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Search: 'Joe Hart'
Stories
Simon Tyers tries to get his head around some strange happenings in football broadcasting
This was a strange month. After Sky’s build-up to the second leg of Arsenal’s Champions League tie against AC Milan seemed to assume a comeback was inevitable, Rob Hawthorne reckoned Massimiliano Allegri would “put his faith in his team holding onto what they have”, as if he might have considered letting Arsenal score as many goals as they fancied instead. There was Harry Redknapp on Match of the Day after the league defeat at Everton letting his chirpy pragmatist mask slip by framing every statement as a question – “What can you do? We battered them second half?” – while considering any query about the game as a personal affront. Interviewer Guy Mowbray nearly burst out laughing, which seemed an appropriate reaction.
Goodison Park was once a place ahead of its time but, as Simon Hart reports, the rebranded “Old Lady” is now a meeting place for disgruntled supporters frustrated by their club’s decline
Step into the parish hall of St Luke the Evangelist church on the corner of Goodison Road and Gwladys Street, and you enter a world that could not be any further removed from the ad-man’s fantasy of the face-painted, replica-shirted modern “footy” fan and their agony-and-ecstasy matchday experience.
Adam Bate questions the perception that recruiting from the lower leagues is a risk
Paul Merson risked being accused of xenophobia when he expressed the view last season that Arsène Wenger had put too much focus on buying from France or Belgium and not explored the home market effectively. While Merson could have been dismissed as a Little Englander, he found an unlikely ally in Italian football journalist Gabriele Marcotti, who noted: “Scouting in the Championship is something few clubs do well.” But is the talent really there?
Dear WSC
Although I thoroughly enjoyed the article on footballing statues (Striking a pose, WSC 294) it did miss out one rather infamous example – the Ted Bates horror show of a few years back. This short-lived “tribute” to the former Saints player, manager, director and president was astonishingly inept, with legs roughly half the length they should have been. To add to the indignity, more than once a resemblance to dignity-phobic Portsmouth owner/asset-stripper Milan Mandaric was pointed out. The overall effect was of a top-heavy, inebriated and besuited dwarf waving at passers-by. Not really the ideal summing up a lifetime’s service to a club.
Keith Wright, Cheltenham