Zimbabwe's failed love affair with the African Nations Cup has opened the doors for others. Alan Duncan finds out what went wrong
On March 14th, the Executive Committee of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) meet to decide whether Zimbabwe will be allowed to stage the African Cup of Nations in 2000. Their decision may have a major impact on the direction of world football politics for years to come.
Monday 1 Glenn Hoddle refuses to step down as England coach, but Tony Blair and, more importantly, the Nationwide building society come out against him. "He has a responsibility to ensure that his personal views shouldn't be confused with those of the England team, the FA or its sponsors," says Mike Lazenby, Nationwide's marketing director. "I'm not some crackpot who comes out with stupid remarks to cause controversy," Hoddle insists, despite all evidence to the contrary. John Hartson is fined £20,000 and given a three-match ban by the FA for his training-ground attack on Eyal Berkovic. "I have to control my aggression," Hartson says, which will be unwelcome news to his manager.
Dear WSC
The article in WSC No 144 about the strange man who looks after the FA Cup reminded me of another story involving the same trophy. Back in 1980, I was working on Record Breakers (look, we’ve all got rent to pay) and I suggested we do an item about football that involved getting all four major trophies (the League, the Charity Shield, and the FA and League Cups) into the studio. Come the day the championship trophy and the Charity Shield were delivered by Securicor from Liverpool. Both were in highly polished wooden boxes as you would expect. The League Cup was delivered from Molineux, also by a security firm and also in its own polished wooden box. The FA Cup, however, was delivered from West Ham in a black cab – wrapped in a pillow case. To cap it all, the cabbie turned out to be a right miserable bugger. Handing me the pillow case he said, “I’m a West Ham fan and this is the first time I get a call to go there. Do I pick up anyone involved in the club? No, I get a fucking pillowcase to deliver.” I didn’t tell him what was in the pillowcase. It’s always given me great pleasure to think that there’s a London cabbie out there who’s missed a great opportunity to say, “’Ere, you’ll never guess what I had in my cab the other day…" One of the carpenters in the studio was a West Ham fan. Heartbroken at the way his club had treated the FA Cup, he built a mahogany box for it. The Cup was returned to the Hammers in the box. Ten years later, Spurs won the cup and it was brought into the LWT studios where I was then working. It was still in the box built by the BBC carpenter.
Robin Carr, Chesham
Ian Ladyman explains why Nottingham Forest have found themselves incapable of breaching the growing gap between the Premier League and the First Division
Looking back on what is likely to be a short stay in the Premiership, Nottingham Forest fans will wonder just when it all went wrong for their floundering club. They will have to look back further than this season to find the answers.
How one man attempted to bring his club down to flames, literally. Andrew Spiers and Ray Gilbert report
Ken Richardson, ex-benefactor (his choice of word) of Doncaster Rovers, was found guilty of conspiracy to commit arson by a unanimous verdict at Sheffield County Court in the last week of January. Judge Peter Baker said Richardson could expect a custodial sentence and he was remanded in custody pending a bail hearing. Sentencing was delayed as his barrister was ill.