To mark our 250th issue, here are some reflections on memorable moments in WSC’s history
A reader in Stockport once told us what he thought football was essentially about. On a grim Friday night at Edgeley Park with the home team losing 4-0, he had seen an irate spectator walk down to the perimeter wall and yell: “For God’s sake, fizz it around a bit.” Most fans, it has always seemed to us, experience each season as a succession of disappointments, enlivened by momentary fizz.
Why does he persevere? Huw Richards reports
You have to wonder about John Toshack. He’s 59 in March, has earned big money all his adult life – and everything we know about him suggests that cash will have been sensibly deployed. He could be putting his feet up in the French Basque country or on the Gower coast, breaking off every so often to broadcast in Spain, where tactical sophistication is a must rather than an optional extra. Instead he continues to wrestle with turning Wales into a half-decent football team. It is, admittedly, not like running a club. Coaching a small nation is like being a senior civil servant or university vice-chancellor who becomes head of an Oxbridge college, a pleasant way of easing towards retirement. The president of St John’s College is not, mind you, required to hold regular press conferences, sit in cold dugouts or submit to regular contact with Craig Bellamy. This, though, is Wales, where the man in the national coconut-shy is the rugby coach.
{mosimage} That didn’t last long. There will be no more jokes about Big Sam and Little Sam at Bolton – but Chris Deary wonders whether Gary Megson will become the biggest joke of all
With the nation picking over the bones of England’s hat-trick of sporting failures in football, rugby and Formula One, it was a good week for Bolton to bury the bad news. Sammy Lee had managed just three wins from 14 games since taking over from Sam Allardyce in April, leaving Wanderers second from bottom. Yet the timing of his departure on October 17 – ten days after his last game (a 1-0 defeat to Chelsea) and only three days before a daunting trip to Arsenal – suggests it was not just about results.
Brighton escape from the bottom division as Barnet drop out of the league. Peter Evans reports
The long-term significance
Fresh from an £11.5 million takeover by Sam Hammam, Cardiff City spent £1.9m – an unparalleled amount for the fourth tier. However, this season, when each Division Three club were guaranteed a healthy £150,000 in TV revenue, was the beginning of the end for such heavy investment in wages and transfers. The following year ITV Digital went under, leaving many clubs facing the prospect of financial meltdown. Carlton and Granada, the channel’s owners, had paid £315m for the Nationwide League TV rights in June 2000, but, when the company was declared bankrupt in March 2002, Third Division clubs lost roughly £400,000 in earnings.
Dear WSC
Oh blast, nearly made it, Huw Richards (Reviews, WSC 248). Six paragraphs of something approaching even-handedness towards Leeds United in your review of Gary Sprake’s biography but then, with the finishing line in sight, you can soar above the gravity of glib public opinion no more: “They were indeed dirty, cheating bastards.”It’s not that I’m a Leeds fan, nor that I unreservedly dispute these allegations. I was in my naive early teens when Revie’s men were in their pomp, so I could easily have been oblivious to the more devious methods of what was still one of the most effective teams I’ve ever seen. If they are to be criticised 30 years on, however, then can it at least be in a manner consistent with modern times? Consider one Roy Keane, for example. Occasional thug, habitual hothead, a cynical intimidator who went after what he wanted regardless of whether it did more harm than good to those around him. How many times have you witnessed a debate on the Irishman kick off with one of these themes, only to undergo a remarkable transformation as your local Keane apologist enters? By the time he has stressed Keane’s honesty, perfectionism and dedication, you’re being invited to believe that Sunderland’s gain was the Vatican’s loss. Whatever side of the argument you take, its structure certainly works to Keane’s advantage. Get the Mr Hyde stuff out of the way first, then finish the discussion on a high, firmly focused on Dr Jekyll. And if it’s good enough for Roy, it’s good enough for Leeds United. So next time your writers are let loose on the Elland Road archives, can we have a gentlemen’s agreement that they get the whole snidey, paranoid, Machiavellian thing out of the way early on and then close with two simple points: that Revie’s team were one of the best passing and possession sides this country has ever produced and that anyone who thinks you can merely cheat your way to two League titles, League and FA Cups, plus two European trophies from five finals, wants their head examining?
Jeffrey Prest, via email