Richard Maguire assesses whether the South Africa bid has what it takes to win
Should South Africa win the right to host the 2006 World Cup, the success of their bid can be traced back to ten nerve-wracking minutes at a Paris airport in May. That was when Sepp Blatter turned to Emmanuel Maradas, the editor of African Soccer, and said: “That’s it, if the telephone doesn’t ring, it’s over, I’m pulling out.”
Uli Hesse-Lichtenberger assesses whether Germany could stage the 2006 World Cup
Egidius Braun, head of the German FA, was beaming. Egidius is the undisputed world champion of jovial grinners, and so it wasn’t his smile as such that was irritating, but the occasion which brought it out.
John Sugden and Alan Tomlinson look at the bidding process for the 2006 World Cup, and England's chances of staging the competition
Sir Bobby Charlton features prominently in the calendar produced to promote England’s campaign to host the 2006 World Cup, which was recently mailed across the football and media networks of the globe. This slick bit of marketing covers 15 months from January 1999 to March 2000 – the month when FIFA is due to announce the winning bid. Sir Bobby appears in two of the pictures – straddling the nostalgia of a black-and-white image of his youth (in a back street of his home town) and the multicoloured glory of England’s 1966 World Cup victory.
Barnet's chairman has big ideas for a swish stadium to secure the club's future. Funnily enough, not everyone is convinced, as John Cosgrove explains
About five years ago a very small story appeared in the London Evening Standard. It mentioned that Barnet FC were in negotiation with the local council with regard to the possibility of a new stadium to be built within the borough of Barnet. No one at the club would admit anything, no one could say where the story had come from. Very strange.
Stephanie Pride reports on the legal scrap over Scarborough's ownership that has left football – and the fans – as the main casualties
When striker Steve Brodie parted company with his boot during a dismal midweek goalless draw against Barnet in October in front of barely 1,000 spectators (Man Utd were on the telly), it just about summed up the potency and pulling power of a thoroughly disheartened side seemingly on the road to relegation. But, dismal though events on the pitch have been, it is not the football that Scarborough fans have been talking about in recent months.