As featured in The Guardian\
A new job drove William Abbs into the arms of another club. Is it really possible for a fan to reconcile a love for one team with their feelings for another, or does it all just get a bit too complicated?
Read more on Playing Away Or ‘Cheating’ On Manchester United by William Abbs…
Winston Cuthbert has a plan. And he wants to tell you about it with a little help from a footballing pioneer. Take it away, my good man…
It’s not often I’m actually asked for my opinion, which is why I so often tend to give it. Graciously invited to join Dispatches’ ranks, I am grabbing the opportunity to make a proposition. Seemingly nonsensical considering the world we live in today, my proposition remains a eulogy to football, mirroring the ethos and spirit of Dispatches. It is a simple yet radical proposition, inspired by the Father of Football.
You’d think the Syrian people would have far more pressing concerns than which of Spain’s Big Two deserve their unbridled support, right? But as one Spanish Canadian found out, football and geopolitics seem to go together quite well. Dispatches is proud to welcome the mysteriously monikered JVA onto the Football Sofa.
Picture the scene. The Champions League Final, 1999. Reading University Student Union Bar. My future wife and best friend have just witnessed Teddy Sheringham’s last-gasp equaliser against Bayern Munich and she’s dancing on the sticky, alcohol-sodden floor whilst he’s lying on a pew in disbelief. Cue Solksjaer and we all know what happened next.
Should you ever find yourself in the fabled crescent city of New Orleans, be sure to swing on by to 726 St Peter in the French Quarter. You’ll see a seemingly innocuous structure. It needs a lick of paint and to the outsider, might appear on the point of dereliction. Don’t be fooled though. Appearances are mischievously deceptive. Because once the corrugated gates open on any number of balmy Louisiana evenings and the heat of the crowd sends beads of sweat dripping down your forehead, you’ll find that there’s magic to be found.
Note: This Dispatch is replete with superlatives. Apologies.
It’s Wednesday, I know. Dispatches comes out on Sundays. But there are some times in life when traditions need to be subverted. What needs to be said couldn’t wait until the end of the week. We’d all be too concerned with the fallout of England’s failed/successful (delete where applicable) bid to host the World Cup. We’d all be salivating at a second virtuoso display in the space of a week from Dimitar Berbatov. Or hailing Ian Holloway’s abrasive style of man-management as his Blackpool team laid a buoyant Manchester United to the sword. Football, like life moves very fast… is it really nearly Christmas?
My heart stops every time I hear the phrase on the news: “Ex-England star, Paul Gascoigne…”. It happened again last Monday with the reports that Gazza had been arrested once again for driving over the limit. It was an almost throwaway remark by the newsreader, coming as it did after the ongoing farce that Liverpool’s protracted sale has become and the increasingly frosty atmosphere that has been descending upon Old Trafford as Sir Alex and the wayward Wayne Rooney ratchet up their levels of public relations brinkmanship. Gazza being drunk. Again. It’s become such a regular occurrence that whenever it happens, the public raises its collective eyebrows and dismisses it as yet another self-destructive incident in the life of a ‘national treasure’ who has been sadly spiralling into a vortex of self-destruction for nigh-on two decades now. He’s newsworthy but only in the sense that we feel that he deserves an honorary mention simply because we feel we owe it to him for all the years past.
Day 29 of the English Premier League Season. 11.04 a.m. Some of the players are gathered in the changing room, playing cards and listening to N-Dubz on their i-Phones. Wayne has been summoned to the manager’s office.
It may not have been pretty. It may not have been the spectacle of extravagance and style that we would have hoped. At times it resembled a slugging contest with some truly thuggish gamesmanship but in the end the team that attempted to play with a fluidity of movement and expression of freedom prevailed. Spain are the World Champions. And despite my belief that neither Spain nor Holland were truly deserving of their place in the Final itself, it cannot be denied that of the two finalists, it was the Spaniards who did the most to warrant the title now bestowed upon them.
If you’ve been regularly reading this blog you will recall that I confidently predicted a South American winner of this World Cup and more specifically that victory would take shape in the form of Argentina (see south-america). The events of the last twenty-four hours have dramatically re-shaped such initial bluster with the twin exoduses of the traditional giants of that continent, Brazil and Argentina; both spectacularly caving in during their quarter-finals but in differing circumstances. While Brazil panicked beyond logic and reason against Holland and went about single-handedly wrecking their chances of recovery with rash tackles and petulant tantrums, Argentina’s demise was devastatingly brought about by a team that clinically dismantled the attacking foundations with which Diego Maradona had so admiringly instilled into his players.
In Defence Of Luis Suarez by Rachael Singh
What’s The Point Of Scottish Football?
Captain Caveman: The De-evolution of John Terry
Alan Davies Is Here All Week
Liverpool Football Club, 1892 – 2012 – An Obituary
Make sure you don't miss any Dispatches by staying connected.
