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Not all revolutionaries are fondly remembered. Barney Ronay examines the controversial legacy of Charles Reep, football’s first tactical statistician 

Wing Commander Charles Reep has been called many things. Twenty years ago the Times dubbed him “The Human Computer of the Fabled Fifties”; an obituary described him more simply as “a football ana­lyst”; while a slightly empurpled Brian Glanville once declared him a member of FA coaching director Char­les Hughes’s “band of believers and acolytes”, the arch­angel of “a fanatical credo, a pseudo-religion”.

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In the first of a series on aspects of how the game is played today, Philip Cornwall considers how the improvement in defensive coaching has taken away much of the sting from corners – unless you're lucky enough to be playing West Ham

My earliest knowledge of the hazards of corners came playing for Maids Moreton C of E, back in the 1976-77 season. After a sound spanking by Pad­bury, Mrs Benson told her primary school charges that rather than pass across the face of our own goal, it would be better to put the ball out for a corner.

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Sunday 1 Business as usual at Stamford Bridge as Chelsea’s 1-1 draw with Arsenal sees Patrick Vieira sent off and a David Seaman blunder. Bolton move off the bottom with a 1-0 win over non-scoring Aston Villa, thanks to a goal from Birmingham-born Michael Ricketts and a disallowed goal from Juan Pablo Angel. “In this country we have got good referees who are being let down by assistants who are not so good,” says Graham Taylor. Lloyd Owusu’s goal with his first touch for the club puts Wednesday on their way to a 2-0 win in the Sheffield derby.

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The internet is not just for the younger generation. Football managers are learning to embrace it, as Jamie Rainbow found out

The League Managers Association have created a useful website for their members. One outstanding ­feature is a service for unemployed coaches, enabling them to display their CVs (or in the case of Ian Atkins, their ­autobiography) to any potential employers. Atkins’s playing and managerial career are reproduced in painstaking detail – although one wonders whether his time spent playing for Shrewsbury in the late 1970s will have much bearing on his ability to manage a football club successfully today. Nor are his credentials much enhanced by telling us that: “Holding off the challenge of some of the game’s best known faces, I secured the job of manager at Doncaster Rovers.”

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Some regular WSC contributors weigh up the best and worst things to have happened to football in 1998, and look ahead to 1999

Ian Plenderleith

Ups
– Soaring wages in the Premier League – it makes me feel warm inside to watch players and know at the same time that they will be secure in their old age.

– England’s World Cup exit – God save us eternally from Englishmen on top of the world.

– Scotland fans once again annoying the English by showing them how to enjoy a football tournament.

Downs
– The desecration of once-wonderful European club competitions.

– The failure of self-appointed fan-of-the-people David Mellor to drown in his own grease.

– Overall, too much hype and too little substance.

Hope
That football will eat itself and then we can all do something worthwhile with our spare time.

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