Search: ' Lex Gold'

Dear WSC
I have just about learned to cope with the inevitable moaning of Alex Ferguson every time so much as a throw-in is given against his little angels, but now we have to put up with Manchester United fans blathering on about how their “football club” is not for sale. Well, I hate to break it to you, lads, but it is. Manchester United (they dropped the football club bit some time ago) is first and foremost a plc and a stock market entity. So it is for sale every day of the week. And it was this state of affairs that led to Man Utd winning all those titles and cups back in the 1990s. It was the international money markets (along with a great many Roy Keane duvet covers being shifted in the Far East) that allowed Man Utd to spunk millions of quid on Van Nistelrooy, Rooney, Ferdinand and the rest. I didn’t hear Shareholders Uni­ted up in arms when this happened, nor when they receive their fat dividend cheques every year. Best of all, it was their club’s rampant commercial exploitation of the game that dragged football into the sorry state we currently have to put up with. Man­chester United’s supporters have got no­thing whatsoever to complain about. If they think they have, maybe they could pop down the road and visit Oldham, or Bury, or any number of clubs in the north-west and beyond who really are being exploited and run into the ground.
Alex Marklew, London (ex-Nottingham, so not a Gooner before anyone says otherwise)

Read more…

Arsenal’s move for Emmanuel Eboué of Beveren is just the latest example of a strange import-export trade in African footballers, as John Chapman explains

The thermometer is stuck on 4°C. There’s a cold wind blowing around Antwerp’s Bosuil stadium. Around 6,000 fans have braved the elements to see the locals, languishing in Belgium’s second div­ision, take on mighty Beveren, who qualified for this season’s UEFA Cup through being runners-up in the 2004 Belgian Cup. In theory, it’s a Flemish derby. In practice, it’s a visible sign of globalisation’s impact on football.

Read more…

Milan Mandaric has taken Pompey to a crossroads – and while the club head in one direction, Harry Redknapp chooses another after this straggly defeat. David Stubbs reports

The first time I saw Portsmouth play was in the first game I ever attended – September 1971 at Hull City’s Boothferry Park, a post-holiday birthday treat en route back home from a drizzly week at the Golden Sands Chalet Park in Withernsea. Hull City won 3-1, I vividly recall, except that they didn’t – a check on Soccerbase has confirmed that my lifelong belief to that effect is erroneous. In fact, it was Pompey who won by the same score. Still, what has stuck is the allure of what was doubtless a dismal occasion for the reg­ulars. The combined stench of drifting cigarette smoke and fried onions acts like one of Proust’s cakes on me even now. I remember the bloke two rows down shouting “You Portsmouth pigs!” – the height of terrace in­vective to me. Mostly it was the floodlights that im­- ­pressed me: tall, imposing and HG Wellsian, they were like giant cyber-sentries from another world.

Read more…

The idea used to be that clubs paid players to play for them; now they subsidise their opponents to get unwanted 'stars' off their books. Barney Ronay reports

Michael Stewart “took a gamble” this month (accord­ing to the BBC football website) by can­celling the remainder of his contract at Manchester United to have a trial with Rangers. Unfortunately for Stewart this wild leap into the dark didn’t pay off. Alex McLeish decided to let him go, leaving the Scotland international with only the £400,000 lump-sum pay-off from United to tide him over – paid for his waiving the two years left on his £12,000-a-week contract.

Read more…

Sunday 1 Arsenal are back on top after a stormy 2-1 win over Man City. Nicolas Anelka scores the latter’s goal in the 90th minute but is sent off before the re­start for a bundle in the goalmouth. Surprisingly, his sparring partner Ashley Cole is only booked. Chelsea just about stay in touch, needing a late winner from Glen Johnson to beat Blackburn 3-2. Sir Alex, mean­while, faces a decision: to climb down in his court case or finally file papers with the judge in Dublin…

Read more…