Levein The Past Behind

Wonderful experience as it will be to see Scotland play Brazil at the Emirates, there are other subtexts within the national side that are masked somewhat by the occasion. The game itself will be the culmination – the final big lobotomy – of a therapeutic process that has been ongoing since Scotland failed to attack from a 4-6-0 in the Czech Republic and almost failed to win against Liechtenstein at Hampden, preceded, lest we forget, by a failure to convince in Lithuania in the very first game of the Euro 2012 qualifiers.

Armbands And Firebrands

"Just do what the fuck you want"

After a couple of weeks of nostalgia and pretending to be grown-ups, we thought it about time we had a good old rant. Wonder what our favourite subjects over at England have been up to? What? WHAT? He made him CAPTAIN? Oh goody...

There’s a certain laissez-faire that can creep in when you know you’re about to leave a job. Depending on how much you cared about it in the first place, it can sway from proudly maintaining your professionalism until the bitter end to basically, ahem, not giving a fuck anymore. Naturally, you don’t want anyone to notice that you can’t be arsed to make the brews, let alone the decisions, as your contract winds down. But when you start contradicting yourself, say, or ignoring your colleagues and give the impression that you’ll be glad when all this shit is someone else’s responsibility, you should expect to be exposed to the occasional shellacking.

Teams That Made Us Fall In Love With Football #11 Sheffield Wednesday '93

Never ones to do things by the book, here's number 11 in our supposed 10-part series. Welcome to Magic Spongers, Mr Alex Douglas

Bill Shankly once said: ‘Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.’ Although I don’t wholly agree with the sentiment, I have always thought that football was a good analogy for life. If football is the journey, then the teams that accompany us are our partners. I have to admit that in my early teens, I was a bit of a slag, chasing shirt. I have had exotic romances with foreign mistresses including a dirty weekend in Paris (St Germain) and an ultimately destructive on-off relationship with England. But if Manchester United were to become my life partner then the Sheffield Wednesday team of 93’ was my first kiss. It was an affair to remember.

Teams That Made Us Fall In Love With Football #10: Olympique de Marseille 1991

Diamond highlights

Unashamedly self-indulgent, here's friend of Magic Spongers James Longhurst on his love affair with Marseille and a Geordie winger

First a confession

I’m a Wimbledon fan. In fact nowadays I’m an AFC Wimbledon fan and Trust member, and when the Magic Spongers asked me to chip in on the team that made me fall in love with football, they naturally thought it would be the ’88 cup final team.

It would be pretty easy to write a piece extolling the virtues of that legendary (in almost every sense of the word) Crazy Gang team, but I was only seven at the time of final and while I remember it clearly, that’s probably as much from the amount of times I have rewatched my VHS, DVD and now Sky+ versions of the game as from any contemporary viewing.

Teams That Made Us Fall In Love With Football #9: Aston Villa 1998

Some peoples' memories are so good they can still tell you about a time when Stan Collymore was most famous for being a footballer. Just about. A warm welcome to Magic Spongers for Jamie Cutteridge, everyone.

Looking back, many remember the 1998-1999 season in England for some northern team that won a few trophies, but the purists, the romantics, remember it for a team that sold their best player, led the league and ultimately collapsed under the weight of the combined egos of both manager and chairman. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present you Aston Villa.

Teams That Made Us Fall In Love With Football #8: Oxford United 1995-96

Exploring the hearts and minds of the old Division Two, a warm welcome to Magic Spongers for Sam Macrory (with additional memories supplied by Frank Webster).

This piece opens with a confession. I didn’t grow up in a footballing household. Looking back, I cringe to think that my mum phoned the BBC to demand why the football was still being shown when the listings had promised a cartoon, the lack of which left my brother and I devastated. It was May 20th 1989, and the Liverpool-Everton FA Cup Final – which I later learned to be one of the great finals – had gone into extra time. But if that came at the expense of ten minutes of Tom and Jerry, then the schedulers should know better.

Teams That Made Us Fall In Love With Football #7: Netherlands 1988

Back to the international fray and a warm welcome to Magic Spongers for Richard Hall on the Dutch Euro '88 champions

Ruud Gullit, Frank Rijkaard and Johnny Bosman. Yes, Johnny Bosman. At the beginning of June 1988, these three men were key to Dutch hopes of winning the European Championship in West Germany.

At the beginning of the decade, the celebrated 1970s side had faded away, replaced as is often the way in footballing nations with small populations, with an inferior crop of players. The Dutch game was no longer cutting edge, tactically, evident in the subsequent failure to qualify for the finals of World Cups in Spain or Mexico. Or the 1984 European Championship in France, which was won by a Michel Platini-inspired team that had picked up the mantle of sophisticated, progressive football relinquished by the Netherlands after their World Cup final defeat in Buenos Aires in 1978.