Search: ' Euro 68'

Gary Sprake was the weak link of Don Revie's all-conquering Leeds United. Nonsense, says John Tandy

It’s almost as though the sniggers are a part of the name. In a verdict of history as unfair as any since Canute it seems that Gary Sprake will always be The Keeper Who Made Mistakes. When you ask for the evidence, they’ll tell you that in December 1967 he threw the ball into his own net against Liverpool. And in the 1970 FA Cup final he let Peter Houseman’s shot go under his body. And… well, that’s about it, really.

Read more…

Dear WSC
Your piece on the delights of terracing in Germany (WSC 171) provided a stark juxtaposition with the book I am currently reading, Nick Varley’s Parklife, where remorselessly he denies the reader any es­cape from the fact that Hillsborough is the pivotal moment of modern English football. For a moment I bathed in a tide of nostalgia, wistful for the excitement and overwhelming passion of terrace culture. Seats were for spectators, not fans. I also recalled the crush amidst the Tottenham fans at the Leppings Lane end in 1981 referred to in Varley’s book as the disaster that nearly happened. Last month I watched another semi-final, this time sitting in the Stretford End with my children. I’m proud they share my undiminished enthusiasm for the game, but we would not be together, either at Old Trafford or in the Members end at White Hart Lane, if we had to stand. We go to every home game in perfect safety and the view is excellent. Earlier that day they had for the first time been exposed to a fraction of the experience of the old days, and the famous adage that clubs never learn. Several thousand fans arriving for the official coaches formed an orderly queue round the ground. Well past departure time the random arrival of coaches, no stewards, no information and only three police meant that we joined everyone else roaming up and down the High Road. The best informed copper had not been told where the coaches would pull up and advised us to wait and “scramble for a seat”. The club were sufficiently organised, however, to open up the club shop from 5am. Thanks to the fans there was no trouble. My kids were bewildered at this lack of organisation because their experience of supporting their team is so utterly different, and I am glad this is the case. They already know about the contempt with which football treats the fans (left home 4.30am, back home 12.45 am). The game remains indifferent to Hillsborough and the Taylor Report in so many ways, but if terraces return we will still be sitting down.
Alan Fisher, Tonbridge

Read more…

FIFA's favourite marketing company, ISL, is in trouble. Alan Tomlinson assesses the damage its demise may do to the world governing body and its leader.

Jean Marie Weber is a tall, imposing man with a mane of white hair. At most big world and European football tournaments and a number of Oly­mpic Games he’s been there, patrolling in the back­ground, making sure the big sponsors are secure in the swankiest hotels of the world’s glitziest cities. He looked pleased in the Paris convention hall in 1998 when Sepp Blatter strolled to election victory to take the FIFA presidency.

Read more…

Oceania's masterplan to attract the attention of the football world paid off spectacularly as an avalanche of goals in the World Cup qualifiers set new records. Matthew Hall  counted them all in

Nicky Salapu picked the ball from his net 57 times during his country’s four World Cup qualifiers over Easter, but then he is the goalkeeper for American Sam­oa, officially the worst national team in the world.

Read more…

Ipswich, everyone's favourites to go down at the start of the season, look like ending it with the fair play title, manager of the year, golden boot and a place in Europe. Csaba Abrahall and Gavin Barber asked chairman David Sheepshanks where it had all gone right

Despite the success of this season, clubs like Ipswich cannot guarantee a perennial Premiership place. How difficult is it to plan for the future bearing in mind the financial gap between the Premiership and the Football League?
It’s not difficult to plan for the future but it’s more difficult to implement it. Five or six years ago, we sat down and I said: “Can we get back into the Premiership next seas­on?” Everyone’s heads went down. “Can we get back into the Premiership the year after?” You know, “Who’s he?” “What about five years?” And they be­gan to say yes, they thought we could. I said “Why?” and the first thing was youth, because by then the development of players from the youth team could have come to fruition and all the other component parts to it. Out of that was born a long-term plan. It wasn’t just the youth, it was the com­mercial management, the community, the press relations, the way in which we looked after our customers, our sense of ambition – being able to be more up front about what our aims and objectives were, not to live with this old-fashioned idea that there’s no crisis at Ip­s­wich unless the wine runs out in the boardroom, which I felt wore really thin with the supporters – and I’m a supporter. The reason I came on the board in 1987 is because I wrote to [then chairman] Patrick Cobbold. I was a sea­son ticket holder and said that I thought the PR of the board and the way in which the club was being run was terrible. I felt the whole situation was just drifting. This was after 17 great years of First Div­ision football and European glory. I’ve always felt we’ve got to wear our ambition a bit more on our sleeves. It doesn’t mean we have to let go of the traditional values and high standards and friendliness as a football club, but we’ve got to really mean business. So that resulted in a plan being born, the five-year plan that everyone knows about. It wasn’t difficult to make the plan, it was much more difficult to implement it, because every year we were having to shoot ourselves in the foot by selling players. We had to make un­popular decisions. Although I’m a fan, I’m also responsible to the sup­porters, the shareholders and everybody else, as are my fellow directors, to look after the health of the club and to try and make the decisions that are in the best interests, short and long-term. So much of football is about short-term glory which leads so often to boom and bust. We’re not about that. That’s not down to me, this is a phenomenal team effort by everybody who’s worked for this football club. I certainly haven’t worked for the last six years to see this disappear in a puff of smoke. We’ve worked to get into this position so we can go on to make it even bigger and even better.

Read more…