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The Archive

Articles from When Saturday Comes. All 27 years of WSC are in the process of being added. This may take a while.

A view from the inside

Scott Sloan on Zambia’s Africa Cup of Nations triumph from inside the country

As I lay in bed in downtown Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, a lonely vuvuzela pierced the night. It would only get worse. As each game progressed, the nightly noises would build to a crescendo: whistles, singing, dogs howling and horns honking. Lusaka was quiet before each game, but after the final whistle, the city would exhale as tensions lifted. Another game over and an even greater belief that anything is possible.

Sunday, April 1st, 2012 - The Archive

Nation’s grace

While the tournament was not an unqualified success, Zambia’s continental title win was poignant and triumphant in ways that could have never have been expected, writes Paul Giess

With so many of Africa’s major footballing nations not qualifying for this year’s Cup of Nations, the big story of the group stages was the unexpected success of co-hosts Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. Both qualified for the knockout rounds with a game to spare and both did it in dramatic style.

Sunday, April 1st, 2012 - The Archive

TV Times

Rupert Murdoch blew terrestrial channels out of the water to buy Premier League rights in 1992 but he could now face tougher competition, writes Gary Andrews

Two decades ago, Rupert Murdoch staked the success of his fledgling satellite TV business on paying £300 million for rights to the newly formed Premier League. Since then Sky has remained unchallenged in its dominance – and the sums of money are much larger – but there is a possibility they could be out-Skyed by companies looking to establish new technology in our living rooms.

Sunday, April 1st, 2012 - The Archive

Mind games

The best antidote to the money ruining football is a litle retail therapy spent on your fantasy league team, argues Ashley Clark

As Wikipedia no doubt reliably informs me, fantasy football was created in 1990 by an Italian technology writer, Riccardo Albini, as a casually interactive, just-for-fun gaming experience. Albini was clearly onto something. The game has proved wildly popular, lurching through a variety of vaguely unwieldy mail and print iterations (as well as David Baddiel and Frank Skinner’s 1990s TV show Fantasy Football League) to blossom into the slick, ubiquitous web-based beast it is today.

Sunday, April 1st, 2012 - The Archive

Hereford United 1 Swindon Town 2

A late rally cannot prevent a deserved defeat for struggling Hereford United, as Paolo di Canio’s slick Swindon Town team edge closer towards promotion from League Two, writes Taylor Parkes

I am from the Welsh end of the Midlands – barely 40 miles away – but Hereford is a mystery to me. A town that can only be reached by train from London via Abergavenny, it is one of those places everyone has heard of but no one knows that much about. A rather olde-worlde town centre; some tasty estates round the edge, most probably. Cider and cattle and Mott The Hoople, or were they from Ross-on-Wye? This part of the country is a strange place, anyway, lacking the South’s self-confidence, the North’s reflexive pride or even the cheery irreverence of the West Midlands proper. It is very pretty in parts, but – as I recall – prone to a quiet pessimism, a sense of being nowhere in particular. Especially here; especially today.

Sunday, April 1st, 2012 - The Archive

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