Cris Freddi tracks down the players and teams fated to misfortune, in the latest part of his series on the dark side of 20th century football

Imagine it. It’s 1951. Australia lose to a touring English FA XI in Sydney and you’re the keeper who lets in the 17 goals. Naturally you don’t win another cap, but you can live with that; your worst bit of bad luck arrived at birth, when you discovered you had parents who thought they had a sense of hum­our. Their sur­name’s Conquest and they christen you Norman. Thanks a bloody bunch. They presumably get together with the parents of Norman Rule, who follows you into the Oz team.

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Our round-up of the season outside the Premiership begins with Gavin Barber's assessment of the beached whales and battling plankton all at sea in the First

History was made in the First Division this year. The streets of Oxford rocked, fanfares sounded and choirs of angels sang, as the Manor Ground played host to English football’s first-ever pay-per-view bonanza – a 0-0 draw with Sunderland. Biz­arrely, adverts urging Sky sub­scribers to cough up £7.95 for the privilege of watching Niall Quinn were being broadcast on Talk Radio well into the second half of the game.

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WSC readers keep spotting players in the unlikliest places…

I was humbled when Archie Gemmill spotted me driving into the Forest car park to fetch some tickets, at what he regarded as an excessive speed. Before I had had a chance to park and get out of the car he ran over to me, told me to wind down the window and called me “a bloody moron”, before turning and walking away. James Crosby

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Harry Pearson realises that football has changed so quickly that he has become old before his time

“You don’t get the build-up of atmosphere that you used to,” I said to a journalist from the Daily Mail one Saturday afternoon at the Riverside Stadium last sea­son. We looked around the ground. It was ten minutes to three, another capacity crowd, yet, aside from the strip occupied by the away fans, 90 per cent of the red seats remained empty. “The fact that everybody’s buying their tickets in advance has something to do with it,” the Mail man said. “People know they’ll get in so they only turn up 15 minutes before kick off.”

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To mark WSC's 150th issue, we invited three critics with different links to the magazine's past to reflect on changes in fan culture since 1986

WSC The term “fan culture”, which barely existed when the magazine started in 1986, has now become commonplace. But it seems as though there is actually less of a unifying fan culture now than there was then. Are there things that still bring people together, from Premiership to the Third Division, as we assumed there were when we started? 

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