Sir John Hall has claimed that he is proud of his achievements with Newcastle. Harry Pearson disagrees
“I have achieved everything I set out to achieve,” Sir John Hall told journalists with typical self-confidence when he announced his retirement on September 15th. That the Newcastle chairman’s ambition for his club did not include winning any trophies will no doubt come as a surprise to many Newcastle fans.
Did Terry Venables take illegal bungs during Teddy Sheringham's transfer to Tottenham?
Church bells peal across the land as the Premier League bungs inquiry finally publish their report. Crowds gather admiringly around anyone who has managed to read it all the way through. The report’s 300 pages, and the ten thousand pages of evidence, focus mainly on the transfer of Teddy Sheringham from Forest to Spurs in 1992. It’s a massively complicated tale, likely to defeat even the most diligent reader in much the same way as the famous Panorama programme on Terry Venables’ dealings at Spurs lost many viewers long before the fiftieth photocopied invoice flashed onto the screen.
Friday 1 August Attilio Lombardo finally signs for Palace for £1.6 million, after lowering his personal terms – the penthouse suite overlooking Central Park has gone, but he'll still gets the go karts and the dolphinarium. Liverpool confirm that Robbie Fowler, injured in a pre-season match, will miss the opening fortnight of the season. Newcastle block Peter Beardsley's transfer to Bolton. "It's an opportunity for Peter to lengthen his career here," says Kenny, keeping a straight face as ever.
Sunday 3 Man Utd win the Charity Shield on penalties after a 1-1 draw with Chelsea. "United were more dangerous when we had the ball than when they had it," says Ruud. The Wim Jansen era at Celtic begins with their first defeat by Hibs since decimalisation.
Dear WSC
It’s becoming rather tiresome to see anyone who criticizes the state of modern football labelled as some sort of apologist for the squalor of the ’80s. Neil Penny (Letters, WSC No 127), in his criticism of Rogan Taylor’s The Death Of Football is the latest to trumpet the glorious revolution of the ’90s. It is particularly galling as people like Rogan Taylor, the FSA and the fanzines were just about the only ones to kick against the poor facilities, endemic racism and brutality of the ’80s. The silence from those now happily riding the football bandwagon was deafening back then. What we didn’t expect was the baby being thrown out with the bathwater in the cavalier fashion that it has been. Ordinary supporters are as far away from having real influence on the way football is run in 1997 as they were in 1987. Of course, football has improved for the better in all sorts of very important ways (safer grounds, more women attending, less racism etc), but some of the game’s fundamentals – fairness, meritocracy, community – are being rapidly eroded by the Premiership/ Champions League philosophies now running amok in the game. This whole debate as to whether football has got better or worse is pretty fatuous anyway. What’s happened is that the game’s enemies have changed, not disappeared. If we’re going to have any chance of standing up to these people, then at least we need to know who they are, which is what The Death of Football was trying to do. So, Neil, if you’re happy with a game pricing out some of the people who sustained it in its darkest days, and with a domestic and European game becoming increasingly predictable and uncompetitive, then by all means enjoy it. Just don’t pretend it is evidence of a game in ‘great health’.
Tom Davies, Leeds
Doug Stenhouse offers his predictions for the forthcoming season
Imagine a club in your league makes up a new rule to dissolve the competition as it stands and form a new league expelling five clubs. Imagine all the clubs are circulated with the proposal except the five to be expelled. Couldn’t happen? It has happened before: this is exactly what Glasgow Rangers tried to do in Scotland at the end of 1965-66. The five were Stranraer, Albion Rovers, Berwick Rangers, Stenhousemuir and Brechin. Only a last ditch court room battle and intense lobbying by Berwick chairman George Shiel won the day. A costly result for Rangers as two years later they lost to lowly Berwick in the Scottish Cup.