Brian Clough amongst others used to call them cheats. Nick Varley remembers them for a bit more than that

Let’s play a quick game of word association. Liverpool? Bill Shankly and the boot room. Keegan and Toshack. Barnes and Beardsley. Dominance in the late 1970s and 1980s. Manchester United? Sir Matt Busby’s Babes and Sir Alex Ferguson’s Fledglings. Charlton and Best. Beckham and Giggs. Utter dom­inance in the late 1990s. And Leeds? The cynical and mean Don Revie. Jack “Little Black Book” Charlton and Norman “Bites Yer Legs” Hunter. And David Batty, the modern reincarnation of the aggression of Billy Bremner. Oh, and the odd trophy in the late 1960s and early 1970s too.

Read more…

Dear WSC
So Adam Powley thinks Chelsea have “obscene ticket prices” (WSC 151). He’s right, obviously, but having paid £29 to watch Tottenham play Chelsea from a seat situated behind the police control room at White Hart Lane last season, I hardly think Spurs fans are in a position to take the moral high ground. As for Chelsea’s “contrived glamour image”, I can only wonder at how he sees the image of his own club. “Real” glamour perhaps?
Colin Maitland, Ascot

Read more…

Known as many things, mainly to rude to print, the referee has a tough job. Cris Freddi is taking no pity on the men in black

As always, there are enough examples of dreadful refereeing to fill a book, let alone a couple of pages. Only room here for a quick mention of Alan Hudson being given a goal for Chelsea against Ipswich, when the ball hit the side netting, and Clive Allen being den­ied one when his free-kick came back off the stan­chion, both pushed aside by more momentous ex­amples.

Read more…

Arguing continues between the Asian Football Confederation and FIFA over the number of World Cup spots for Asian teams. Justin McCurry gives us the lowdown

When the Asian Football Confederation decided at the end of last year to boycott the 2002 World Cup if it was not granted an extra place in the qualifying rounds, there were few inklings of the bitter feud that was to develop among the most senior members of the FIFA family. With just three months left before the draw for the qualifying rounds, the prospect of FIFA and its Asian siblings kissing and making up still looks some way off.

Read more…

Hooligan's and Graeme Souness (no connection) are just some of the things that Jamie Rainbow has been looking at on the web

In the wake of Cardiff’s opening day visit from Millwall, there has been much talk of a resurgence in football hooliganism involving rival fans allegedly arranging fights over the internet. Time then for WSC to undertake an in-depth invest­igation into the phenomenon. An initial search for “football hooligan” produced 230 sites. The first selection was called simply: “Hooligan’s”, which sounded promising until I discovered it was a site advertising Hooligan’s Tavern in New York. However, the bar does claim to be “equipped to serve all your sporting needs”, so you never know.

Read more…