More tales of footballers privileged to meet WSC readers
“On a train from Birmingham to Manchester about seven years ago I saw legendary imbiber Paul McGrath. As we were both travelling ‘oop north’, I assumed he was on his way to see his Mum. Anyway, it was about 9am and he looked as if he had had a few gallons the night before, lounging in his seat looking surly and very hung over. I took the opportunity not to speak to him.”
Ian Peddie
Football is becoming more popular in Wales, but Chris Hughes thinks there will soon be an unhealthy rivalry with the country's favourite sport
It’s never taken much to make the men who run Welsh football act like battery hens following an appointment with the guillotine. But it was still impossible to predict that the game in Wales would once again lapse into farce after the signing of a new, lucrative television contract… for rugby.
Alan Pattullo tells the remarkable story of a tiny club from Andorra's adventure in the UEFA Cup
A principality dug into the Pyrenees between France and Spain, Andorra is not the pastoral haven you might assume. Thanks to its tax free status it has been variously described as “a drive-in supermarket” and “a cross between Shangri-La and Heathrow Duty Free”. Not surprisingly, football too has managed to breach its borders, though the Andorran Football Association was only founded in 1994. Now members of UEFA, they will be playing in the next set of European championship qualifiers.
He could have retired, he could even be dead. But Nwankwo Kanu's career has been resumed, as Osasu Obayiuwana explains
With the flurry of media hype surrounding the transfer of Ronaldo from Barcelona to Internazionale, you might have assumed that the Brazilian would be holding court on Sunday 27th July on his first appearance at the San Siro in a friendly against Manchester United. But the Milanese fans reserved their loudest applause for the 80th minute emergence of Nwanko Kanu, who had overcome supposedly insurmountable odds to resume his playing career.
With new rules being implemented, Steve Parish questions how the game will be affected
New season, new rules. Can’t they leave them alone? Here we go again with more changes. The most obvious will be that the goalkeeper cannot handle the ball from a throw-in (from his own team), but can move for penalties, and that you can score direct from the kick-off. Others are just for “simplification and up-dating of the wording”.