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Ian Plenderleith finds artists from Norway and Switzerland exploring the meaning and limits of the game (and the language), while Englishmen past and present have captured the game’s historic vistas

The history of football and art is littered with badly proportioned pencil drawings, misty-edged portraits and, on the pitch, mostly miscued overhead kicks that end up leaving their artists flat on the canvas. Once in a while, though, those overhead shots hit the target and we celebrate the beauty, just as the occasional non-playing artist captures some­thing of the game’s elusive but undeniable aesthetic side.

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And you think rebuilding Wembley was a saga. Paul Doyle reports on the homelessness crisis that could bring the Republic of Ireland to a ground nearer than you would think

Can Irish football recover from its current crisis? A nation that was last year trying to convince the continent it should co-host Euro 2008 is set to admit that it cannot, in fact, host its own home matches.

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It's been ten years since Manchester United conceded a Premiership penalty. Only three teams have been awarded an Old Trafford penalty during that time, all failing to score. Paul Benjamin talks to Ruel Fox – the last visiting player to score from the spot there – and referee Peter Jones, to find out why this is so

It came as a surprise to learn recently that December 4, 1993 was a more momentous occasion than being my first trip to Old Trafford with Norwich. I had no idea that when Ruel Fox stepped up to thump the ball past Peter Schmeichel, it would be the last Premiership penalty scored there by the visitors for ten years. I realise now that this is quite a phenomenal record – or at least would be for any other team. But somehow, because it’s Manchester United, I’m not all that surprised.

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We boast about the Premier League being 'the best league in the world', but  the domestic superiority of England's elite clubs is not reflected in their European form

At least once a year there are rumours of a breakaway “Atlantic League” or some such, a competition for the dom­inant clubs in smaller football countries where the domestic title is only ever contested by at most three teams. The next time it’s floated expect to hear that Arsenal, Manchester United and Chel­sea have been approached about joining, on the grounds that they, too, would get stronger competition from, say, Porto, Anderlecht and Ajax than from any of the other 17 clubs in the Premiership.

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Dear WSC
After “sick as a parrot” and “early doors”, it seem we must now brace ourselves as another football cliche takes root. Ap­parent­ly, no one in the game can now re­fer to the patently obvious without reach­- ing for a little spurious gravitas by des- cribing it as “well documented”. In case it is not yet well documented just how irritating this affectation has become, I thought I’d get the ball rolling.
Jeffrey Prest, via email

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