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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Stories
The weblog – an online diary rather than a standard website – is a simple way to let the world know what you’re thinking. Ian Plenderleith looks for the football blogs by people with thoughts worth reading
Blessed with unlimited internet access and the feeling that the world really wants to know, a lot of football fans keep weblogs. It doesn’t cost anything, it’s less time consuming than running a website, and it provides a platform for the entire online world, if it so chooses, to read ill-considered, unedited partisan rants that are, in terms of worthwhile wisdom, barely one step removed from the tedious, repetitious abuse of the standard message board.
Dear WSC
At the time of writing it is Thursday, September 11, 2003. Last night I along with 8,815 others ventured to Windsor Park, safe in the knowledge we could finally put to rest the 11-game goal drought. After all, we only lost 1-0 away to Armenia and we hit the post and crossbar and we missed a few chances. Two hours later we had lost 1-0 again and we hit the crossbar and hit the post and missed a few chances. The media has generally chuckled at our plight, and who could blame them. BBC Northern Ireland is running a phone poll on whether or not we should scrap the Northern Ireland football team in favour of an All-Ireland -Team. This in itself is a quite ludicrous, deliberately contentious and politically loaded question from a supposedly public service broadcaster. I don’t recall a similar poll in favour of a British and Irish Lions team poll when the Irish rugby team lost to Argentina in a World Cup game. A plus point about the goal drought is that for the first time in years what little publicity we have received hasn’t been about problems with sectarianism and the national team. To an outsider it probably seems that Northern Ireland home games are a seething cauldron of bigotry and hatred.In fact, anyone attending a game without preconceived ideas would be surprised at how good the atmosphere is given the terrible ground, poorly performing team and crowd size. We are now just known as being useless, not useless bigots. I hope one day soon to look back and laugh about when we couldn’t score as Andy Smith nods another past a hapless Barthez on our way to automatic qualification for the World Cup in Germany…
Jim Lockhart, Banbridge, Co Down
The north-east produces the players, but it is a cause for wild celebration when one of their own clubs signs them. Harry Pearson looks back on the history of the hotbed
Hackneyed ideas surround north-east football as midgies do a busy picnic site. If you find them too irritating it’s best not to go out. On August 6, 1996, two of the more bloated cliches collided with a resounding splat in the Leazes car park at St James’ Park, where 15,000 fans awaited a glimpse of their new signing, Alan Shearer.
A goalkeeping blunder can be remebered more by fans then a 40-yard screamer. Cris Freddi takes us through some of the more memorable howlers
Let’s start with goalkeeping errors that decided FA Cup finals, shall we? There are enough for an article of their own. The most famous of all was perpetrated by a Welshman playing against a Welsh team, back in 1927. When Cardiff’s Scottish centre-forward Hugh Ferguson hit an ordinary ground shot from the edge of the area, Arsenal’s Dan Lewis had time to go down on one knee and scoop the ball into his midriff.