Search: 'media'

In the run-up to the 2010 World Cup, Gabby Logan travelled to South Africa for BBC television's Inside Sport to talk apartheid, crime and vuvuzelas. Cameron Carter watches with interest

Since discovering the continent of Africa, Europeans helped themselves to its vast mineral and human resources. In return, Africa received smallpox and football. At least the latter is going to pay off for some of the population of South Africa next year. Inside Sport (BBC1, December 7) gave a brief history lesson on football in the apartheid era and addressed the two main fears of visiting European fans – the urban crime rate and a loud plastic trumpet.

Read more…

 by Archie Macpherson
Black & White, £17.99
Reviewed by Archie MacGregor
From WSC 278 April 2010

Buy this book

As unlikely alliances go, learning that Archie Macpherson was once good pals with Jeremy Paxman during their days on breakfast TV in the late 1980s must rank right up there as one of the most bizarre double acts in the history of tele­vision. There's no suggestion that they've remained close buddies ever since, rather the rapport was a fleeting mutual support mechanism designed to help both of them deal with the mind-numbing ordeal of early morning broadcasting. Look what it did to Frank Bough after all.

Read more…

by Steve Pitts
Pennant Books, £9.99
Reviewed by Pete Green
From WSC 276 February 2010

Buy this book

As with Pete Doherty, Kerry Katona and Amy Winehouse, so with Paul Gascoigne: the same hypocritical combination of moral outrage and rubber-necking guarantees sales each time their descent lights up the front pages. From the national institution status of 1990, of course, Gazza had further to fall than anyone – all the way to Kettering Town, where he fetched up in 2005, installed as celebrity manager by incoming 20-something chairman Imraan Ladak and sacked eight games later, accused of almost daily indiscretions as the drinking continued.

Read more…

by Davie Hay
Black & White, £17.99
Reviewed by Graham McColl
From WSC 276 February 2010

Buy this book

One of the “Lisbon Lion cubs” groomed to replace Celtic’s European Cup winners, Davie Hay’s three departures from Celtic Park were almost as significant as his achievements there. Eased out to Chelsea in 1974 after going on strike, in 1987 he became the first Celtic manager to be sacked and was sacked again, when assistant general manager, during the club’s turbulent 1990s rebirth.

Read more…

by Mick Kelly
Pennant Books, £9.99
Reviewed by John Carter
From WSC 275 January 2010

Buy this book

“May you live in interesting times” goes the Chinese saying and Queens Park Rangers supporters certainly do. They’ve had a chairman ambushed at gunpoint, been taken over by a consortium that, temporarily, made them “the richest club in the world” and welcomed seven different managers, all in four years.

Read more…