Search: 'Guatemala'

Bruce Wilkinson finds out about the added extras you have to pay on the internet in order to acquire tickets

 When the cost of watching a Premiership match can be upwards of £50 it can come as quite a shock to find that this is far from the complete price of admission to a game of football. You may have to pay several pounds in booking or administration fees; fork out to join a membership scheme or away travel club; or even have to give the club thousands of pounds for a debenture or to join a bond scheme. Whereas once you were able to turn up to a match and hand the turnstile attendant your tenner, supporters now need to be aware of a multitude of add-on costs to the advertised admission price.

Read more…

Romário may be greying but he’ll still score you plenty of goals – provided you don’t ask him to travel or do too much of that training nonsense, explains Robert Shaw

Romário da Souza Faria celebrates his 40th birthday on January 29 still mad about goals. His critics might add that he is equally passionate about bars, nightclubs, the beach, bad-mouthing fellow strikers and developing minor knocks on the eve of away trips. But when he claimed his award as the Brazilian national championship’s top scorer in December 2005, Baixinho (Shorty) was speechless. Or rather he told the presenters of the ceremony in Rio’s João Caetano theatre that he did not really need to add any words to back up his impressive goal tally.

Read more…

Dear WSC
While I was not one of the 100,000 “strange folks” that travelled to Phoenix Park to welcome the Irish team home from the World Cup – the event had become less of a homecoming and more of a bad cabaret night – I do not agree with Paul Doyle that those that made the trip were basking in mediocrity (WSC 186). It’s true to say that our players, most of whom are very ordinary, might have gone further. It is also true to say almost every other country is thinking the same thing, from Italy and Spain feeling robbed, to Costa Rica missing a sitter in the last min­ute against the eventual third place side. The people who did go to the park may have done so for any number of reasons, the most obvious one being to thank the players for giving everything and entertaining us along the way. For many kids it was just the chance to see their heroes. (They may even have gone just to see Westlife.) Showing support for your team is what supporters do, and Irish fans have always appreciated it when a team has given their all. Just because Roy doesn’t like it doesn’t make it wrong.
Rónán Barrett, Dublin

Read more…

Gabriele Marcotti, who predicted the poor displays of France and Argentina in WSC two months ago, attempts to sort World Cup fact from fiction

For a competition that lasts 31 days – and one in which half the teams play just three matches – it’s quite remarkable that the World Cup is held in such high esteem as a barometer of footballing trends and relative strength. Especially a competition such as this one, where poor refereeing and bizarre episodes saw the World Cup lose a host of juggernauts (or potential juggernauts) before the quarter-finals, as fans of Portugal, Nigeria, Argentina, Italy and France will confirm. Still, this was not a 64-match exercise in futility. Once the hype subsides and the pundits go back to spouting the obvious about players whose names they can act­ually pronounce, we’ll be left with a neat set of mem­ories we can stow in the back of our consciousness.

Read more…

Massed ranks of WSC writers and interviewees reflect on the best and worst of 2000

Jim Rosenthal
Ups
– Premier League highlights acquired by ITV
– Cardiff losing at Gillingham to ensure Oxford United avoid relegation
– Playing for the Cookham Dean Parents against 12-year-old son Tom (lost 8-7)

Downs
– Hearing the country I had backed to win Euro 2000 (Italy) had lost in the final in extra time. They were still leading with two minutes to go when I boarded a flight home after the French grand prix.
– Oxford United’s owner Firoz Kassam telling the fans after the Luton game to “piss off” unless they gave him their support. The club’s “saviour” is taking us into the fast lane out of the League.
– Sitting in the stadiums of Florence, Rome and Turin and hearing the racist abuse directed at black players of Manchester United, Arsenal and England

Hope for 2001
– It stops raining and English clubs go all the way in the Champions League.

Read more…