When Saturday Comes | The half decent football magazine

Grimsby back in the League and indulging in optimism

After six years in non-League the Mariners pulled together under Paul Hurst

4 August ~ “Clap, clap, clap, clap… Fish!” is still reverberating around my head a couple of months after Grimsby’s play-off final victory and return to the Football League. It doesn’t seem over six years since I wrote about going to work past the street named after Mariners legend Jackie Bestall and how he would be turning in his grave as we slipped into non-League. There is a whole generation of Grimsby fans (my own boys included) who had never experienced promotion, only relegation.

Thursday, August 4th, 2016 - Stories

Negative equity

As Portugal’s debts continue to rise, Phil Town explains how the money spent on new stadiums for Euro 2004 looks like a waste

As the economic crisis deepens in Portugal so the careless spending of years gone by appears increasingly irresponsible. We are left with barely used motorways, superfluous submarines and a small herd of white elephants – most of the Euro 2004 stadiums. The championship was heralded at the time as “a way for Portugal to affirm itself” by José Socrates, who became the country’s prime minister between 2005 and 2011. While Euro 2004 was ultimately a huge success as a sporting event, the country is still counting the cost.

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 - The Archive

Portsmouth 1-1 Southampton

League meetings between the two Hampshire clubs have been relatively rare but their derby matches are as keenly contested as any local rivalry in English football. James de Mellow reports

On April 29, 1939, as Portsmouth pulled off a surprise 4-1 FA Cup final win over Wolves at Wembley, only 4,000 Southampton fans showed up for a home league game on the same day, preferring to cheer on their neighbours while listening to the radio. When the trophy was brought back to the south coast, it was displayed for a short time at Southampton Guildhall and even paraded around The Dell for Saints fans to salute Pompey’s achievements. One wonders, then, what Hampshire’s pre-war football supporters would make of Operation Delphin, which the police deemed necessary to prevent trouble before and after the south-coast derby on December 18. As a condition of purchasing a ticket, all travelling Saints fans agreed to be bussed in a “bubble” under police escort between the two cities, while eight-foot-high barriers were erected north-east of Fratton Park in order to keep a minority of idiots from both sides coming into contact with each other.

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 - The Archive

Rescue package

Matthew Barker examines US Ancona, whose supporters united to save the club after relegation and financial woe threatened its existence

US Ancona 1905 were founded at the turn of the last century by a local who returned from a stint working at the docks in Liverpool, hence their red and white kit. They have appeared in Serie A twice, most recently during the 2003-04 season (with Goran Pandev, Dario Hübner and Dino Baggio among their ranks), though they dropped straight back into the second tier with a miserly 13 points from their 34 games.

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011 - The Archive

Fallen saints

Thirty years ago this month Ipswich thrashed the best team in France. Csaba Abrahall looks back to a memorable UEFA Cup tie

Just the other week, I was listening to Arsenal’s come-from-behind victory against Barcelona at the Emirates. “Remarkable!” said Alan Green. Indeed it was but, as they’d done something very similar last year, somehow not extraordinary. This is how the Champions League has changed European club competition. The group format and perennial participation of the same teams renders a fixture such as Arsenal v Barcelona hardly less routine than Arsenal v Bolton. Notable performances by English clubs in Europe are therefore increasingly common, but so common as to be almost mundane.

Thursday, April 21st, 2011 - Book reviews

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Stories

Grimsby back in the League and indulging in optimism

After six years in non-League the Mariners pulled together under Paul Hurst

Negative equity

As Portugal’s debts continue to rise, Phil Town explains how the money spent on new stadiums for Euro 2004 looks like a waste

Portsmouth 1-1 Southampton

League meetings between the two Hampshire clubs have been relatively rare but their derby matches are as keenly contested as any local rivalry in English football. James de Mellow reports

Rescue package

Matthew Barker examines US Ancona, whose supporters united to save the club after relegation and financial woe threatened its existence

Fallen saints

Thirty years ago this month Ipswich thrashed the best team in France. Csaba Abrahall looks back to a memorable UEFA Cup tie