June issue available online and in stores
The new WSC is out now, available from all good newsagents or to order from the WSC shop.
Inside this month
Down the divisions: Owner wrecks Leyton Orient | Lower-league myths exposed | The fans who like to moan
Dormund bomb attack: why UEFA were wrong | Brighton’s 20-year revival | Fan mayhem in France | Managers v players | Argentina’s new deal | In praise of outfield keepers
Plus
Women in football | Cheshire’s non-League clubs | Football League ticket price conundrum | Rotherham’s long-term planning problem | Controversial new signing at Clyde | Kingstonian forced out | World Cup puts football on the table | Harry Pearson on fans’ catchphrases | Focus on Rodney Marsh | Tempters boil over in Portugal
Leyton Orient 2-1 Hartlepool United Protests at Brisbane Road
So is this how 112 years of continuous Football League membership is going to end for Leyton Orient? With clown costumes, whistles and balloons? Mockery and mutiny are in the air at Brisbane Road, a response to the looming spectre of National League football at a club that has been gutted from within by English football’s worst owner. It is almost taken as read that despite the poor form of today’s visitors, Hartlepool, themselves now sucked into League Two’s relegation scrap, and despite an encouraging 2-2 draw at Luton on Good Friday, Orient’s demotion will be confirmed this afternoon. And people have come to protest. Buy here to read the full article
Keeping it real Lower-league fans
Just over a decade ago, I was a postgraduate student living in Norwich, and most of the friends I had who were remotely interested in football were Arsenal or Tottenham fans. As such, I was something of a curio, a supporter of a lower-league club, Darlington, who were then in the Football League’s bottom division. I would vanish for whole Saturdays to Lincoln or Boston, or for weekends to Macclesfield or Bury, and no one I knew seemed able to conceive of what exactly it was I went away to do. Buy here to read the full article
Exchange rate Substitutes
As a teenager growing up in the 1970s, there was one sight guaranteed to trigger feelings of excitement and anticipation: a hobbling goalkeeper, shaking his head ruefully in the direction of the bench and slowly peeling off his green or yellow jersey. This could only ever mean one thing. Since there were no substitute goalkeepers in those days, an outfield player was about to take his place and, more often than not, turn out to be a really terrible keeper. Entertainment was guaranteed, either in the form of an avalanche of soft goals, flapping arms and poor positional sense or against-all-odds heroic resistance. It was all very relatable – as though one of us had been plucked from the terraces and told to play at the highest level. Buy here to read the full article
Strike force Women in football
The Republic of Ireland women’s national side may not yet be world leaders but, after their highly publicised stance against inequality in April, they are at the vanguard of the movement to raise the profile of a game that habitually plays second fiddle to its male counterpart. After failing to bring the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) to the negotiating table to discuss their many grievances, despite months of trying, Ireland’s women players had run out of patience. Buy here to read the full article
Availability
WSC is the only nationally available independent football magazine in the UK, and you can get it monthly for a very reasonable £3.50. You should be able to find a copy in your local newsagent, otherwise outlets that stock WSC include WH Smith, mainline train stations plus selected Tescos. If you’re having trouble finding the magazine, you could do one of the following:
1. Subscribe now and also get access to the complete digital archive
2. Buy the latest issue direct from WSC
3. Sign up for our digital edition and apps for iPhone, iPad and Android
4. Email us
5. Ask your local newsagent to order it for you
Photo by Simon Gill, illustration by Matt Littler