Welcome to Cherwell’s new football blog, ‘Saturday 12.45’. If you’re spending your holidays watching Sky Sports News, playing Football Manager 2009 and desperately waiting for the transfer window to re-open, then this can be of your new sources for football news, gossip and debate. Written by five recent Cherwell staff members (including four former Sports editors), this is going to be a hive of activity during the vacation, Hilary Term and beyond.
We’ll be previewing the transfer window (with ‘men to watch’ features upcoming), and keeping on top of all news and gossip throughout January from all over Europe. As a Manchester City fan I’ll be particularly alert to what’s going on, as Mark Hughes assembles a team to break the 130 point barrier in the Coca-Cola Championship 2009/10.
Any match any of us attends or even watches will end up with a post of some sort. So as well as Premier League reports and analyses there will be stuff on the Champions League and UEFA Cup, as well as the domestic leagues of Spain, France and Italy at the very least. And the international calendar starts again soon, so we’ll have stuff on that. As a City fan, I’ve taken to staying up till 4am to watch Robinho, Elano and Jô in action: so expect reports on the Selecao’s progress here too.
Running this jointly with me is Kristian Walsh, Anfield season ticket holder and one time Social Secretary of Somerville College Football Club. Also on board are Jake Richards (Spurs fan, Somerville), Adam Wynne (Man United fan, Somerville) and Sean Lennon (Arsenal fan, Wadham).
As well as news, gossip and match reports we’ll be a forum for debate. We’re going to spend Hilary Term arguing over a World XI – which is going to feature yet another rehashing of the Gerrard v Lampard debate for those of you still interested. Plus player of the year, goal of the season and so forth – as long as we can successfully embed YouTube.
