Dear WSC
I’m sure this is very old hat and we’re just being ignorant, but in a recent pub conversation I asked a Brighton fan which team Charlie Oatway was named after. He had no idea. Oatway does indeed have 11 first names. It’s presumably a 1970s outfit, but we couldn’t get past the goalie, Anthony. The rest is Philip David Terry Frank Donald Stanley Gerry Gordon Stephen James Oatway. Can anyone help?
Jeff Moffat, London NW6
Corruption scandals in the domestic game are overshadowing the national team's fine form, writes Sam Beckwith, our man in a car park with an envelope of cash
Euro 2004 aside, it’s a depressing time to be a Czech football fan. Away from the bright lights and big names of the national team, a year of bribery scandals has offered a shocking glimpse of just how corrupt the domestic game might be, with clubs that don’t bribe officials seemingly the exception rather than the rule.
Ian Plenderleith embarks on his annual search to unearth that rarest of cyberspace entities – the funny football website. The good news is, he is successful this time. The bad news is, not very often
Some years ago this page printed a very unkind review of a new football “satire” website called Sports Offensive , which responded by publishing an admittedly pertinent parody of the author’s regular online column. Since then, and having added the sub-heading “Big Games – Big Lies”, the site has gone from mindless crudity to witty burlesque, inspired in the main by both the hyperbole and inanity of mainstream sports journalism.
Some couldn't bear to watch what seemed set to be City's most embarrassing moment, but Ian Farrell was richly rewarded for being too stunned to move
Anyone with a good memory for the cultural atrocities of the past may well be acquainted with Bernard Manning’s low-rent 1970s variety show The Wheeltappers and Shunters Club. Coming across this horror show of hopelessness I was shocked and saddened to see the once-mighty Roy Orbison hit rock bottom with an appearance. If a fan were to claim this as their favourite O moment, they would no doubt have got the sort of looks I receive upon telling non-Blues that the 1999 Division Two play-off final was as good as it got for Manchester City.
There were more than one team of football winners in Athens, though there waas some squabbling over what Iraq's achievement means, reports Matthew Brown
For a nation that supposedly fell in love with the game this summer, Greece seemed strangely indifferent to the Olympic football tournament. Perhaps they simply needed a break after all that Euro 2004 euphoria, but many matches at the Olympic Games were played out in front of virtually empty stadiums. In general the crowds rose above 20,000 only when Greece were playing or if the game was held in Athens itself. In some cases, the attendances barely rose above 5,000 and in others were fewer than 1,500.