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TheHalfDecentFootballMagazine1986

TheHalfDecentFootballMagazine

2011

Inside Dilemmaforteenstars

SwindonTown’sworstseason

SwindonTown’sworstseason

CarltonCole’sTwittertrouble

CarltonCole’sTwittertrouble

Crawley - unpopular champions

Crawley-unpopularchampions

Relegation battle inBirmingham

RelegationbattleinBirmingham

BARCELONA: BEST IN THE WORLD? IN THE WORLD? IN THE WORLD?

£2.95 June2011 Issue292

Noonecan matchusfor passing...

hype...

andfalling over

AroundtheworldRacisminBrazilBosniabannedbyFIFA

AroundtheworldRacisminBrazilBosniabannedbyFIFA

Germandemocracyunderthreat

Germandemocracyunderthreat

ForeignownersforSpanishclubs

ForeignownersforSpanishclubs

China’sfootballboom

China’sfootballboom

1986

2011

25thAnniversarySpecial

Fromfanstocustomers–the changingmatchdayexperience

11/05/2011 18:25

Discount offers

TheHalfDecentFootballMagazine1986

2011

Inside FootballLeaguereview

FootballLeaguereview

Swansea back at the top

Swanseabackatthetop

Wholikes the Europa League?

WholikestheEuropaLeague?

TheFAatwarwithFIFA

TheFAatwarwithFIFA

AnIrishman in Libya

AnIrishmaninLibya

HAS BLATTER

HAS BLATTER RUINED FOOTBALL?

RUINED FOOTBALL?

No,itwill takeatleastanothertakeatleastanother

No,itwill takeatleastanother fouryears fouryears

AroundtheworldGoodtimesforPorto

Italian fancampaign SeasonrestartsinJapan

Serbia:Arkan’sclubindecline

Latvianfootballonthebrink

Argentinarefereeingcontroversy wsc293_cover.indd 1

£2.95 July2011 Issue293

£2.95 July2011July2011July Issue293

1986

2011

25thAnniversarySpecial

Thechangingfaceofclubownership fromIpswichbrewerstoRussianoligarchs

08/06/2011 18:21

TheHalfDecentFootballMagazine1986

1

2011

Inside Over-pricedEnglishtalent

Players’ superinjunctions

HowforeigntourshavechangedHowforeigntourshavechanged

Howforeigntourshavechanged

Whathappenedtoawayends?

Football’s onlineabusers

THE NEW MOURINHO?

Failtowinthe ChampionsLeague,fall outwithAbramovich,

takeabigpay-off

AroundtheworldMexicowintheGoldCup again

Palestine takeonAfghanistan

NewhopeforIndianfootball?

GranadaontheriseinSpain

CorruptioninSouthKorea

AderbydayinRio wsc294_cover.indd 1

£2.95 August2011 Issue294

1986

2011

25thAnniversarySpecial

Howthegamehaschanged,from

Howthegamehaschanged,from parkfootballtothetacticalrevolution parkfootballtothetacticalrevolution

06/07/2011 18:30

TheHalfDecentFootballMagazine

TRANSFER MADNESS!TRARANMADNDNDNDNESS!S!MADNDN

1986

2011

TheHalfDecentFootballMagazine

TheHalfDecentFootballMagazine

INSIDE Football and the riots

Joey Barton’s long goodbye

Life in League One for

Sheffield Wed and Notts County

Sheffield Wed and Notts County

Footballers’ Desert Island Discs

Footballers’ Desert Island Discs

Media-savvy managers

1986

2011

Let’sall moveto Manchester

TheHalfDecentFootballMagazine

INSIDE Stars from the lower divisions

Stars from the lower divisions

Should clubs compensate fans?

Should clubs compensate fans?

Footballers love computer games

Footballers love computer games

Gateshead aiming for the League

Gateshead aiming for the League

When crowd abuse goes too far When crowd abuse goes too far

When crowd abuse goes too far

Hartlepool’s lost rivals

TEVEZ CONTROVERSY

Iwon’tplaywith peoplewhoareonly hereforthemoney

£16million forPhilJones?

£20million forJordan Henderson?

£20million forStewart Downing? £20million£20million forStewartforStewart Downing?

wsc295_cover2.indd 1

£3.50 September 2011 Issue295

INSIDE The Carlos Tevez saga

Women’s World Cup

Wimbledon are back

Uruguay win Copa

Bundesliga scandal

Champions League in decline?

Fulham return to Europe

Pat Rice’s glasses

1986

2011

25th Anniversary Special

Football writing: broadsheets,

tabloids and player biographies tabloids and player biographies

27/07/2011 19:14

ARSENAL’S NEW DIRECTION

AROUND THE WORLD

South Africa’s World Cup hangover

South Africa’s World Cup hangover

Shamrock Rovers in Europe

What next for Asian football?

Mundialito: the tournament

England turned down

Slavia Prague in crisis

£2.95 October 2011 Issue296

31/08/2011 18:27

wsc296_cover.indd 1

AROUND THE WORLD

Joe Cole is a hit in France

Spanish players’ strike action

Premier League still big in Japan

Footballers and booze in Brazil

Lebanon’s World Cup target wsc297_cover.indd 1

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Order online wsc.co.uk Editorial

Conflicting views

The military’s presence in football is over the top out for all the wrong reasons to the vast television audience in Britain and around the globe”. For the right-wing press and the government, Remembrance weekend now has less to do with honouring the dead than supporting the current activities of the armed forces.

Now that Colonel Gaddafi has left us, FIFA president Sepp Blatter has no rival as the UK media’s favourite international hate f igure. He cemented this posit ion last month with start l ingly crass comments about racism in football. Racist abuse between players on the pitch, he declared, should be forgotten about at the end of the match and resolved with a handshake. Coming as close as he ever has to admitting a mistake, Blatter then sought to “clarify” his comments, but the damage had been done.

There have always been l inks drawn between football and warfare with some British managers under the impression that they are f ighting batt les by proxy – it is still “tin hats on” before a dif f icult game and there can be no higher praise for a player than that he is “someone you would l ike to have with you in the trenches”. But at a time when there is widespread and vehement opposit ion to t he UK’s role in various wars overseas, the t ies between football and the militar y seem, paradoxically, to be growing.

Remembrance weekend now has less to do with honouring the dead than supporting the current activities of

It was Blatter’s second appearance on the front pages in a matter of days, FIFA having been furiously denounced for not allowing England to wear shirts with a poppy motif for their fr iendly with Spain on November 12, the day before Remembrance Sunday. FIFA rules prohibit national teams from wearing emblems that are deemed to be political or religious messages; if England’s poppies were allowed, a FIFA spokesman said, it would “open the door to similar initiatives”. A compromise was reached with the players wearing poppies on their armbands and tracksuits. Some went further in having a poppy design stitched onto their boots, just above the manufacturer’s logo.

the armed forces

The army’s physical presence at football used to be restricted to providing the half

FIFA often deserve the criticism directed at them but they were completely right to hold their ground in the face of shrill complaints. After a fraught year, the FA seem to be pursuing detente with the international body and so had to be prodded into demanding that the ban be l ifted. Having done so, they were promptly backed by David Cameron and Prince William, whose joint standing among international football administrators can be gauged by their contribution to England’s 2018 World Cup bid, which collected two votes, one of them from the English delegate. The pro-poppy cause wasn’t helped by two members of the far-right English Defence League – a group founded by a convicted football hooligan – who scaled the roof of FIFA House with a banner that claimed “our dead and wounded” were being disrespected. This stunt was given wide coverage in the English press, but there was relatively little said about it in the Daily Mail, which had led the protest against what it characterised as FIFA’s “ridiculous stance”. The policy may be challenged again soon in Argentina, where a group of politicians have tabled a motion calling for their national team jerseys to have Las Malvinas Son Argentinas (the Falkland Islands belong to Argentina) printed next to the badge. It is unlikely that this will receive a strongly worded message of support from Cameron.

time band at Cup f inals. Now many clubs of fer reduced-price tickets to members of the armed forces as a standard concession, while the Ticket For Troops initiative is supported by several prominent f igures in football. At every Wembley f inal there is a series of formalities involving the trophy being delivered to the stadium by military helicopter, then guarded by soldiers who march it to the centre-circle for the presentation.

As one of the world’s most popular public spectacles, football matches are open to being used in support of various causes, but scenes more often associated with authoritarian states are now commonplace here. The ultimately demeaning row about poppies is part of that process. No one would object to a minute’s silence to remember the war dead, but anything else should be a matter of personal choice. Even Blatter can grasp that.

Read Editorials from the WSC archive wsc.co.uk/editorials

Football matches, both domestic and international, have been staged close to Remembrance Sunday since the First World War ended 93 years ago. But poppy displays at matches only became a major issue in 2009, when the Mail began a campaign for football clubs to wear them in the f ixtures nearest to the day of commemoration. Eighteen Premier League clubs fel l into l ine, the exceptions being Manchester United and Liverpool, who were duly attacked by the Mail for “standing

Remembrance weekend in Leicester photos

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