When Hungary visited in 1981, England hadn't got to the World Cup finals for 11 years. Cris Freddi went with his heart in his mouth, which improved his singing

Call this our culmination. England’s last qualifying match. We’d been to all the others at home and reck­oned we’d suffered enough. They hadn’t been convincing in any of the others, even the 4-0 opener against Norway. It took them most of the first half to score, the third goal was a penalty, and the fourth was three min­utes from time. I’d missed that one, Mar­iner’s only good goal for England, because I was swapping nips of rum with two Norwegian fans. There was also the most beautiful woman ever seen at Wem­bley, a classic white-haired ice goddess. Drifting involuntarily towards her in the coach park, I found myself shaking hands with her equally stunning boy­friend, straight out of the Thor comics. Oh well, who needs the perfect woman when you’ve got two World Cup points?

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Ian Plenderleith goes looking for the best in English-language coverage of European football on the web and shares the anguish of the Portuguese public over the latest career move for Phil Collins

Although most of the major web­sites now pay lip service to the burgeoning interest in European football with scores from, and columnists in, a variety of foreign countries, there are a number of English-language on­line locations that devote themselves to one country alone. Two of the best cover the Iber­ian peninsula.

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The FA of Ireland have been castigated in a report sparked by the World Cup fiasco. Brian de Salvo hopes they take it more seriously than the last one

“The FAI is experiencing a confused present and faces an uncertain future.” That’s not a quotation from Genesis, the sports management consultancy ap­pointed to report on the organisation of Ire- land’s governing body after their World Cup campaign, who produced a damning indictment of the FAI. It’s the verdict of a previous report, pre­sented as long ago as 1996, which highlighted “a lack of vision, direction and planning… indecisive structures and… reluctance to consider necessary change.” Little has changed since. Will it now?

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Roger Mitchell has left the Scottish Premier League, his departure mourned by just about nobody. Paul Hutton rushes to join the chorus of disapproval

It must be open season on football administrators. Just a couple of weeks after Adam Crozier took his leave from the FA, Roger Mitchell, chief executive of the Scottish Premier League, is handing in the keys to the company car.

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The FA's permanent fixture, David Davies, has been left in charge of the shop again. Philip Cornwall reflects on a career that defies logical explanation

Amid the swirl of crisis at Soho Square, with the dep­artures of Adam Crozier, Frank Pattison and How­ard Wilkinson and the (so far false) rumours about Sven-Goran Eriksson, one man still stands. David Dav­ies’s second term as acting chief executive of the Foot­ball Association, this time in joint control with Nic Coward, marks him down as a great survivor.

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