Foreign players are becoming common in the Conference – there’s even an ex-Barcelona man at Northwich, writes Michael Whalley
You might expect a Blue Square Premier club to be giddy with excitement after taking a former Barcelona first-teamer on trial. Yet Nigerian defender Gbenga Okunowo’s arrival at Northwich Victoria in early December created so few ripples that the club didn’t even mention it in their next programme.
Only formed in 2005, Bunyodkor are luring South Americans to Tashkent and taking Asian football by storm, says Marc Bennetts
After almost two decades of post-Soviet obscurity, football in Uzbekistan hit the headlines this summer when league leaders Bunyodkor mounted an audacious bid for Samuel Eto’o.
For day four of the WSC advent calendar we have a piece from issue 259, September 2008. Ariel Ortega – nicknamed “little donkey” – was dubbed the next Maradona and so it partially proved, though not in a good way, reports Chris Bradley
There was one conspicuous absence as the open-top bus carried the victorious River Plate squad through the streets of Buenos Aires on June 22. The fans were there, with flags and songs; there was joy and champagne and fireworks; but, not for the first time this season, there was no Ariel Ortega.
Dear WSC
A three-sided stadium (WSC 221)? Luxury. Here at The Shay we’d probably settle for such an arrangement. We do have a quite impressive three-sided stadium but the embarrassing fourth side, a large main stand down the full length of one touchline, has remained incomplete for several years. Originally intended to raise ground capacity to around 12,000, it’s a mocking reminder of the brave, but ultimately doomed, ambitions of a previous board and their vision of Halifax Town as a thriving League club and Halifax RLFC as a successful Super League side. Today, as both clubs struggle to attract crowds of two and a half thousand, those dreams seem a very long way away. Various scaled down proposals for the East Stand are currently under consideration but, as those of us who remember being promised accommodation in there as part of a season ticket deal stare mournfully across at the handful of blue and white plastic seats dotted randomly along the concrete rows, the idea of knocking the whole lot down and turning it into a car park doesn’t seem such an outrageous idea after all.
Charlie Adamson, via email
What defines a career, money or medals?
If Rio Ferdinand succeeds in getting his Manchester United salary increased to £120,000 a week, he will receive in a month what someone on the average wage would take 19 years to earn. In recent newspaper reports on his contract negotiations, Rio was depicted wearing a Che Guevara baseball cap, so he may have plans to redistribute his bloated income in a manner befitting someone who identifies with a Marxist revolutionary. But it is none the less fair to assume that he will receive advice to the contrary and that his wages will continue to be spent on fast cars, holidays in exclusive resorts and helping Jody Morris to release fire extinguishers in hotel corridors.