Search: ' Peter Johnson'

It's more than 20 years since either side was in the top flight, but now both are threatening an unlikely promotion, writes Pete Green

When you see a 65-year-old man at the football wearing face paint, and you’re not even at Wembley, you know it’s not an ordinary day. On an ordinary day, the city of Stoke-on-Trent translates its motto Vis Unita Fortior as “united strength is stronger”. Today, however, Stoke City are closing in on promotion to the Premier League and it translates as half an hour on hold phoning up for a ticket, 20-minute queues at the bar, a pre-match MC bawling even more dementedly than usual, and a giddy sexagenarian with red-and-white stripes daubed on to his wrinkled cheeks.

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Dear WSC
I have read and reread your comment in Newswatch (WSC 254) that “almost every­where else in the football world, the tackle is largely considered a last resort” just to make sure that it wasn’t a misprint. If I have nothing else to do on a Tuesday or Wednesday evening, I may just watch the utterly compelling drama that I’m told is the Champions League. I see any number of ugly, mistimed and malicious challenges and plenty of good honest physical challenges. The idea that everyone else in the world is neatly passing in balletic patterns while we clog seven shades out of each other doesn’t withstand any sort of scrutiny. Furthermore, let’s not forget one other thing. We love tackling in this country. The one thing guaranteed to get a crowd going during a dull game is someone deciding to crunch in with a couple of hefty challenges. Pardon us for being unreconstructed, but it’s an intrinsic part of a game whose charm is that it combines skill and grace with physical prowess.And the cause of all of this breast-­beating ? The collective assaults of Keane, Rooney, Carvalho, Gerrard and Essien as they jump into challenges with both feet off the ground and their eyes not looking at the ball? Oh, no. An incompetent, mistimed tackle, ending with disastrous results, from a player who has made only a handful of Premiership appearances – because he’s not very good. It ill behoves a publication like yours to jump on this particular bandwagon – and, incidentally, there is no “reinvention”: his nickname has always been “Tiny”, it has been a constant source of irritation to Birmingham fans that a man with his build never “puts himself about” and the fact that he’s studying for a degree should be something of an example to be applauded rather than the object of the sneering dismissiveness you afford him.There may be plenty of things wrong with the game at the top level, but to put Martin Taylor’s tackle at the centre of the argument is to miss the point.
Jon Berry, St Albans

* Though there was room for confusion, the reference to Taylor being “reborn” referred to his being cast as “a victim”, rather than the perpetrator, using those facts.

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Dear WSC
Amid all the furore over the arrival of Kevin Keegan at Newcastle, I was struck by the fact Kev’s old mate Terry McDermott has somehow been kept on at St James’ Park in the ten years since KK’s departure. He usually sat among the coaching staff on matchdays with seemingly no specific role and was never mentioned by TV commentators when the cameras scanned the bench (as they often did during the later days of Big Sam’s turbulent reign). His insignificance was such that I wonder if he had been there so long that no one at Newcastle could actually see him any more. He was visible from afar, showing up on photographs and on TV screens, but up close he blended into the background. Terry has rematerialised fully now that his little mate is back in charge, although his exact role remains unclear – I’m guessing that it doesn’t extend much further than making tea and going out to get Special K’s copy of the Racing Post.
Ross Cannon, via email

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Setting The Record Straight
by Peter Swan with Nick Johnson
Stadia, £17.99
Reviewed by Harry Pearson
From WSC 239 January 2007 

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It is the misfortune of some professional footballers to have their entire careers defined in the public mind by one terrible mistake. The glaring miss in a cup final, a blundering attempt to deal with a weak shot, or an idiotic injury are sometimes all we recall of men who played hundreds of games at the top level. Peter Swan is one such player, though his error was of a slightly different sort. In December 1962 he and Sheffield Wednesday team-mates Tony Kay and David Layne placed bets on Ipswich Town to win when the two teams met at Portman Road. Two years later, following a tabloid exposé of match-rigging and a police investigation, Mansfield Crown Court sent Swan – who pleaded not guilty – to jail for four months and fined him £100. The Football Association, meanwhile, banned him from the game for life (the ban was eventually lifted in 1972).

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The Forgotten Truth of Gary Sprake
by Stuart Sprake & Tim Johnson
Tempus, £9.99
Reviewed by Huw Richards
From WSC 248 October 2007 

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Some decent sporting careers are damned by a single error. Bill Buckner, a just-this-side-of-great baseball player, has for 21 years been defined by the fielding error that extended the Boston Red Sox’s interminable wait to win a World Series. Gordon Smith will have to make one heck of a splash running the Scottish FA to efface memories of his miss in the 1983 FA Cup final. Such judgments are often undeserved, however, and the authors here aim to prove that Gary Sprake, Stuart’s uncle, merited better.

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