Two men, one backside and a whole lot of controversy

Such is the intense spotlight trained on Premiership football these days, we are told, that nothing escapes the attention of the action replay cameras and the press provocateurs who feed on their evidence. In a limited way, the theory is perfectly true. Yet for all the microscopic detail now available to the media and the authorities alike, football still has blind spots about certain subjects, which go unmentioned even when they are shouting to be heard. One such came up, but only very slowly, after the Chelsea v Liverpool match on February 27th. The repeated clashes between Ro­bbie Fowler and Graeme Le Saux were highlighted on Match of the Day and splashed all over the Monday papers, but the issue at the heart of the matter was not made plain until the Tuesday.

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Monday 1 Glenn Hoddle refuses to step down as England coach, but Tony Blair and, more importantly, the Nationwide building society come out against him. "He has a responsibility to ensure that his personal views shouldn't be confused with those of the England team, the FA or its sponsors," says Mike Lazenby, Nationwide's marketing director. "I'm not some crackpot who comes out with stupid remarks to cause controversy," Hoddle insists, despite all evidence to the contrary. John Hartson is fined £20,000 and given a three-match ban by the FA for his training-ground attack on Eyal Berkovic. "I have to control my aggression," Hartson says, which will be unwelcome news to his manager.

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Dear WSC
The article in WSC No 144 about the strange man who looks after the FA Cup reminded me of another story involving the same trophy. Back in 1980, I was working on Record Breakers (look, we’ve all got rent to pay) and I suggested we do an item about football that involved getting all four major trophies (the League, the Charity Shield, and the FA and League Cups) into the studio. Come the day the championship trophy and the Charity Shield were delivered by Securicor from Liverpool. Both were in highly polished wooden boxes as you would expect. The League Cup was delivered from Molineux, also by a security firm and also in its own polished wooden box. The FA Cup, however, was delivered from West Ham in a black cab – wrapped in a pillow case. To cap it all, the cabbie turned out to be a right miserable bugger. Handing me the pillow case he said, “I’m a West Ham fan and this is the first time I get a call to go there. Do I pick up anyone involved in the club? No, I get a fucking pillowcase to deliver.” I didn’t tell him what was in the pillowcase. It’s always given me great pleasure to think that there’s a London cabbie out there who’s missed a great opportunity to say, “’Ere, you’ll never guess what I had in my cab the other day…" One of the carpenters in the studio was a West Ham fan. Heartbroken at the way his club had treated the FA Cup, he built a mahogany box for it. The Cup was returned to the Hammers in the box. Ten years later, Spurs won the cup and it was brought into the LWT studios where I was then working. It was still in the box built by the BBC carpenter.
Robin Carr, Chesham

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Karsten Blaas explains why a proposed new citizenship law could have major repercussions for football in Germany, at both professional and amateur level

Last September, the Germans got themselves a new government. After a few months in charge, however, the envisaged red and green restructuring of the country turned out to be not much more than old Helmut Kohl with a few squirts of fresh paint. In fact, the only real reform likely to be passed in the near future is a modernisation of Germany’s citizenship law.

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Jamie Rainbow  sees all things John Collins related and more as he reports on the latest football developments on the web

There's a site devoted to the career of John Collins. Nothing remarkable in that you might think, until you discover that the site is run by a Brazilian – suggesting that Walter Smith was not the only person to be seduced by a penalty converted in the World Cup finals. Although for future reference Walter, perhaps it would be more prudent just to set up a website. There’s plenty of worthwhile input here, much of it from Collins himself. For instance, he relates the story of the Rainier family attempting to persuade him to stay with Monaco. Firstly, Prince Rainier’s nephew spoke to him, enabling Collins to smugly admit: “Prince Albert also asked me not to leave. I didn't like letting either of them down.” Well, you don’t, do you. He also admits he’ll miss evenings like the private reception held in honour of Monaco’s title win in 1997. Fear not John, I understand Everton’s annual ‘beat the drop’ parties are rumoured to be fun.

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