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When Saturday Comes, Britain’s largest independent football magazine, has put its entire archive online. Launched to coincide with the magazine’s 350th issue – available to subscribers now and in shops from March 10 – and 30th birthday, the project with Exact Editions sees subscribers gain free access to every issue of the magazine. From the first, hand-stapled editions, WSC has covered a period of huge change in the national game from an alternative angle.

Founded in 1986 when football was an outcast sport whose followers were demonised by the government and media, WSC has been there through the Hillsborough disaster, the introduction of all-seat stadiums, the foundation of the Premier League, the influx of multi-billionaire owners, mass commercialisation and rising ticket prices, to provide an alternative voice for intelligent supporters in both a serious and humorous way. The new, fully searchable archive showcases how football has evolved over the last 30 turbulent years.

A product of the fanzine boom of the late 1980s, WSC itself has developed and, during the mid-1990s boom in football publishing, established a niche in the then crowded magazine market. WSC has become recognised as a source of informed comment on all aspects of British football, featuring on major current affairs programming and in newspapers in this country and on radio and television around Europe.

WSC has provided an early outlet for many writers who have gone on to establish themselves elsewhere, notably Harry Pearson, Barney Ronay and David Conn – all of whom will feature in the 350th issue. That special edition will also include a reprint of the first issue at no extra cost as a birthday gift to our readers.

Alongside the magazines, WSC has a book publishing back catalogue that includes pioneering histories of football in Spain (Morbo by Phil Ball), Germany (Tor! by Uli Hesse) and the US (Soccer In A Football World by David Wangerin). Most recently they produced The Man Behind The Goal, a collection of short stories by the esteemed football writer Brian Glanville. They also have an established web presence and have launched WSC Photography, an ever-growing collection of images of football culture, drawn from WSC photographers and their archives. WSC also runs an annual competition for amateur and aspiring writers.

Editor and co-founder Andy Lyons will be available for interviews, and we can also provide access to the archive and guidance on finding historic articles on any subject you require.

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The inside story of Coventry City’s 1987 FA Cup win
by Steve Phelps
Pitch Publishing, £18.99
Reviewed by Ed Wilson
From WSC 347 January 2016

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For the relative newcomer to football, the fact of Coventry City’s victory in the 1987 FA Cup final, 3-2 against Spurs in one of the most dramatic games in the history of the competition, may come as a surprise. The longer the club spend in the lower reaches of the League, the more improbable the event seems. For success-starved fans, it has acquired quasi-mythical status, conferring a credibility and pride that the club’s current incarnation fails to provide. In Sky Blue Heroes, Steve Phelps offers a hit of nostalgia for those who witnessed this story unfold, and a detailed account of the triumph for those too young to remember it.

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Tips and tactics from the ultimate insider
Guardian Books, £7.99
Reviewed by Roger Titford
From WSC 345 November 2015

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We are in the era of 3G pitches and perhaps also 3G football biographies. In the beginning there were gentle offerings such as Goals Galore by Nat Lofthouse which told us who was there but not really how they did it. Then came the grittier school of Eamon Dunphy, Tony Cascarino, Gary Nelson et al who told us both who was there and what it was like, but not at an elevated level in the game and in a milieu that was light years away from today’s Premier League. And now we have the Secret Footballer – an artificial construct I would contend – who purports, credibly enough, to tell us what it’s like today at the top without naming many names.

This is the fourth in the Secret Footballer series or franchise, all allegedly by “the same author”. I have my doubts about that because, like many fans, I have tried to suss the identity from the clues left and hints dropped in previous books and come to the conclusion that the Secret Footballer is a composite character, a screen behind which several can hide. In this volume he even has a mate called the Secret Physio to tell us all about hamstrings and individual training programmes and another, the Secret Psycho, to offer a devastating tip on what to do if you are the fourth penalty taker in a shootout. With this formula the possibilities are as endless as the playing time on a 3G pitch.

Despite this confection I do find the Secret Footballer franchise interesting and valuable as an aid to understanding the environment in which the top players operate nowadays. This volume focuses on the aspects of fitness and playing, with chapters on psychology, formations, nutrition and equipment. Even the chapter entitled “Fashion in football” stays firmly on the pitch with a helpful analysis of the boom and bust in Claude Makélélé-alikes. The examples and arguments are current, covering the decline of 4-4-2 and the 50-50 tackle and a plausible, if mind-boggling, explanation of how Wayne Rooney’s wages are justifiable.

The writing is crisp, slick and businesslike without that edge of awfulness that belongs to the self-help business book genre, and is doubtless helped by the copywriting skills of Guardian Books. While the Secret Footballer is an experienced player I cannot see “him” retiring for a good while yet. Hunter Davies’s The Glory Game (1972) was a classic fly-on-the-wall look at the Spurs team of that era. The dressing-room chatter and the off-the-field personalities of the Premier League player today are more remote to me than that. The Secret Footballer could usefully provide another in the series that deals with all the personal, family, relationship, divorce, money, vendetta, foreign language, agent, commuting and social media pressures that the top player has to deal with – and a full list of what he actually spends all that money on.

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With no communication about an apparent takeover and stadium construction work stalled, Tom Shepherd explains how Northampton fans started to take action

When Northampton Town fans arranged a protest for the club’s home match against Oxford on September 12 – holding up question marks and chanting “We want answers” during the 12th minute of the match – a large proportion of the media coverage centred on the lack of information surrounding the Cobblers’ apparent takeover.

Chairman David Cardoza, who was not at the game to receive the protests, announced in June to some surprise that he had signed an agreement to sell his stake in the club to an Indian consortium – the identity of which was being kept under wraps. Three months later, at the time of the protest, little had been revealed about the selling of the club, the identity of the prospective buyers still no clearer.

But the mystery surrounding the takeover isn’t the only question Cobblers fans feel needs answering. The club’s Sixfields Stadium has been a three-sider for more than a year now, as work on the East Stand redevelopment has stuttered then ultimately ground to a halt. Fans are beginning to wonder what is being done with the £12.25 million the club borrowed from the borough council for the work. As, now, are the council, who – at the time of writing – have given the club just three weeks to pay back the loan in full, claiming the last two repayments have been missed.

“Work on the East Stand has been repeatedly delayed and the takeover negotiations were dragging on and on. People are now asking where the money has gone,” said Labour group leader councillor Danielle Stone. The club have been threatened with legal action should the loan not be repaid, leaving some fans fearing the worst. Cardoza has responded with an assurance the money will be paid back to this deadline.

Plans to redevelop Sixfields were first mooted in July 2012, with a fully worked proposal released just over a year later. The scheme suggested the complete redevelopment of the East Stand, incorporating the club’s offices and a range of hospitality, as well as the renovation of the West Stand. It also included a hotel and small housing project on land adjacent to the ground. The new stadium capacity was expected to reach around 10,000, having previously stood at 7,653. Planning approval was granted in late 2013 – along with the loan from the council to part-fund the development. The target was to have the stadium ready for the 2014-15 season.

Work began in March last year. However, shortly after it had started Cardoza announced that the original plans would need to be scaled back. The new designs were met by a cold response from fans, due to the prominent position of corporate boxes creating seats with restricted views, as well as a reduced capacity of just over 8,000. Fans were starting to question whether the work was extensive enough for the money being spent.

The progress of the East Stand’s redevelopment took a further knock in autumn last year, when work on the site ceased completely – which was put down to a legal dispute. This was later revealed to be the company with whom the club had a contract to complete the stadium works, 1st Land, entering administration. Its top creditor was Buckinghams, the sub-contracters carrying out the work. Six months passed before Buckinghams returned to the site, but work was quickly wound up when talks with the prospective owners surfaced. So the Cobblers have started this year as they played their entire 2014-15 season – in front of a shell of a stand. 

For all the problems surrounding the development and takeover, it has been a lack of communication that has irked fans the most. Cardoza had enjoyed a healthy relationship with supporters since becoming chairman in 2002, but many feel that he has been too aloof during such a tumultuous period. Weeks after the initial Oxford protest, Andy Clarke of the supporters’ trust resigned as elected representative on the club’s board, having claimed he found serving as the link between board and trust too difficult to manage.

So far, manager Chris Wilder and his players seem relatively unaffected by the off-pitch drama. However, with the threat of legal proceedings looming, and more protests being planned, whether that focus is maintained remains to be seen.

From WSC 345 November 2015

The art of war
by Fran Guillen
Arena Books, £9.99
Reviewed by Dermot Corrigan
From WSC 344 October 2015

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The worst thing about this new biography of Diego Costa is the subtitle, and the faux-inspirational Sun Tzu quotes which start each chapter, giving the immediate and unfortunate feel of a popular business bestseller.

This packaging, also a feature of the original Spanish book published in 2014, is a pity. Because beneath the guff about the “warrior centre-forward” and the “what happens on the pitch stays on the pitch” posturing, this unauthorised but very well researched biography does a very good job of explaining how Costa nearly never made it only to burst onto the scene almost fully formed as a world-class centre-forward at the age of 23.

Portuguese super-agent Jorge Mendes enters the story early – apparently as he personally noticed the 16-year-old playing (and getting sent off) in a youth tournament in Brazil. Former Atlético Madrid sporting director Jesús García Pitarch then appears with some entertainingly open talk about how the relationship between Mendes and Atlético worked in those days, and also what he calls the “smoke and mirrors” aspect of the deals that get done.

The travails of Costa’s early career are also well described – especially the seasons on loan at Celta Vigo, Real Valladolid and Albacete – where a teenage Costa is apparently amazed to see snow for the first time. He and his team-mates enjoy late night poker games, watch pornographic movies in hotel rooms and get into rows at motor service stations. The many former team-mates and coaches who spoke to Guillen, a well-connected Marca reporter, all seemed to have been equally impressed by Costa’s ability to both score goals and get 
into scrapes.

Through these years nobody seems to have tried too hard to put into place a structure that would help the “overgrown kid” to grow up and reach his potential. At various times Mendes and Atlético tried to sell him (to Besiktas and Real Betis) in cut-price deals which fell through at the last minute. Even Diego Simeone didn’t really rate the still raw 23-year-old when they started working together in summer 2012.

A matter of months later, Costa was maybe the best centre-forward in the world, the key player as Atlético became a better team than both Real Madrid and Barcelona. His own less than convincing explanation of the transformation is that “something just clicked”. Pitarch reckons the late development was mostly down to “bad luck”, but haphazard career management by his elders seems more 
to blame.

Guillen’s telling of Costa’s more recent story, with Atlético’s successes, his switch to represent Spain at the World Cup in 2014, and his first year Chelsea, will hold few surprises for readers who follow the game day to day. You do notice, however, how even all Costa’s most recent coaches – Simeone, Vicente del Bosque and José Mourinho – have put short-term gains ahead of his long-term fitness. Even now, nobody within the game really cares what’s best for Costa himself.

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