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Search: 'San Marino'

Stories

Wales under John Toshack

Why does he persevere? Huw Richards reports

You have to wonder about John Toshack. He’s 59 in March, has earned big money all his adult life – and everything we know about him suggests that cash will have been sensibly deployed. He could be putting his feet up in the French Basque country or on the Gower coast, breaking off every so often to broadcast in Spain, where tactical sophistication is a must rather than an optional extra. Instead he continues to wrestle with turning Wales into a half-decent football team. It is, admittedly, not like running a club. Coaching a small nation is like being a senior civil servant or university vice-chancellor who becomes head of an Oxbridge college, a pleasant way of easing towards retirement. The president of St John’s College is not, mind you, required to hold regular press conferences, sit in cold dugouts or submit to regular contact with Craig Bellamy. This, though, is Wales, where the man in the national coconut-shy is the rugby coach.

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Unnecessary grief

Or, the mysterious case of the grandmother killer. But Stephen Ireland’s ever-changing excuses for pulling out of a game in Prague finally arrived at a genuine personal tragedy. Pat Daly reports

“So how did you feel when you found out you were dead?” That’s how the RTE radio host began his interview with Patricia Tallon, whose sudden demise had forced her grandson, Stephen Ireland, to withdraw from the Republic of Ireland squad on the eve of last month’s match in the Czech Republic. “Oh, it was an awful shock,” answered Tallon, who, careful readers will have deduced, wasn’t dead at all.

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Mike Walker

In a matter of months he went from being seen as English football’s big managerial hope on the international stage to being a load of rubbish – more or less literally. Graham Dunbar looks back

For followers of the national team unconvinced by Steve McClaren, some comfort can be taken from the example of Mike Walker, a man who proved it is possible to go from England contender to managerial pariah in less than a year. Walker’s career path once seemed to be following that of Alf Ramsey: reaching the top after taking a small East Anglian club to unimagined heights. Eventually, he would more closely resemble Paulie Walnuts from The Sopranos: sharp-suited and well groomed, with a sideline in waste management.

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March 2007

Thursday 1 Emre is accused of having racially abused Ali Bangura of Watford; the Newcastle player was previously charged with insulting Everton’s black players in December. Anton Ferdinand will face trial for alleged assault over an incident at an Essex nightclub last year. Alan Knill is dismissed by Rotherham, who are without a win in 14 games.

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February 2007

Friday 2 All league football in Italy is suspended after the death of a policeman in a riot outside Catania’s stadium during their match with Palermo. “What we’re witnessing has nothing to do with football, so Italian football is stopping,” says Federation boss Luca Pancalli.

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