Dear WSC
As a supporter of a smaller club myself, I sympathise with Luton’s current plight, but Eva Tenner’s letter in WSC 253 has brought out the devil’s advocate in me. To her list of those not responsible for Luton’s woes, she should also have added Liverpool FC’s board. Liverpool gave Luton quite a bit of help anyway by playing badly enough in the first tie to allow Luton a replay at Anfield. If you add the attendances at the 32 third-round ties and 12 replays together, only three pairings had a greater audience than Luton v Liverpool, so Luton arguably did as well as they could financially out of this season’s FA Cup. If Luton had been drawn away to my team, Tranmere, for example (average attendance around 7,000), would there have been a similar call for Luton to have all the gate money? I think not. Or what if Luton had faced another smaller team and lost in 90 minutes? Would a replay have been ordered to try to boost the Hatters’ coffers that way? No. I genuinely hope Luton find their way out of their current difficulties, but the fact is that meeting one of the Big Four should be seen as a helpful stroke of luck for them, rather than a reason for their fans to moan about Liverpool’s supposed meanness.
Tristan Browning, Reading
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Stories
Joyce Woolridge examines the events and publications marking the 50th anniversary of the tragic incident
As the 50th anniversary of the 1958 plane crash that killed 23 people, including eight Manchester United footballers, approached, the club announced that there would be a new memorial “both significant and easily accessible to all who visit the ground”. This deceptively bland statement nevertheless revealed the club’s anxiety to avoid potential controversy. Why the commemoration of the tragedy should be so fraught with difficulty lies partly in the past, in the continuing dispute about the ways in which victims of the crash were and still are treated. Also, Man Utd’s recent ownership history has left the club, in the eyes of its critics, unworthy to “own” or exploit the disaster’s memory commercially.
by Wilf McGuinness with Ivan Ponting
Know the Score, £17.99
Reviewed by Joyce Woolridge
From WSC 265 March 2009
Roy Keane’s response to his recent managerial difficulties was to grow a patriarchal, piebald beard. At least he could shave it off after a few days. Wilf McGuinness’s hair began to fall out in clumps and turn white when he was “relieved of his duties” at Manchester United and all he could do was briefly sport a trimmed ladies’ wig until an overenthusiastic Greek goal celebration dislodged it. McGuinness could teach Keano a thing or two about stress. As he says in his introduction, football has given him some tremendous highs, but has also “shattered his world” on several occasions.
The Autobiography
by Sir Bobby Charlton
Headline, £7.99
Reviewed by Harry Pearson
From WSC 252 February 2008
There was a time during my early childhood when Bobby Charlton was every English boy’s hero, the one who only the finest player on the pitch was allowed to pretend to be. Then along came George Best and suddenly Bobby lost his lustre. He didn’t have long hair (or if he did, only on one side of his head at any rate), he didn’t throw mud at referees, he didn’t run around town in a Jaguar E-type and Chelsea boots. Compared to Best he was boring. And that, pretty much, is where things have remained over the past 40 years: Sir Bobby cast as the lugubrious spinster at football’s wild party.
Tuesday 1 Liverpool beat Chelsea on penalties to reach the Champions League final. “In extra time we were the only team who tried to win,” says José, pouting more than ever. Joey Barton is suspended by Man City for a training‑ground fight with team‑mate Ousmane Dabo. The FA are to investigate Oldham chairman Simon Blitz, who made a £500,000 loan to Queens Park Rangers.