Search: ' Paul Elliott'

Managers may not like it but there are legal limits to what a footballer can do to an opponent. As the police investigate Ben Thatcher's challenge on Pedro Mendes, Neil Rose looks at where the law stands

“Anything that happens on a football pitch should be governed by the FA and FIFA,” said Stuart Pearce following Ben Thatcher’s challenge on Pedro Mendes. “Once you start involving the police, the floodgates can open and you could end up with a situation where players are arrested during a game.”

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Wednesday 1 England beat Uruguay 2‑1 at Anfield in their final friendly before the World Cup squad is picked. Darren Bent makes his debut, Peter Crouch and Joe Cole score. Scotland lose 3‑1 to Switzerland, extending their ten‑year run without a friendly win at Hampden. Northern Ireland beat Estonia 1‑0, Ivan Sproule scoring after 78 seconds. England’s World Cup group opponents Sweden lose 3‑0 to Ireland, while Paraguay draw 0-0 with Wales, Derby’s 17-year-old Lewin Nyatanga becoming the youngest ever Welsh international. Former Chelsea and England striker Peter Osgood dies aged 59.

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Dear WSC
In response to a letter published about the term “mullered” (Letters, WSC 228) and the origins of the word, at the risk of turning WSC into an episode of Balderdash & Piffle, I always felt it appropriate for the term to be linked to fabled West Germany forward Gerd Müller and the team of the early 1970s. Despite being too young to recall “Der Bomber” in his heyday, checking out old videos of him in action (hardly ever leaving the penalty area in a fashion Gary Lineker could only dream of) and a check of his goalscoring feats – 68 goals in only 62 international matches – it seems to tally with my favoured definition of “mullered”, to be comprehensively beaten in a surprising and unimaginative manner. The only other time I have heard of the term “mullered” is in relation to drinking too much alcohol which, sadly, may be linked to the end of Gerd’s career.
Jonathan Paxton, via email

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Yet another Ireland qualifying campaign has ended in a near miss and Brian Kerr has paid the penalty for some strikingly strange decisions, as Paul Doyle relates

What do you do when there are 25 minutes to go in your last qualifying match and your team desperately needs a goal to avoid World Cup elimination? If you’re Brian Kerr, you take off your country’s record goalscorer. Then, with just four minutes left, you replace your other striker.

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A North v South all-Irish encounter offers a rare and welcome point of Champions League intrigue in Belfast writes Robbie Meredith, but the slicker, more professional visitors win the day

Nestled alongside the Belfast docks and airport, the Oval, home of Northern Irish champions Glentoran, immediately transports the visitor back into history. The antiquated Main Stand is 50 years old and seems to have changed little over the years, while both ends of the ground are bracketed by crumbling semi-circular concrete terraces, where supporters are hemmed in by high steel fencing. Sitting in the Main Stand, I’m confronted by the sight of Sampson and Goliath, two huge and distinctive shipyard cranes which offer a glimpse into Belfast’s fading maritime past. When UEFA and the G14 dreamt up the Champions League to bring even more cash and glamour to Europe’s elite clubs, part of their rationale was to ensure that grounds like the Oval, and teams like Glentoran, were weeded out of the competition long before the armchair millions tuned in to see Milan or Manchester United.

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