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“Though football be an exact and precise sport, there is always plenty of room for the imponderables, the unexpected.”
—
Just Fontaine
INTERVIEW: DOMINIC BLISS
It has been a busy summer for Craig Easton. The 33-year-old Scot has signed for League Two Torquay United after six months without a club and he has also graduated with a first-class honours degree. He took time out from an intensive pre-season schedule to speak to TheInsideLeft about the joys of sports writing and the increasing number of professional footballers enrolling on journalism courses…
WORDS: BRYAN DAVIES
When Palace are bad they are very bad. When they are good, they are still sort of bad. Palace have long been inbetweeners, laughing in the face of success and nuzzling at the bosom of glorious failure. It may not be the rational choice but for those who like to ‘do different’, Palace is the only choice…
INTERVIEW: GARRY HAYES
As a pioneer in the movement of American soccer players to Europe during the Nineties, John Harkes enjoyed a fine career in England, winning the League Cup with Sheffield Wednesday in 1991. He also played for Derby County, West Ham United, DC United, Nottingham Forest and New England Revolution, before retiring at Columbus Crew in 2002. Now one of the leading voices on US soccer, he gives TheInsideLeft the low down on his top six rookies from the 2012 MLS season so far. Spoiled for choice, it didn’t take us long to break the numerical restrictions of the My Five series, but we hope you’ll forgive us as we find out why Harkes believes these Stateside prospects have what it takes to shine…
WORDS: DOMINIC BLISS
We look back at one of the most highly charged games in European football history with one man from each side of a locked dressing room door, comparing notes with the former Ipswich winger Bryan Hamilton and the late Lazio legend Giorgio Chinaglia on a night of madness at the Stadio Olimpico…
WORDS: PETER BOURNE
Triumph and tragedy sit uneasily alongside each other as Peter Bourne looks at the moments, the men and the mindset that define one of Italy’s oldest clubs in the second part of his love letter to Torino…
WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHY: PETER BOURNE
A chance sighting of the BBC’s UEFA Cup highlights in 1992 saw an impressionable English youngster nail his colours to the mast of Torino. Now old enough to know better, Peter Bourne talks us through two decades of abject anguish as a Toro devotee. Calcio, it appears, can be a cruel mistress…
WORDS: DOMINIC BLISS
After four years of continuous injury struggles, one of the greatest players of a generation considered hanging his boots up. But, following an unexpectedly successful operation, Dragan Stojkovic rediscovered his magic touch in Nagoya, where he has become a hero to the local fans
WORDS: GARRY HAYES
When Ossie Ardiles made the pioneering move from Argentina to London alongside Ricky Villa in 1978, his South American flair captured the imagination of supporters up and down the country. But the outbreak of the Falklands War in 1982 turned everything upside-down for Tottenham’s star import…
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