Search: 'Slavia Prague'

Monday 1 Graham Kelly confirms that the FA are interested in bidding for the 2006 World Cup, and says: "One of our early acts will be to inform the Germans of our intentions. What we won't want to do is split the vote as far as Europe is concerned." Scotland and Wales will not be involved in the bid. South Africa are also likely to be candidates.

Tuesday 2 After much wrangling Leeds have been taken over by the Caspian group, backed by ex-QPR sugar dad, Richard Thompson. Howard Wilkinson may spend some of their money to tempt David Batty, no, Jamie Pollock, easy mistake to make. West Ham sign the out of contract Paulo Futre from Milan with more big names to come: "We're going back to the era of Moore, Hurst and Peters," says Frank Lampard, clearly dreaming of cup runs, relegation battles and 4-0 defeats at Leicester.

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James Taylor watched Euro'96 in Prague, where local fans had plenty of oppertunities to toast the players health

Golden boys get silver was the newspaper headline as the Czech team arrived back to a crowd of 50,000 in Prague’s Old Town Square. How different from the beginning of June when most people were writing them off as no-hopers, lucky even to be on the map. A poor performance in the first game against the Germans did nothing to dispel this. Local papers concentrated instead on the Czech fans, who were surprised by the friendliness of the police and insisted on having their pictures taken with all the police horses Manchester could muster.

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Saturday 2 A glimmer of hope left for Bolton, who win 1-0 at Leeds. "There is still belief that we can stay up," says Colin Todd, chomping on a four leaved clover. Dave Merrington is also feeling chipper – "The spirit in our dressing room is excellent" – despite Southampton slipping into the bottom three after losing 1-0 at Spurs, below Man City who get a late equalizer at home to Blackburn. Forest prepare for Bayern with a 3-1 win at Sheffield Wed who have Steve Nicol in goal for the whole of the second half. The other side making a late bid for relegation, Middlesbrough, suffer their ninth defeat in ten games, 2-0 at home to Everton. Debutant Branco appears for the last ten minutes and nearly scores with a trademark thirty yarder. The First Division continues on its insanely egalitarian course with erstwhile strugglers Sheffield Utd and Wolves winning away to one-time pace setters Birmingham (featuring the 49th and 50th signings of Barry Fry's two-year reign) and Millwall, the latter having Champions League deserter Sergei Yuran sent off just before full-time. What if everyone – barring Derby and Watford, in the clear at either end – were to finish level on points and goals scored and goal difference? Just exactly where would we be then, eh?

Sunday 3 Liverpool disprove the notion that the Championship is a two-horse race with a comprehensive demolition of fourth-placed Aston Villa, scoring all their goals in a 3-0 win in the first eight minutes. "I've had a few kicks up the backside in football and sometimes it's the best thing for you" says Brian Little, smiling through the tears. In Scotland, Rangers go three points clear of Celtic once more after a 2-0 win at Hibs during which goalkeeper Andy Goram is attacked by a home fan.

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Dear WSC,
Mickey Parker’s point in WSC No 107 that most football songs require the player’s name to contain four syllables may well be connected to the fact that most popular music is in 4/4 time. (Tom Jones’ Delilah, of course, is a notable waltz-like exception, but what self-respecting footy fans would have any truck with that kind of a limping rhythm?) What concerns me is the rather worrying notion that a player’s whole popularity – and hence his career – can depend on the singability of his name.
This first struck me at Wembley last season when Paul Tait’s winning goal (OK, it was the Auto Windscreen Shield) was greeted with a rousing chorus of ‘Super, Super Kev, Super Kevin Francis . . .’.Last season at Birmingham we had a player called José Dominguez who used to run around a lot, then fall over and lose the ball. The crowd loved him, and I’m sure it had a lot to do with the pleasure to be had from a rousing chorus of ‘José, José, José, José’. On the other hand, Jonathan Hunt became the first Blues player to score a hat-trick in ten years and there was never a hint of a hum in his general direction. Some players can get away with just having an extra superfluous syllable thrown in (‘Stevie Claridge, there’s only one Stevie Claridge’), but others simply can’t: the unsingable Alberto Tarantini managed a mere 24 games for us in the seventies. I suggest that any rhythmically challenged player at the start of their career should seriously consider sitting down with their agent and coming up with suitable alternative names that will guarantee their popularity with the crowd. Pop stars have been doing it for years, and if Savo Milosevic doesn’t do something soon, it’ll end in tears. In the meantime, perhaps WSC readers could write in with suggestions for a suitable song that incorporates the words ‘Jonathan’ and ‘Hunt’. Then again, perhaps not.
John Tandy, Birmingham

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