Stories | When Saturday Comes

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

Waiting game

Managers who do badly nearly always get the sack, so why is such a drama made out of it? Jeffrey Prest explains

I was in two minds whether to write this because the chances are that you’ll see Steve Kean’s name in the opening paragraph and promptly turn the page. That’s if he is Blackburn Rovers’ former manager by the time you read this. Should his team have built on that bolt-from-the-blue at Old Trafford to keep him in a job until this issue of WSC hits the shops, I may be able to count on your attention for a little longer.

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 - Book reviews

Critical mass

If referees are as awful as claimed, we should help them out with some some extra body parts – or a microphone. Ed Wilson reports

There are some sections of society that it is difficult to feel sympathy for, even when you know they have been treated harshly. Reality TV stars fall into this category, as do Tory MPs – Edwina Currie is the point of intersection in that particular Venn diagram. Previously, I would have lumped referees into this demographic too. You only need to hear the enthusiasm that greets a referee falling over to grasp their standing among most football fans. But in recent months, my attitude to them has softened. I no longer see them as slightly absurd pantomime villains. Referees are people too.

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 - The Archive