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.
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Stories
Dear WSC
In Nigel Harris’s excellent Fools Gold (WSC 241), he mentions that South Wales Police officers are approachable and highly regarded. This got me thinking about when Cardiff City were the visitors to Preston a couple of seasons back. As my friends and I were sat drinking in our usual pre-match pub, a jolly officer from the aforementioned constabulary approached us and informed us that they would be letting a group of Cardiff City “fans” into the pub and that we should drink up and leave or they wouldn’t be responsible for the consequences. The SWP officers then proceeded to welcome these fans into the establishment and chuckled along as they went round taunting everyone else in the bar with racist anti-English insults. Though I agree that no set of supporters should ever be banned from seeing their team, Cardiff City’s cause is not helped when the body employed to control their unruly fans’ behaviour is seen very much to encourage what they do. South Wales Police may be “highly regarded”, but not in Preston.
Bobby Dilworth, via email
Tuesday 1 Steve McClaren begins his first day as England manager by saying: “It will be totally different from Sven and the past five years. I’m going to do it my way.” Liverpool’s Champions League opponents Maccabi Haifa are contesting UEFA’s plan to switch the Israel leg of their tie to a neutral venue. That man Ken Bates is to report Chelsea to the Premier League, the FA, FIFA and the World Council of Churches after claiming they recruited two Leeds youth-team players through an illegal approach. José Antonio Reyes is hoping to tie up a move to Madrid: “Real are like a candy that is difficult to turn down.” Ghana full-back John Pantsil joins West Ham.
New Age health expert Cameron Carter has cast away his CD of rainforest sounds and is here to promote a new route to inner wellness: televised football
We have heard people complaining about football on television. Occasionally I agree with them. Yes, it is true that Ray Stubbs and Mark Lawrenson act out a school play about two men arguing every Saturday lunchtime. I too feel discomfort at the spectacle of Garth Crooks constantly reaching for some higher meaning that poor, simple football and its participants cannot give him.
After initial success in the Premiership, Ipswich Town now find themselves in financial turmoil. Csaba Abrahall documents their fall from grace
“So much of football is about short-term glory which leads so often to boom and bust. We’re not about that.” So said David Sheepshanks when Gavin Barber and I interviewed him for WSC 172 on the day Ipswich secured European qualification in 2001. This kind of level-headed approach had been a feature of his chairmanship and while he continued to adopt it, the club appeared to be in safe hands. Yet today it is in administration, with debts spiralling and the team a long way short of delivering financial salvation in the form of a return to the Premiership. What on earth went wrong?