Sorry, your browser is out of date. The content on this site will not work properly as a result.
Upgrade your browser for a faster, better, and safer web experience.

Search: 'shirts'

Stories

Life at the top – Premier League preview

WSC readers and fanzine editors weigh up the season to come

ARSENAL

Boyd Hilton

How will your team do this season?
Third (again)

Who is going to be the most important figure at the club this season?
Arsène Wenger: he’s the most intelligent person ever to be associated with professional football anywhere in the world ever, so this is our chance to just sit back and enjoy whatever he comes up with…

If you had to come up with a new piece of merchandise to sell at the club shop what would it be?
Life-size, fully realistic, 100% physically accurate model of Ian Wright.

Which player at your club most divides the home support and why?
Ian Wright: bizarrely, a sizeable portion of the fans seems to think that we’d do better without him, that he’s too old, too selfish, or some such crackpot theory. These people are clearly insane or are from the Arsenal old school and simply can’t cope with too much pleasure.

Which element of the matchday environment would you most like to change?
Installing some kind of device which sends a near-fatal electric shock through anyone who shouts “Yiddos!” and make it easier to get a half-time cup of coffee, perhaps by getting rid of the enormous bar area in the North Bank and installing 10 coffee stalls.

Read more…

June 1997

Tuesday 3 Le Tournoi begins with a 1-1 draw between France and Brazil, whose goal comes from a 35-yard swerving free kick by Roberto Carlos, the sort that used to win cup finals in boys' annuals while the crowd shouted, "Lummee!" and "What's the youngster playing at?" Teddy Sheringham asks Spurs for a transfer, saying, as you do, "I am looking for a new challenge at this stage in my career." Iran break a World Cup goalscoring record, beating the Maldives 17-0 in a first round qualifier. So, Teddy, coach to the Maldives?

Wednesday 4
England beat Italy 2-0 with goals from Ian Wright and Paul Scholes (Ginger Rogers 'Em says the Sun, desperately). "It was an end of season performance by us," snarls Cesare Maldini, suddenly sounding like a man stuck at the wrong end of Division Two. "It'll be different in Rome – there'll be 80,000 screaming Italians for a start," observes Glenn. And if England lose, they could go into a playoff with, say, Croatia or Yugoslavia… we may yet see Jimmy Hill in a tartan tie next summer.

Read more…

Letters, WSC 126

Dear WSC
I have just received the July issue of WSC, and cannot believe that you, along with the rest of the footballing media, have not spotted an unique footballing fact, as noticed by that great sage and philosopher, Mr Ronald Atkinson.  Towards the end of the European Cup Final, the Holy One commented that Italy was going to have an unprecedented treble of losing clubs in European finals – Juventus, Inter Milan and, er, Paris St Germain.
Tony Blatchford, Bath

Read more…

The official line

Stewards are often unpopular in football grounds, but Chris Paxton puts their side of the story

Wembley Stadium, the Coca-Cola Cup Final, 1995. With my usual bad sense of positioning, I found myself in the Bolton end next to a couple of Liverpool supporters all decked out in their red shirts and scarves. Everything was fine (just about) until McManaman scored. The two Liverpool fans jumped to their feet and started celebrating. The Bolton fans nearby started complaining and somebody behind me threw something at them. Guess who got hit? That’s right. Yours truly. Fortunately for me, they didn’t return after half-time.

Read more…

Brief encounters – June 1997

More player spots

“I saw Gary Lineker at a whisky promo in the British Embassy in Tokyo. He wasn’t very easy to spot as he was surrounded by a load of middle-class wankers pretending to like football. I was nervous like a kid and it took me ages to work up the balls to speak to him. I shook his hand and asked him what he felt like when he equalized against Germany. He said that he felt the same way that I did. So I told him I was German. Well I didn’t, but I thought of the reply 10 minutes later.”
John Tumilty

Read more…

Copyright © 1986 - 2024 When Saturday Comes LTD All Rights Reserved Website Design and Build NaS