Sunday 1 Business as usual at Stamford Bridge as Chelsea’s 1-1 draw with Arsenal sees Patrick Vieira sent off and a David Seaman blunder. Bolton move off the bottom with a 1-0 win over non-scoring Aston Villa, thanks to a goal from Birmingham-born Michael Ricketts and a disallowed goal from Juan Pablo Angel. “In this country we have got good referees who are being let down by assistants who are not so good,” says Graham Taylor. Lloyd Owusu’s goal with his first touch for the club puts Wednesday on their way to a 2-0 win in the Sheffield derby.
Ian Plenderleith dissects a biographical account of Lars Leese's career to discover that, unlike his wife, the German never quite felt at home in South Yorkshire
When German goalkeeper Lars Leese signed for Barnsley at the start of their Premiership season in 1997, he was one of six foreign players at the club that year. As the journalist Ronald Reng describes it in his excellent biography of Leese, published in Germany earlier this year, Barnsley boss Danny Wilson was “like a kid in a toyshop who was finally allowed to buy international stars – or rather, players who were international and were taken for stars in Barnsley”.
Kasper Steenbach recounts Brian Laudrup's short and unhappy spell at Chelsea in 1998
Overall, Brian Laudrup is today a happy man – he lives with his family at an exclusive address on the coast north of Copenhagen and turns out as a striker for the local amateur team. The chief executive of FC Copenhagen, Flemming Østergaard, is also happy. He heads virtually the only European club that is presently increasing in value on the stock market. Since he took over in 1997, the club has been turned into a big name in the entertainment business, having hosted the Eurovision Song Contest and a Mike Tyson fight. And, above all, he runs a club that has succeeded in attracting the support of most football fans in Copenhagen for the first time in recent history.
From the Stade Louis II to Alloa and Queen of the South in three years, St Johnstone fan Gary Panton charts his club's sharp demise
Why did the team collapse so emphatically last season?
Sandy Clark’s inability to find suitable replacements for the players that achieved third place in the SPL, a League Cup final and a UEFA Cup run earned him the sack back in October. His replacement Billy Stark – whose perennially folded arms and monotone drawl must make him one of the least animated managers in Scottish football history – struggled to prove he could do much better.
Dear WSC
I must respond to Simon Bell’s assertion (Letters, WSC 187) that Hugh Dallas gave an “incomprehensible display” in the Germany v US World Cup quarter-final. He is probably referring to two incidents, the first one involving Frings’ handball on the line. Dallas explained his decision in the Scottish press, stating that in his opinion Frings’ handball was completely accidental – in other words the ball played him – and referees could not give a penalty or send a man off in these circumstances. I watched the incident again at normal speed and I completely agree with him, Frings could not have done anything other than handle the ball, or arm it if we’re being pedantic. Just because a goal would have undoubtedly resulted had Frings not been positioned where he was does not mean that a penalty and a sending off should have been automatic. Hugh got it right. The second incident was the mistaken identity booking of Oliver Neuville. Dallas admitted he got this one wrong but he was not the only guilty party as he had firstly run over to consult his linesman, an Englishman incidentally, before booking Neuville instead of Jeremies. Personally, I thought Dallas was one of the best refs at the World Cup and was on a par with Collina and Anders Frisk, a view obviously shared by FIFA when they appointed him fourth official in the final.
Scott Harrison, Hamilton