Watching the Evesham United goalkeeper against Stafford Rangers. Whenever the ball came towards goal, he’d just stand there, cemented to the line, and watch it go. Sometimes it went into the net, and sometimes it didn’t. His strip was cleaner at full-time than it was at the start. I suspect he was probably the manager’s son-in-law or something. David Wangerin
Dear WSC
Allow me to be one of the first begrudgers in the queue. For some reason Manchester United are being described as being a member of European football’s “elite”. United fans should realise that their team has just gone from winning the European Cup as many times as Aston Villa, to winning the European Cup as many times as Nottingham Forest. “Elite” my arse.
Brian Hughes, via email
Harry Golightly offers some guidance to anyone with a spare afternoon in Scunthorpe
Scunthorpe United’s top scorer last season, Jamie Forrester, outraged locals by describing the town as “a shed” in a recent interview with top onanist’s periodical Loaded. In the inevitable media storm that followed (well, one publicity seeking local politician blowing a fuse in the town’s nightly excuse for a newspaper) Forrester neatly attempted to sidestep the issue with the same precision as he might finish off a move on the pitch. He claimed he had “never actually used the word ‘shed’”, as if this were crucially distinct from the words he actually uttered. Clever. “All I said was that there was nothing to do and nowhere worth going,” he disclaimed.
Jamie Rainbow enjoys the buffet at Kilmarnock, a lacklustre service at Watford and delves into the unofficial sites of Huddersfield and Blackpool
Those who witnessed the eventful scenes in the final Old Firm league game of the season will have been surprised to discover that Scotland were the recipients of this year’s UEFA Fair Play trophy. Chief beneficiaries of the award were Kilmarnock, who automatically claimed a UEFA Cup spot. According to the official Kilmarnock site, Scotland pipped England; the eventual margin between the two countries being a mere 0.001 of a point or, in lay terms, a Dennis Wise booking. There is much to admire about this site, not because it’s visually impressive (it’s not) nor because the content is especially interesting (it isn’t), but because it is such a friendly, intimate affair, that one instantly feels part of the extended Kilmarnock family. For example, celebrating the anniversary of one of the club’s sponsors, commercial director Jim McSherry notes: “The buffet was the worst spread ever. Two or three bowls of nuts, then Dorothy sent husband Russell up to Hannahs to buy another bag of crisps. The Killie four were fair looking forward to hot sausage rolls.” The site also contains the usual vast array of largely pointless statistics but, despite this, a fleeting glimpse of one of Dorothy’s buffets makes a visit worthwhile.
Adam Powley asks who is to blame for Tottenaham fans obtaining tickets for the Leicester end at Wembley and what are the FA are going to do about it?
Since the trouble at the Worthington Cup final, attention has focused on how Tottenham fans got seats for the Leicester end. The root of the problem seems simple: someone, or a group of people, almost certainly with connections to Leicester City, sold tickets either directly or indirectly to Spurs fans, thus at a stroke negating the effectiveness of any segregation policy. The big question is “who dunnit?”