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Day 19 of the WSC advent calendar and we’re concentrating on the true meaning of Christmas: turkey. In issue 191, from January 2003, Barney Ronay reported on football’s role as an arena for politics in Turkey, and how it could change after the election of a new nationalist and Islamic-leaning government.

In 1985 England beat Turkey 5-0 at Wembley in a World Cup qualifier. Two years later, an opportunity for revenge presented itself when the teams met again. This time the score was 8-0. Yet when Sven-Goran Erik­sson’s men travel to Istanbul next October for their final Euro 2004 qualifier, they will face the team that fin­ished third at this summer’s World Cup. Turkish foot­ball has transformed itself over the past ten years. And now Turkey looks set to follow suit.

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The FA of Ireland have been castigated in a report sparked by the World Cup fiasco. Brian de Salvo hopes they take it more seriously than the last one

“The FAI is experiencing a confused present and faces an uncertain future.” That’s not a quotation from Genesis, the sports management consultancy ap­pointed to report on the organisation of Ire- land’s governing body after their World Cup campaign, who produced a damning indictment of the FAI. It’s the verdict of a previous report, pre­sented as long ago as 1996, which highlighted “a lack of vision, direction and planning… indecisive structures and… reluctance to consider necessary change.” Little has changed since. Will it now?

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The FA's permanent fixture, David Davies, has been left in charge of the shop again. Philip Cornwall reflects on a career that defies logical explanation

Amid the swirl of crisis at Soho Square, with the dep­artures of Adam Crozier, Frank Pattison and How­ard Wilkinson and the (so far false) rumours about Sven-Goran Eriksson, one man still stands. David Dav­ies’s second term as acting chief executive of the Foot­ball Association, this time in joint control with Nic Coward, marks him down as a great survivor.

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Dear WSC
I occasionally wondered what had become of Gerry Harrison (WSC 188), with his penchant for bad grammar and getting players’ names wrong. In the late 1970s and early 1980s we in the Anglia region were often subjected to “Kenny Samson” of Arsenal and Manchester City’s “Ray Ransome”. His treatment of the assault by a dog at Colchester which effectively ended the career of Brentford goalkeeper Chic Brodie (“What a tackle!”) was ill-advised to say the least, and he annoyed my dad, an English teacher, on a weekly basis by his use of the grammatically incorrect “off of”, as in “that’s a corner off of Micky Mills” or “the winger bounces off of Dave Stringer”. With his unfashionable hairstyle (even by Seventies standards) and his improbable choice of apparel, he was a role model for some of the less gifted commentators, such as Roger Tames and Tony Gubba, who were later foisted upon ill-prepared viewers. Cambridge or Southend, whence Anglia games often came when Norwich and Ipswich had got fed up with Gerry, were more or less his mark although contractual obligations presumably meant that ITV had to take him to the World Cup in 1974, where he was limited to commentating on Chile versus Australia, or something similar, during the group stages. My fondest Gerry memory came in 1980, the week after Justin Fashanu announced himself to the football world with his staggering volley against Liverpool. (Gerry would never have aspired to the Beeb’s Barry Davies’s lucid reaction to that goal – “Woah! WOOAAHH!!”). The following Saturday Norwich were at home again, this time against Wolves, who were two up at half-time. It was Gerry’s job to obtain, as the second half started, the thoughts on the state of play of the then Canaries boss John Bond before Bond returned to the dugout. Unfortunately Wolves scored their third (in a 4-0 eventual victory) within about ten seconds of the restart, with Gerry indelicately blurting out something along the lines of: “Well, you’re really up against it now, John… John… John?” The elegantly-coiffured and besuited Bond (if anything the antithesis of Gerry) had, as they say, taken his leave.
Alun Thomas, via email

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With the start of the season overshadowed by talk of financial meltdown and eras at an end, we brought together broadcaster Adrian Chiles, MP Andy Burnham and academic Stephen Wagg to mull over how football got into this state and how we might get out of it

Football clubs at all levels in this country are experiencing financial difficulties of one kind or another. The problems are obvious, but are there also some good things that might come out of this crisis?
Stephen Wagg: To me, it’s a bit like asking whether any good will come from the recent corporate scandals in the United States. Is Enron or WorldCom going to be some kind of blessing in disguise? The sane voice at the back of your head says yes, people will forsake the lunacy of the market system and demand something more equitable and decent. Professional football people will cease to be paid obscene sums of money for their services. But the signs are that that voice, at least in the short term, will not be heeded. So ever more colossal sums of money will be spent on the defensive skills of a Rio Ferdinand or the “image rights” of a David Beckham. But, as a life-long Leicester City supporter, I’m not wholly depressed by their current predicament. They only recently proclaimed that they were “no longer a selling club”. Less than two years later the entire first team squad is for sale and the club has admitted difficulty in paying the salary bill. These salaries were, in all conscience, barmy, as Matt Elliott, who is the recipient of one of them, accepted recently. So, if it ends here, so much the better.

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