Search: 'UEFA'

With talk surrounding a Great Britain football team played down ahead of the 2012 Olympics, Neil Andrews looks into the history of a Great Britain team

In a little over 18 months time Team Great Britain will end a partly self-imposed exile of 40 years to begin their first quest for an Olympic football medal since the summer of 1972. However, far from being comprised of the best footballing talent available from every corner of the kingdom, the British team will be made up almost entirely from the England Under-21 side, with a couple of over-age players as permitted by the International Olympic Committee. Because despite sketchy reassurances from FIFA president Sepp Blatter, the associations of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have decided to swerve an invitation from Lord Coe to take part, in order to protect their status as independent nations.

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Cameron Carter investigates the vast spectrum of football collectables, with some unusual finds

It used to be a lot simpler. Collecting football memorabilia meant saving your match programme and tremblingly accepting the football card from father’s cigarette packet. Now there appear to be hundreds of different categories of collectables to choose from. And, like television channels, the greater choice means only that there are a lot of choices that should never have existed.

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Why it should come as no surprise that England failed to capture the 2018 World Cup

You would have needed a heart of stone not to laugh at the peeved expressions of the England 2018 delegation as the World Cup hosting announcement was made. They shouldn’t have been surprised; everyone who has taken an active role in the 2018 bidding process will have known that England’s campaign was screwed a while ago.

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Dear WSC
I would like to ask my fellow readers if their clubs have something called “The Nardiello Factor”. The Nardiello Factor is a phenomenon where a striker’s popularity is based in a large part on the exotic nature of his name. At Barnsley we have seen no finer example of this than in recent months with the arrival of Jerónimo Morales Neumann. My fellow Tykes have been beside themselves at the thought of this player, and have wondered how Mark Robins can possibly limit him to just warming the bench. This opinion seems based on nothing more than the fact that he has a name that would be good to shout out when (if) he scores. Our Jerónimo accordingly scores a Nardiello Factor rating of nine (the maximum score is ten). Contrast this with Chris Woods, our loanee from West Brom. He scores a paltry NarFac rating of four. Were he to slightly change his name to Christiano Woodaldo he would up his NarFac rating to eight but, alas, this is not to my knowledge due for consideration. As a consequence the support from the terraces has been a little limited to date. Liam Dickinson scores a NarFac rating of one, though I am willing to concede that, even if he changed his name to Galileo Figaro Magnifico, he’d do well to register a NarFac rating of five. His yellow boots have had a negative impact.
Ian Marsden, Belper

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Following the security problems during Italy’s abandoned international fixture against Serbia, Vanda Wilcox discusses how crowd safety and hooliganism is still a problem for the Italians

Before anyone in Italy knew his name or had even seen his face, Ivan Bogdanov had made himself instantly recognisable. Continuous TV footage and acres of newsprint were immediately dedicated to Bogdanov and his fellow hooligans, responsible for the violent disruption of Italy’s European Championship qualifier against Serbia in Genoa on October 12.

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