Dear WSC,
I’m sending out a plea to WSC readers to see if they can tell me of a top goalscorer who was less popular with his own club’s fans than Bournemouth’s Brett Pitman? As Steve Menary’s entry for the Cherries stated in your Season Guide (WSC 283), he was always the first to be moaned at by the Dean Court crowd despite banging in 26 League goals last season (not to mention the 30 before that since making his debut as a teenager in 2005). Granted, Brett was hard to love. His body language was a combination of seemingly uninterested slouch with an unathletic, head-lolling waddle. His reluctance to jump for or chase down over-hit passes was an obvious crime in the eyes of the average football fan. I guess his arm-waving, sour-faced tantrums when not receiving the exact ball he wanted from team-mates cemented his distant relationship with the fans. I can’t recall a single chant about Brett – an astonishing feat when less talented strikers like Alan Connell (13 goals in over 100 games) were lauded on the terraces. Pitman had been at the club since he was 16 years old, scored spectacular goals ever since and never demanded a move – hardly the sort of pantomime mercenary or hapless donkey that usually attracts the ire he received. After signing for Bristol City, his valedictory interview with the local paper was not a fond farewell: “Pitman Fires Broadside At Cherries Boo-Boys” read the headline. So can any other readers suggest a less-loved goalscorer at their club? Not just one that left for a rival or did a silly celebration in front of his former fans when scoring for his new team – but one with a consistent record of excellence met with lukewarm indifference at best?
Simon Melville, London
Search: ' Mark Cooper'
Stories
The Reinvention of Leeds United
Anthony Clavane
Yellow Jersey, £16.99
Reviewed by David Stubbs
From WSC 285 November 2010
Thanks to the searing influence of David Peace, Leeds Utd currently burn vividly on the collective consciousness. It helps that their team-sheet remained so constant under Don Revie – nine of the 1963-64 promotion squad were still regulars nearly a decade later. Even many non-supporters of a certain age can recite the classic line-up, as easily as if it were the Dad's Army platoon – Sprake, Reaney, Cooper, Madeley, etc, invariably culminating in Bates – Mick Bates, the perennial substitute and Private Sponge of the organisation.
In a game between fellow Championship strugglers, Simon Hart watches the away side continue their poor travelling form, while a debut for the home manager and a hard-fought win sees optimism bloom in Yorkshire
“Normally you’d get 18 to 19,000 here for a Peterborough game but we’re expecting 24 today – a couple of wins on the bounce, a new manager, there’s a feelgood effect.”
In an unlikely setting, David Wells enjoyed several hours in the company of some famous English footballers
It’s a damp, blustery evening a few weeks before Christmas. There are more than the usual number of middle-aged men about, some furtively clutching carrier bags and cardboard tubes. Many are heading to the Wolverhampton Civic Hall, a large soulless venue with the feel of a school hall circa 1975, where earlier in the week Alice Cooper had been appearing. Tonight is billed as “An evening with the 1966 England World Cup Squad”. It should read “or most of them”, as two cannot appear and Bobby Charlton presumably prefers not to. The company run by agent Terry Baker (“the only worldwide agents for Pelé’s signature”) do a steady line in selling signed memorablia in the foyer. One of their clients, Jimmy Greaves, is the evening’s compere.
Dear WSC
I read with interest Paul Joyce’s article concerning the rebranding of SSV Markranstadt as RB Leipzig in WSC 273. Only this summer it was rumoured that my club Southampton would be saved from extinction by becoming co-opted into the Red Bull sporting portfolio. While the team colours, fitting snugly with the brand, would not need to change the adding of the Red Bull moniker seemed a step too far. Surely something would be lost in fusing a global brand, with all its focus-grouped values and marketing spin, to a football club; an act of historic vandalism similar to replacing stained glass windows in a church with double glazing while nailing a satellite dish to the spire. The internet debate suggested, however, that many Saints supporters were happy to trade naming rights in exchange for the club’s survival. The same supporters had several years previously reacted angrily against a corporate branding of St Mary’s Stadium as simply the “Friends Provident Stadium” with the ensuing negative publicity resulting in a U-turn with the addition of St Mary’s to the title. Corporate patronage is not as new as we would like to imagine. The P in PSV Eindhoven stands for Philips, as in the Dutch electrical giants, with the club’s home games at the Philips Stadion. Indeed, many clubs have benefited from long-term relationships with business which may be far preferable to other ownership and financing options; a quick glance around the leagues reveals several fates far worse than “Red Bull Saints”. Football may be just a game to some but following our team is about being part of a community, feeling a connection with the friends and strangers stood next to us at the ground. It is a thread linking us to people looking out for the score on a TV screen or in a newspaper on the other side of the world. Brands by their nature seek to harness and transform these feelings to translate them into profit, in the process sullying the very spirit of our club. Barcelona’s motto is “more than a club”. Every clubs motto should be “more than a brand”.
Neil Cotton, Southampton