Stories | When Saturday Comes

Negative equity

As Portugal’s debts continue to rise, Phil Town explains how the money spent on new stadiums for Euro 2004 looks like a waste

As the economic crisis deepens in Portugal so the careless spending of years gone by appears increasingly irresponsible. We are left with barely used motorways, superfluous submarines and a small herd of white elephants – most of the Euro 2004 stadiums. The championship was heralded at the time as “a way for Portugal to affirm itself” by José Socrates, who became the country’s prime minister between 2005 and 2011. While Euro 2004 was ultimately a huge success as a sporting event, the country is still counting the cost.

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 - The Archive

Fan the flames

Karsten Blaas explains how indecision over fireworks at German football matches has caused fights between ultras and police on the terraces

For their live coverage of the second round of the German cup, played in late October, the TV station ZDF chose Borussia Dortmund’s encounter with Dynamo Dresden, east Germany’s best supported team, who are now back in the second tier after a decade of decline. What happened on the pitch was as dull as had been expected. Dortmund won a lacklustre game 2-0. The events on the terraces and outside the ground, however, had a long-term impact, raising questions about police tactics and the role of the ultra movement in German football.

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 - The Archive

Portsmouth 1-1 Southampton

League meetings between the two Hampshire clubs have been relatively rare but their derby matches are as keenly contested as any local rivalry in English football. James de Mellow reports

On April 29, 1939, as Portsmouth pulled off a surprise 4-1 FA Cup final win over Wolves at Wembley, only 4,000 Southampton fans showed up for a home league game on the same day, preferring to cheer on their neighbours while listening to the radio. When the trophy was brought back to the south coast, it was displayed for a short time at Southampton Guildhall and even paraded around The Dell for Saints fans to salute Pompey’s achievements. One wonders, then, what Hampshire’s pre-war football supporters would make of Operation Delphin, which the police deemed necessary to prevent trouble before and after the south-coast derby on December 18. As a condition of purchasing a ticket, all travelling Saints fans agreed to be bussed in a “bubble” under police escort between the two cities, while eight-foot-high barriers were erected north-east of Fratton Park in order to keep a minority of idiots from both sides coming into contact with each other.

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 - The Archive

The great unwatched

With Sky now filming matches with up to 24 cameras it seems unthinkable that audiences could miss top-flight football, but games went unrecorded as recently as 1990. Mike Whalley explains

If anyone ever produces a DVD tribute to former Sheffield Wednesday striker David Hirst, it ought to include clips of his efforts as an emergency goalkeeper against Manchester City on New Year’s Day, 1990. It won’t, though, because no footage exists. Having scored Wednesday’s first in a 2-0 win, Hirst went in goal to replace the injured Kevin Pressman and made impressive saves from Steve Redmond and Colin Hendry.

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 - The Archive

Power struggles

When team selections are made by senior players rather than managers things can only end badly, writes Mark Brophy

To an outsider, it seems mad that a club that has been in the top four of the Premier League pretty much all season should be rumoured to be in turmoil and on the verge of dismissing their manager. Yet that is exactly the situation Chelsea and Andre Villas-Boas have found themselves in at various points, usually coinciding with a marginal dip in performance level or results. These are not the chief reasons for the speculation, however. Constantly looming in the background is the over-confident shadow of player power.

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 - Book reviews