Borussia Dortmund have just set a transfer record that should last. Matt Nation, the first of our far flung correspondents to get to the postbox, explains why
Günter Netzer recently complained that the Bundesliga was lacking “personality players who command a big fee”. While the rest of the country pondered the link between Alan Shearer and the word “personality”, Borussia Dortmund snapped up the Brazilian forward Amoroso for DM 50 million (£15.7 million) from Parma.
Dear WSC
I’ve heard some daft excuses for losing matches but Trevor Francis has surpassed even Manchester United’s grey shirts fiasco at Southampton with his moaning over Birmingham’s play-off penalty shoot-out at Preston. Perhaps the poor dear would like to consider the following points. At any ground other than Deepdale there would have been spectators behind both goals, and if the penalties hadn’t been at the Preston end they would have been at the Birmingham end. Therefore, by his logic, that would be unfair on the Preston players. If Birmingham were a better team than Preston they would have finished above them in the league table, therefore the second leg of their play-off and the penalty shoot-out would have taken place at their own ground. They only finished fifth over 46 league games so they were lucky to have any chance of promotion in the first place. If his players are unnerved by taking penalties in front of opposition fans what chance would they stand of surviving in the Premiership? In a ground filled with paying spectators it makes sense for the deciding moments to take place at the end where most of them will have the best view. Who cares whether the referee or police changed their mind about which end the penalties should be taken? The notion that the whole match should be replayed because of that is absolutely ludicrous. If I was a Birmingham fan I would be embarrassed that the manager could come out with such a lame excuse for defeat instead of accepting that his team was simply not good enough.
Richard Watts, Sydenham
Mike Ticher thumbs through some of the classics of ref literature and finds a world of egotists and backstabbers
One of the first referees to write his autobiography (assisted by Kenneth Wolstenholme) also had one of the best stories to tell. At 37, Arthur Ellis was the youngest Wembley Cup final referee when he oversaw Newcastle v Arsenal in 1952, ran the line in the final match of the 1950 World Cup in front of 200,000 at the Maracana and was in charge of the notorious “Battle of Berne” (Brazil v Hungary) in the 1954 World Cup.
New Labour came to power in 1997 riding shamelessly on the football bandwagon. Steve Greenfield and Guy Osborn take a critical look at their record in office.
Even before the Labour victory in May 1997, football had a prime position in the political landscape. The Labour Party had launched its Charter for Football in 1995, detailing how they would respond to what Tony Blair called “the critical problems now associated with the game”. The rise of the Premiership and the the prospect of Euro 96 had helped make football socially acceptable and many clubs suddenly found themselves patronised, often literally, by the great and good (as well as some MPs).
Despite a magnificent cup run, German minnows FC Union's success may not last long, writes Markus Hesselmann
In the weeks between promotion and cup final, Union were all the rage in Germany. The club made headlines in the arts pages of the national newspapers. There were television features about the upright working-class blokes from the eastern district of Köpenick, who had always been subdued by the Stasi but would now arise as the true team of east Berlin and the whole of eastern Germany.