Dear WSC
After the thrilling second leg of Chelsea’s Champions League tie against Valencia, I have found that the only way to get through ITV’s woeful coverage is by marvelling at how retarded the commentary team must think we are. Having lived through Andy Gray’s 18-month-long reconciliation to the “crazy” offside rule, and survived two seasons of Five’s head-scratching over the “barmy” UEFA Cup groups, I was amazed at just how often ITV’s team felt we needed to have the away goals rule explained to us.
I realise the networks want to make their coverage accessible to all, but even the casual football observer understands the away goals rule. If I had a pound for every time the commentary team explained to me that, if Chelsea score now, then of course Valencia will need to score twice, then I would probably have collected enough to get a Setanta subscription.
Gareth Allen, Normanton
Search: 'laws'
Stories
In the light of recent events, Italy will introduce a stewarding system. Matthew Barker reports on how a new approach to stadium management, imposed from above, will impact on the game
The day after Manchester United’s Champions League quarter-final first leg in Rome, a series of crowd-control measures were announced by the Italian government. Central to these new laws, drawn up in the wake of the riots in Catania and the death of police officer Filippo Raciti, is the introduction of a stewarding system, modelled on the British matchday experience.
Neil Wallace on the year Bolton hit a ton, Man City managers came and went, and the players' union threatened a strike
The long-term significance
Expanding revenues from television became a source of conflict, with footballers pushed towards industrial action for the first time since the abolition of the maximum wage. In the summer of 1996, the Football League sought to reduce the share of the new TV deal that would go to the PFA. With over 90 per cent of the union’s members voting for a strike in October, the League finally agreed to their demand for five per cent of the income; the Premier League came to a similar agreement a year later. In 2001, however, strike action was threatened again before the PFA succeeded in holding on to five per cent of the next, hugely increased, Sky deal. And with the figures becoming ever greater, the strike threat of 1996 could recur again and again.X
Dear WSC
Why does Andy Gray keep saying “pick the bones out of that”? It’s an expression he’s come to use in every post-match analysis he does on Sky, usually in relation to a slow-motion replay of a goalmouth incident. But it’s become so frequent that it’s almost a verbal tic, as though he doesn’t realise he’s saying it. This suggests a deep-seated trauma. Could it be that he is haunted by an incident when he failed to pick the bones out of a fish, say, and consequently nearly choked while in a packed restaurant? Either that or he’s replying a vivid and unsettling dream. But it could be worse. Imagine the look of alarm on Richard Keys’ face as Andy stares into the middle distance and mutters: “The defence was as exposed as someone standing naked in front of everybody they went to school with, plus their mother and other female members of the family.”
James Potter, via email
A recent documentary film claims to reveal the dynamics of a German dressing room – that of the national team at the World Cup. But Matt Nation has witnessed a very different side to coaching techniques at a lower level
Rarely has a U-rated film in Germany been as scandal-soaked as Söhnke Wortmann’s Deutschland. Ein Sommermärchen (Germany: A Summer’s Fairytale), the fly-on-the-wall documentary about Germany’s World Cup campaign. It revealed more false bonhomie in the German dressing room than at a civil‑service office Christmas party. It demonstrated how David Odonkor makes just as much sense when interviewed with a mouthful of toothpaste as without. It exposed young men in sickening states of undress, including flip-flops and towelling socks together. But, most of all, it gave Jürgen Klinsmann the chance to add to his motley collection of alter-egos, in this case as Motivationsmeister.