping.

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Two sides that met in the Premiership in 2001 are in the Championship’s bottom half and selling key players isn’t the way to get back to the play-offs writes Al Needham. Cue protests…

X On the face of it, laughing openly at the home team’s protest against their board while sitting in their end isn’t the prudent thing to do. “PLEASE HOLD THIS BANNER UP AS THE PLAYERS GO INTO THE HUDDLE BEFORE THE GAME, AND THEN AFTER THE FINAL WHISTLE,” it says. In actual fact, it is a sheet of A4 that looks as if it has been run through an office photocopier and I spend a good ten minutes arguing the toss with it.

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Dear WSC
Have any other readers noticed that clubs and players seem to be under increasing pressure to pay money for successful outcomes to fixtures? On The Premiership, September 28, Jon Champion at Man City v Liverpool observed that “Michael Owen can’t buy a goal from open play at the moment”. A bit later, during Charlton v Man Utd, Clive Tyldesley told us: “Charlton can’t buy a home win this season.” I know football is a money-dominated sport, but this is ridiculous. However, what I really want to know is how does the system work? Is there a sliding scale of charges, so that Owen could afford to buy a goal against the generous Man City defence, but not against West Brom’s tight back four the previous week? Are “six-pointers” decided by bids in a sealed envelope, which may explain why Sunderland beat Villa, but Bolton v South­ampton was a draw? And do teams expected to win easily not bother buying that week? This would certainly account for Chelsea’s home crash to West Ham. To take it further, do supermarket-style special offers and other assorted gim­­mickry apply? For instance, was Ow­en’s hat-trick part of a “buy two, get one free” arrangement? Did Charlton, who led at half-time but eventually lost, buy a past-its-sell-by-date home win for half price? And is there a loyalty card system for frequent win buying? Arsenal must be well sorted if there is. It would be bad enough if this was lim­ited to the top flight, but it’s even happening in the Nationwide. Ronnie Moore, explaining my team Rotherham’s unexpectedly good start, cautioned that: “This time last season Grimsby were top of the league, but their manager couldn’t buy a win after that.” So, as a Miller, can I please urge whoever is in charge of our points purchasing department to keep up the good work and carrying on signing the cheques.
Steve Ducker, via email

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Dear WSC
I occasionally wondered what had become of Gerry Harrison (WSC 188), with his penchant for bad grammar and getting players’ names wrong. In the late 1970s and early 1980s we in the Anglia region were often subjected to “Kenny Samson” of Arsenal and Manchester City’s “Ray Ransome”. His treatment of the assault by a dog at Colchester which effectively ended the career of Brentford goalkeeper Chic Brodie (“What a tackle!”) was ill-advised to say the least, and he annoyed my dad, an English teacher, on a weekly basis by his use of the grammatically incorrect “off of”, as in “that’s a corner off of Micky Mills” or “the winger bounces off of Dave Stringer”. With his unfashionable hairstyle (even by Seventies standards) and his improbable choice of apparel, he was a role model for some of the less gifted commentators, such as Roger Tames and Tony Gubba, who were later foisted upon ill-prepared viewers. Cambridge or Southend, whence Anglia games often came when Norwich and Ipswich had got fed up with Gerry, were more or less his mark although contractual obligations presumably meant that ITV had to take him to the World Cup in 1974, where he was limited to commentating on Chile versus Australia, or something similar, during the group stages. My fondest Gerry memory came in 1980, the week after Justin Fashanu announced himself to the football world with his staggering volley against Liverpool. (Gerry would never have aspired to the Beeb’s Barry Davies’s lucid reaction to that goal – “Woah! WOOAAHH!!”). The following Saturday Norwich were at home again, this time against Wolves, who were two up at half-time. It was Gerry’s job to obtain, as the second half started, the thoughts on the state of play of the then Canaries boss John Bond before Bond returned to the dugout. Unfortunately Wolves scored their third (in a 4-0 eventual victory) within about ten seconds of the restart, with Gerry indelicately blurting out something along the lines of: “Well, you’re really up against it now, John… John… John?” The elegantly-coiffured and besuited Bond (if anything the antithesis of Gerry) had, as they say, taken his leave.
Alun Thomas, via email

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