Australia have once again failed to qualify for the World Cup. Mike Ticher questions what will become of football in the country after their latest elimination
Australia have lost to some curious teams in their efforts to qualify for previous World Cups – Kuwait, Indonesia, Fiji – but France ’98 was surely the worst beating they had ever handed out to themselves.
Scarborough have had numerous set-backs in their history, and Mark Staniforth thinks he knows why
Far too many clubs’ greatest achievements have disappeared in the mists of time. But few clubs can claim that their most memorable moments have disappeared into the smoke from No 55 Edgehill Road.
As a Luton Town supporter, John Earls knows a thing or two about heavy defeats
Anyone like me who grew up learning to read mainly from football books will probably have gone through a phase of reading too many Rothmans Football Yearbooks, and actually become briefly interested in the game’s statistics. Mine came when I first started going to watch Luton’s games during our 1981-82 promotion season and – subconsciously needing to prepare myself for the grim years ahead – I cooled down after 3-2 wins over QPR by learning as much as I could about the club’s history.
Don't judge your opponents before the match, warns Jeffrey Prest as he remembers the embarrassing defeat suffered by his university team
“It’s a theology college,” said our captain, and the mood among Cripps Hall Thirds visibly lightened. We had lost often that season, yet narrowly enough to believe that just one thumping victory would be the enema for our potential.
Colin McPherson recalls his horror at taking a friend along to a Scotland game
The end of the Cold War; the fall of the Berlin Wall; the collapse of the Soviet Empire. What could all these great and momentous events have to do with my most humiliating night watching Scotland attempting to play football? They were the reasons for my embarrassment.