Wednesday 1 Man Utd beat Bordeaux 2-0. “You’ve got to win your home games,” advises Sir Alex. Mark Bosnich, dropped after his leaden-footed display against Wimbledon the previous Saturday, is said to be “fuming”, the poppet.
Cris Freddi reflects on a stunning win for Norwich City in their UEFA Cup run of 1993
Bayern were at home, where they had never lost to a British team. Their last three results in the Bundesliga were 4-0 against Hamburg and Cologne and 3-1 against a “masochistic” Mönchengladbach. They were playing their 185th European match, Norwich their third. Morten Olsen, coach of Cologne, regarded them as the best team in Germany: “Their blend of youth and experience is exactly right.” Bayern’s team sheet included more than a few familiar names, including Matthäus, Jorginho, Scholl, Wouters, Helmer and Ziege. Norwich boasted Prior, Culverhouse, Butterworth and Newman. And yet Norwich were not written off beforehand, at least not in England.
They're not the "characters" we've been told they are, claims Matt Nation
Dave Lee Travis used to host a Sunday morning radio show in which he complimented every caller on having a sense of humour “every bit as warped as mine”. The caller would then assure DLT that this couldn’t possibly be true, DLT would then, pricelessly, call him a “pilchard”. And with hardly a thigh being slapped, this naked self-promotion gradually led us to believe that DLT was the funniest man in Britain.
Dear WSC
In WSC 157 there appeared an advertisement for a new book about Reading FC entitled Rusting Tin & Shiny Plastic. I feel obliged to point out that, although tin can certainly corrode, the only metal that actually rusts is iron. Clearly the “football cultural revolution” in Berkshire has failed to bring a knowledge of basic chemistry to the area. Tsk.
Eddie Edwards, via email
Davy Millar remembers a welcome disraction from the troubled times that haunted Belfast in the Seventies
Back in 1975 I rarely needed an excuse to leave school as quickly as possible but on April 16 there was a very good reason for making an even quicker departure than usual.