When Saturday Comes
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- This article is about the monthly magazine. For the film of the same name see When Saturday Comes
When Saturday Comes | |
---|---|
Editor | Andy Lyons |
Categories | Football (soccer) |
Frequency | Monthly |
Circulation | 20,151 |
Publisher | Richard Guy |
First issue | March 1986 |
Company | When Saturday Comes Ltd |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Website | http://www.wsc.co.uk |
When Saturday Comes (usually known as WSC) is a monthly magazine about football, first published in London in 1986. Its coverage of the game, generally sympathetic to fans and critical of football's ruling elite (notably club chairmen and the FA), has influenced many other media since.
Starting off as an independently-published fanzine, in the late 1980s it became a professionally distributed magazine available in newsagents, and in the 1990s made the move to a full colour format. While the magazine now employs professional writers (it has featured pieces from prominent names such as Harry Pearson, Simon Kuper, Gabriele Marcotti and Nick Hornby), it is considered by some to have maintained a consistent editorial stance, and will still commission articles from fans - for instance when covering issues relevant to the supporters of one particular club. Coverage of top-flight football is shared evenly with features on the lower English leagues, as well as regular articles on world football (usually focussing on countries rarely mentioned in the mainstream sports press).
The half decent football magazine, as it describes itself, is perhaps best known for its Private Eye-esque covers, which consist of genuine photos of players or managers, with topical, humorous but fictional speech bubbles superimposed. For example, in 1998 when Roy Evans resigned as joint Liverpool F.C. manager, leaving Gérard Houllier solely in charge, WSC had a picture of the pair of them supposedly giving a twist to The Two Ronnies' catchphrase, with Evans saying "It's goodnight from me", and Houllier saying "and it's goodnight from him".
In the 2000s, WSC branched out into book publishing. WSC Books has so far published Tor!, a history of German football, Morbo, which examines Spanish football culture, and Soccer In A Football World, a history of the game in the United States.
WSC is still edited by Andy Lyons, who originally founded the magazine along with Mike Ticher. Its current circulation is around 20,000.