Saturday 1 All the action in Man Utd’s 3‑2 win at Fulham happens before half-time. Despite his team’s defeat, Chris Coleman senses a weakness: “Defensively, I didn’t think they were great.” Spurs come back from two down to win 3‑2 at Charlton, but stay behind them in third on goal difference. Blackburn fans get their first sightings of Shefki Kuqi’s rupture-threatening bellyflop celebration after he scores both goals in a 2‑0 defeat of West Brom, who drop to 19th. “I was happy for once with a scrappy goal,” says Arsène, who is ageing quickly, after Arsenal need a late deflection to beat Birmingham. Sunderland’s 1‑1 draw with West Ham takes them out of the bottom three. Sheffield Utd’s eight-match winning run ends in a 2‑1 defeat to their nearest Championship challengers, Reading; Neil Warnock will face an FA charge after eyeballing the referee over not getting a late penalty. “The laws of football are black and white and the referee has seen purple,” say Blackpool keeper Les Pogliacomi of League One leaders Swansea’s decisive goal in their 3‑2 win when striker Lee Trundle, in an offside position, backs away from a cross that goes in while the defence stand still, appealing. Swindon are five points adrift at the foot after a 3‑1 defeat at second-bottom MK Dons. Wycombe remain the League’s only unbeaten team, but slip to third in League Two after a 3‑3 draw with Chester. In the SPL, Hearts finally drop points, needing an injury-time equaliser to draw 2‑2 with Falkirk. Celtic, 5‑0 winners at Livingston, are three points behind.
Communism may have been collapsing around them, but Russian football was healthier than ever writes Saul Pope
The long-term significance
By the time the season ground to a halt in November, football was not the first thing on most people’s minds. During August, President Gorbachev had been held under house arrest for three days as his (and Soviet) power ebbed away. A few weeks after the end of the football season, on Christmas Day, the Soviet hammer and sickle flag was lowered over the Kremlin for the last time and the USSR was no more. The turmoil that followed spawned a corrupt economic and social system that would soon lead to one former Soviet citizen being able to buy a leading English team and overnight become the richest man in football.
Dear WSC
Speaking of bleeping out certain phrases from football commentary and punditry (WSC 225), my pet peeve is “The shot beat the keeper but went wide”. It only beats the keeper if it goes past him and into the goal (or goes past him and is cleared off the line by a team-mate, or goes past him and sticks in the mud and stops, as in a Danny Baker football video). The keeper is only beaten when the ball goes past him within the area of the goal he is there to defend, otherwise any shot that ends up on the roof of the stand or hits the corner flag could be said to have beaten the keeper. Bah!
Phil Brown, Romford
The biggest name in Brazilian football right now isn’t proud of the fact – because, as Robert Shaw writes, he’s a corrupt referee, whose actions have led to bitterly contested rematches
Lift left hand in an upright position. Insert thumb of right hand into centre of upright palm while making a ducking, twisting motion with the rest of the right hand. Look around and imagine watching thousands of fellow fans copying your motion, while shouting “Edilson” and you have just been transported to a Brazilian football terrace.
What started as a means of compelling pools companies to contribute to football has become a way to harass webzines. Ian Plenderleith reports on the battle raging over the copyright status of fixtures
The issue of copyright for football fixtures (see WSC 181) is in the news again after DataCo – the FA and Football League’s joint commercial venture – closed the Watford webzine Blind, Stupid and Desperate (BSaD) for listing, ahead of time, Watford’s fixture with Leicester City in October.