THEY may have been making the headlines last weekend as the their cup run came to respectable end at the Riverside Stadium, but today in 2007 Barrow were in the news for all the wrong reasons, as their defender James Cotterill was sentenced to four months in prison for punching Bristol Rovers striker Sean Rigg in their FA Cup clash the previous November.
The Barrow boys were taking on Rovers in a first round clash when the two players were involved in an off the ball incident that saw midfielder Rigg emerge with a jaw that was broken in two places.
Amidst the cries of pundits everywhere claiming ‘there’s no place for that in football’, Rigg was only able to eat with a teaspoon and drink through a straw. In order to fix his fractured jaw doctors had to insert two metal plates, which he will have for the rest of his life.
The FA, acting surprisingly quickly, banned Cotterill from the game until March 2007. By the time this ban had run it’s course Cotterill had already been released from prison, after he had served just over a month at Her Majesty’s pleasure.
Barrow chairman Brian Keen complained that Cotterill had been ‘made an example’ of and had been made a scapegoat of, due to the fact that the Match of the Day cameras were in town, but we’re pretty sure Rigg would not agree with that.
See happier footage of the Bluebirds below and check out what else was going on today here.
FOR many lower league clubs a good FA Cup run or even just one match against one of the big hitters from the Premier League can be a godsend, giving a much-need cash injection to help pay the bills for a few more months. Today we are looking at a match that had the opposite effect for one little club, and even arguably contributed to it going out of business.
An FA Cup tie against Oxford United doesn’t sound like much these days with the Us struggling in the Conference but back in 1987 they were a top-flight club and holders of the League Cup having trounced QPR 3-0 in the final at Wembley the previous year. Aldershot were in the Fourth Division at the time with a short loan spell of Teddy Sheringham their only small claim to footballing fame.
Today in 1987 the Shots ran out at their home stadium the Recreation Ground to take on Oxford and pulled off a fantastic upset by thrashing their illustrious opponents 3-0. A brilliant achievement for the lowly minnows but sadly not one enjoyed by the full house you might expect. Fewer than 2,000 Shots fans were in the ground to see perhaps the club’s greatest ever result after club bigwigs decided to up ticket prices for the match to a colossal £11. Just to put that in perspective you could get a ticket at Ibrox for just £3 at the time.
The locals were not impressed and voted with their feet, thus robbing the club of any cash bonanza they had anticipated – oh, and robbing the loyal fans of their chance to witness their club’s finest hour.
Graeme Brookland, then chairman of the supporters’ club said: “It was £11 to get in, which was crazy. The crowd was less than 2,000 and the affair summed up the way the club was going. It destroyed the relationship with supporters.”
Although they were soon put out of the Cup by Barnsley the club did go on to win promotion that season to the Third Division after winning a play-off final against Wolves. Sadly it was a false dawn and after two years in the higher division they were relegated. It was the beginning of the end and by 1992 the club was dead.
Happily for Shots fans the club was soon re-formed as Aldershot Town and after working their way back up the football pyramid, are now a League side once again after winning the Conference title last season – ironically passing Oxford on their way past.
See the highlight of Aldershot’s promotion below and be sure to come back tomorrow for more from your favourite daily football nostalgia website.
IT really is tough being a referee these days, what with instant replays exposing errors that once went unnoticed and fans, manager and players ever more vociferous in their condemnation of the men in black. Refereeing a club match can earn you the hatred of a certain set of fans but with international matches it’s a whole different kettle of salmon. Today we are looking at one referee who was the subject of incandescent rage from a whole nation.
Ecuadorian ref Byron Moreno was the man in charge for the World Cup quarter-final between Italy and South Korea in 2002. After taking an early lead on 18 minutes thanks to a Christian Vieri header, Italy looked to be cruising to a textbook 1-0 win over their plucky opponents. The South Koreans were not finished though and with just two minutes remaining Seol Ki-Hyeon scored to level the match and send it into extra time.
It was now that the ref really started to make enemies of the Italians when he denied them what they thought was a clear penalty, sent off Francesco Totti with a second yellow card for diving, and even ruled out a perfectly good goal by Damiano Tommasi which the ref incorrectly called as offside.
With the match heading for penalties the South Koreans rallied and then broke Italian hearts with an unlikely winner. Lee Young-Pyo chipped the ball into the penalty area and Anh Jung-Hwan climbed above Maldini to head past Buffon. The South Korean team had emulated their North Korean counterparts when they beat Italy in the 1966 World Cup in England.
The South Koreans were ecstatic but the Italians were apoplectic with rage at the ref Moreno who they felt had cost them a certain win with his dodgy decision making. After the final whistle fans in Rome’s Piazza del Popolo began to chant “death to the referee”, before targeting a small group of South Korean supporters who must have wished they had not chosen the Italian capital to watch the match when they were showered with bottles and chants of “Thieves, thieves, you stole the game!”
Soon everyone was getting in on the ref-bashing. Bruno Pizzul, the country’s most famous commentator, said: “Frankly, that was complete robbery,” while Franco Frattini, Italy’s minister for public offences weighed in saying: “The referee was a disgrace, absolutely scandalous.”
Gazzetta dello Sport described the match as “cursed and damned”, adding: “Italy leave the World Cup sick with rage.”
Moreno meanwhile was unrepentant and retorted to claims he was bribed with rather a good reposte, saying: “If the Italians speak of corruption it’s because they are used to practising it.” Touché Byron.
Public enemy number one in Italy, Moreno would have perhaps done well to avoid the country for his next holiday, but rather than stay well clear, Moreno decided to visit the country to answer his critics.
Today in 2003 he appeared on Italian television programme ‘Stupido Hotel’ where he performed a bizarre song and dance act accompanied by a bevy of scantily clad showgirls. After his routine Moreno was grilled in a mock trial about his performance in the infamous match. We are not sure what his singing and dancing skills are like but as a lawyer by trade he was presumably more adept at the courtroom-style proceedings, although he would have had to be one hell of a lawyer to win that case in a room full of Italians.
His other lasting contribution to Italy is a toilet block in Sicily’s Santa Teresa Riva resort which the owners named after him following the match. Local administrator Pasquale Scarcella said: “We look at this as an outstanding opportunity for the locals and the tourists to remember Moreno’s performance at the World Cup.” What a fantastic idea. The Graham Poll Public Convenience anyone?
We are not quite finished with old Moreno though, as a few months after the World Cup in 2002 he hit the headlines once again, this time for his antics in a domestic match in Ecuador. The calamity official added on a whopping 13 minutes of extra-time during Sunday’s first division match between Barcelona Guayaquil and Liga de Quito – just enough time for Quito to come back from 3-2 down to win 4-3. The game also saw two highly dubious penalties and a disallowed goal. In an entirely unrelated subject, Moreno was, at the time, running for election to the Quito city council. He was given a 20-match ban by the Ecuadorean Football Federation and a nice little FIFA investigation to go with it.
Check out Moreno getting his controversial on below in the match that got the Italians so hot under the collar, and have a quick gander here to see why this is a momentous day in Italian football for more positive reasons. More tomorrow folks and remember, take care of yourselves, and each other.
TODAY in 1999 Arsenal won the race to sign another of Wenger’s wunderkinds, a player that cost £2m at the tender age of 15 and he’s currently being linked with Real Madrid and AC Milan. Guess who it was?
The rather underwhelming answer for those of you that don’t know (or didn’t bother to read the headline properly) was jinkin’ Jermaine Pennant, who hasn’t really gone down in the Gooner history books like some of his contemporaries.
As the world entered the last year of the second millennium the Notts County youngster was hot property. The £2m fee that Arsene Wenger shelled out was a record for a trainee at the time. After being given a year to acclimatise to life with one of the biggest clubs in the world he made his Arsenal debut as a 16-year-old against Middlesbrough in the League Cup at the end of 1999 becoming Arsenal’s youngest-ever player, although this record seems to get broken every year in the same competition thanks to Wenger’s youth policy.
Pennant would continue to appear in the League Cup whilst also carving out 24 appearances for the England under-21 side, despite being sent home by then-boss Howard Wilkinson for breaking a curfew before the youngsters took on Turkey and also being sent-off against Croatia for punching Niko Kranjcar.
These discipline problems also reared their ugly head at Arsenal, as Pennant would often turn up late for training. The winger wouldn’t go on to make his full league debut until May 2003 when he scored at hat-trick against Southampton. However, these would turn out to be his only goals for the club, as Wenger lost patience with his former boy-wonder.
After a loan spell at Watford, Pennant was shipped out up north to Elland Road, where he was one of the few bright spots in Leeds’ 2003/04 season that saw them relegated from the Premiership. He then moved on to Birmingham City on loan, where he again impressed but soon found himself in more bother.
In January 2005 Pennant was arrested and charged with drink-driving after crashing his shiny new Merc into a lamp-post. Amusingly, he initially told the fuzz that he was Ashley Cole. Worth a try, eh Jermaine? He would go on to spend 30 days in the slammer, returning to Birmingham with an electronic tag on his ankle that he had to wear at all times, including when he was on the pitch.
A year later he moved to Anfield as Liverpool paid £6.7m for his services. Again, his career has failed to kick on, as he has struggled with consistency and the intricacies of Rafa Benitez’s rotation system over the last two seasons. For some reason though, this hasn’t put off Europe’s two most historically successful teams, as Real Madrid and AC Milan are in for him if you believe Fleet Street’s finest. We’ll believe it when we see it.
See what the lad’s capable of below and see how one player was trying to tackle Merseyside’s crime problems today here.
WE’VE already brought you the stories of giantkilling Shrewsbury Town and Wrexham, but today in 1989 possibly the biggest FA Cup upset ever took place, when non-league Sutton United made a mockery of their lower-league status by defeating then top-flight mainstays Coventry City.
In the mid-80s Sutton were beginning to shake off an unwanted reputation as non-league football’s nearly men. Having made it to three Wembley finals in the previous 25 years they lost the FA Amateur Cup Final twice and had also had a FA Trophy runners-up medal.
After being promoted to the Isthmian League in 1986 they were promoted to the Conference and gave the FA Cup a good go in 1988, reaching the third round after dispatching of Aldershot and Peterborough United before bowing out to Middlesbrough.
The next year however, they went one better, but not without the occasional early scare. Sutton took a replay to defeat Walton and Hersham in the fourth qualifying round before beating Dagenham 4-0 and beating Aylesbury United by a single goal.
Their reward for reaching the third round was a tie against Coventry City who had beaten Spurs 3-2 to win the whole darn thing at Wembley only two years earlier at Sutton’s Gander Green Lane.
The cold, blustery conditions that day would prove to be conducive to a ‘potential banana skin’ that we hear so much about at this time of year. Sutton took the game to Coventry right from the start and their rough and ready style was rewarded with the opening goal when captain Tony Rains was gifted with a free header just before half-time.
The Sky Blues’ manager John Sillett must have said something right at the break, as the Division One side drew level seven minutes into the second half thanks to a David Phillips strike.
Instead of succumbing to their top flight opponents Sutton struck back just before the hour mark as brick-layer Matthew Hanlon scored what proved to be the winning goal. Thirty minutes of classic cup-tie action followed and the non-leaguers held on, sparking a full-scale pitch invasion and scenes of jubilation as United joined the select band of non-league clubs that have defeated top flight opposition.
In the next round Sutton had another shot at the big boys, as they were drawn to face Norwich at Carrow Road, but their luck ran out spectacularly and they went down 8-0. Still, they’ll always have Coventry, so take a look at the highlights below and see what else was going on today here.
NO we are not talking about the popular Channel 4 programme which brought all the thrills and spills of Serie A to the British public, but Italian football itself.
For years Italian football was the place to be for top international players who flocked to join Serie A clubs in numbers. The stars were glamorous, the football was top notch and there were skills to pay even the heftiest of bills all over the shop. And it all started on this very day in 1898 when the first organised, inter-club football match was played in Italy.
The whole thing would not have been possible without two men: an Englishman named James Richardson Spensley (sadly no relation to the bald former Football Italia host) and an Italian/Swiss named Edoardo Bosio.
The latter man was responsible for importing the beautiful game to Italy after he discovered football while working in London. When he got home he founded Italy’s first club dedicated purely to football, Internazionale Football Club Torino in 1891, which was formed from players drawn from his workplace.
Meanwhile Spensley was a doctor from Stoke Newington in London and had arrived in Italy in 1896 to give medical help to English sailors on the coal ships. Like any good Brit abroad it didn’t take him long to organise a kick about. He joined the Genoa Cricket and Athletics Club and by 1897 had set up the footballing section of the club. He became the first ever football manager in Italy when he held a football training session on April 10, 1897.
It could have all been a bit lonely but for Edoardo Bosio who had been doing similar things over in Turin. On this day in 1898 the Genoa club hosted a friendly match and took on a mixed team made up of players from Internazionale Torino and FBC Torinese. In true Italian style it was a low scoring affair and the visitors won 1-0, despite Spensley’s best efforts in goal as player/manager for Genoa.
By May of the same year an Italian championship was organised which Genoa won, with Spensley again keeping goal. It was all a far cry from Serie A though and was simply a four-team tournament held over the course of one day and watched by approximately 100 spectators.
By 1906 Spensley had retired from playing but he had already won six league titles with Genoa. He was killed in the First World War while trying to save another injured soldier during a battle.
We had this to say on this day last year, but we’ll leave you now with some footage from the commentators at the Milan derby. Eat your heart out Motty…
LAST year while still at Reading, Dave Kitson announced he was not a fan of the oldest cup competition in the world: the FA Cup. “We are not going to win the FA Cup and I do not care less about it, to be honest,” said the ginger nut. “I care about staying in the Premier League, as does everybody at this club. Our league status is not protected by winning the FA Cup – simple as that.”
Simple as that indeed, but perhaps Dave would have been better advised to scoring the goals that would have kept his team in the Premier League.
Dave’s words split opinion at the time but most people could see an element of truth in it – after all, the Cup had been largely annexed by the top four sides for years with no one else getting a look in. Until last year that is, when the FA Cup had one of its best seasons for years with top teams knocked out all over the place and lower league sides progressing to the final stages. Of course in the end ‘Arry’s Portsmouth won it, but the other three teams in the last four were all from the Championship.
One of those teams was Barnsley who had the most memorable cup run of all, even if it did not eventually lead to the trophy. Their magnificent FA Cup season started on this day in 2008 when they took on Blackpool at Oakwell in front of just 8,276 fans.
Despite going a goal behind to a David Fox strike they Tykes battled back to win thanks to late goals from Stephen Foster and Michael Coulson. They were up and running, but no one could have predicted how the South Yorkshire side would light up the competition for neutrals everywhere over the coming months.
At the end of January Jamal Campbell-Ryce scored the only goal as the club beat Southend United away at Roots Hall, but it was February when things started to hot up. The Tykes were drawn away to Liverpool in what looked like a banker home win. Dirk Kuyt put Liverpool ahead on 33 minutes but the second goal would not come and on 57 minutes Stephen Foster equalised to stun the Anfield crowd into silence.
The Reds poured forward to try to get the winner but could not find a way past Luke Steele, the Barnsley goalkeeper who was making his debut in fine fashion. With the clock ticking down it looked like the Tykes had earned a creditable draw to set up a replay at Oakwell but then Barnsley skipper Brian Howard went down in the box under a challenge from Sami Hypia which Matt Le Tissier in the Sky Sports studio felt was a certain penalty. The referee did not give it but Howard won the ball back and as the Liverpool defenders looked on he shot low into the right hand corner of the net to win the game for the South Yorkshire side in dramatic fashion. See the goals here:
It was a famous giant killing: a penniless side struggling near the bottom end of the Championship under rookie manager Simon Davey had stunned the millionaires of Liverpool at Anfield. It was the proudest day for Barnsley since their promotion to the Premiership in 1996, but they weren’t finished yet.
Their prize for the win was to be drawn at home against Fa Cup holders Chelsea. Surely they couldn’t do it again, could they? Well, yes they could is the answer to that. Kayode Odejayi scored the winner in a 1-0 victory over (what was then) the richest club in the world. Oakwell erupted as the club and fans started to think they could go all the way and lift the Cup for the first time since 1912.
After beating two top level Premiership teams it would be a fellow Championship outfit that spoiled the dream when Cardiff City beat the Barnsley heroes in the semi final at Wembley to finally knock them out. Still, it had been one hell of a run.
AS IT’S FA Cup third Round weekend, one of the most magical weekends of the football calendar (copyright J. Motson) we thought we’d bring you a recent tale of some giantkilling action, as it was today in 2003 that a struggling Shrewsbury Town ditched the mighty Everton out of the cup.
When the two sides met at Shrewsbury’s old ground Gay Meadow they were separated by 80 league places, as Everton were riding high at fifth place in the Premiership with their opponents 18th in Division Three. The Shrews had lost their last two games 6-0 and 5-1 to Boston United and Rushden & Diamonds respectively, so the scene was set for the Salopians to either get a right hammering or pull off one of the biggest upsets in recent years.
They opted for the latter.
Everton fielded a side brimming with internationals such as Richard Wright, Lee Carsley, Tommy Gravesen and Tomasz Radzinski and also gave a run out to the their wunderkind Wayne Rooney. What ever became of him? The most recognisable name on the Shrewsbury teamsheet was Nigel Jemson, the former England under-21 striker, most famous for scoring the winning goal the winning goal for Nottingham Forest against Oldham in the 1990 League Cup final.
It was journeyman Jemson, playing for his 15th club, that inspired the Shrews. Shortly before the half-time interval he stuck with a superb free-kick that sailed into Wright’s top corner, after the stopper had already been called into action several times in the first half.
Substitute Niclas Alexandersson looked to have spoiled the party with his equaliser on the hour, but in textbook fairytale style, Jemson scored again in the 89th minute when he headed home Ian Woan’s free-kick.
This left the majority of the 7,800 fans in attendance to begin wild celebrations as their side had pulled off the biggest FA Cup third round shock since Sutton United beat Coventry City in 1989.
The mastermind behind the giantkilling was Shrewsbury manager Kevin Ratcliffe who captained the Toffees to two league titles, an FA Cup win and a Cup Winners’ Cup medal in the 1980s. The game left Ratcliffe scratching his head somewhat, as he said: “If we played like that every week, we wouldn’t only not be struggling at the wrong end of the third division, we wouldn’t even be playing in this division.”
Shrewsbury won’t be making an appearance in this year’s third round, as they were the victims of a cup shock at the hands of Conference North side Blyth Spartans in the first round. Have a gander at that match below and read all about another upset that happened today here. We’ll be back tomorrow to banish those Monday morning blues so don’t go changing.
THESE days we can check the footy results on a Saturday afternoon with ridiculous ease. Whether it’s Stelling and his crew on Sky, the internet, mobile phones or anything else that’s too complicated for us, it’s near impossible to make it through to Match of the Day without knowing the ins and outs of a Saturday afternoon’s football.
Before this multimedia explosion the radio was the only place to hear all the day’s scores and today in 1948 the familiar “de dum, de dum, de dum” of BBC Sports Report was heard for the first time.
The show has gone on to become a national institution and has joined the pre-match chicken balti pie as an integral part of the match-day experience for anyone in the country.
The first edition was described as a “new Saturday feature for sportsmen” and was presented by Raymond Glendenning, with a feature about amateurism taking centre stage.
Sports Report became an instant hit, with staggering audience figures of 12 million in the pre-television world. The same formula has held up for over 60 years, with the focus being on delivering information quickly and efficiently. Since 1974 the result have been read out by the distinctive tones of James Alexander Gordon and the programme is also memorable for Stuart Hall’s poetic match descriptions.
Despite this continuity Sports Report has been having to shift the goalposts in recent years. With more games on TV, 5.15 kick-offs and local radio phone-ins eating into Sports Reports audience levels it has had to move with the times and alter their tried and tested formula, but we reckon the British public won’t let it die anytime soon.
Hear that familiar theme and see James Alexander Gordon talking about how he got the gig below and check out what else was going on in the barmy world of football today here.
Although we were quick to diss the Beeb earlier, if you go looking hard enough you’ll find their excellentpair of World Football podcasts. Originally broadcast on 5Live and the World Service, the BBC’s team of reporters send in dispatches from all over the world on issues such as African television right disputes, international youth transfer regulations or even grass-roots football here in England. If you’ve only ever heard Alan Green getting over-excited on the commentary box or slagging off Fergie, then his reports come as a pleasant surprise.
Better still is the World Football Phone-In, a show for security guards and insomniacs that goes out in the wee hours of the morning. Presented by Dotun Adebayo and featuring, among others, the BBC’s authority on South American football, Tim Vickery, it covers football from every corner of the globe. Genuinely informative, it has a free-wheeling chatty style, offering the listener nuggets such as the fact that the game is slower in South America because they let the grass grow longer, and that the price of a goat in Somalia £15. Being a late-night phone-in you do get the occasional nutter who wants to let the world know that he can now do an impression of Carlton Palmer reading out Belgian football results, but it all adds to the fun. Being the BBC it’s professionally done and if you can listen to the 40-minute show without learning anything we’d be surprised.
If it was a member of the England 1990 World Cup Squad it would be: John Barnes – David Platt: classy, not afraid to try it’s luck abroad.
