Dan Washburn's Shanghai Diaries

Chinese Football: Wilkinson’s Shanghai surprise

Versions of this story appeared in the April 4, 2004 edition of the South China Morning Post (subscription only) and the May 2004 issue of that’s Shanghai. To download a PDF of the SCMP story, click here.

Hired by reigning league champs, Sgt. Wilko could be gone before the fall

by DAN WASHBURN

SHANGHAI — Every time Howard Wilkinson exits his five-star Shanghai hotel, he thinks about Flash Gordon. Overlooking the Huangpu River, the Oriental Riverside Hotel sits in the shadow of the Pudong skyline, a scattershot vision of the future that feels about as humanistic as a set for a science-fiction movie. One of the otherworldly skyscrapers reminds Wilkinson of the Saturday morning trips to the cinema he used to make as a child in Sheffield, England. To him, the building looks just like Flash Gordon’s rocket ship. To him, the building, and those that surround it, look nothing like China — or at least the China that he was anticipating when he arrived in Shanghai in March.

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05.14.2004, 9:59 AM · Sports, Stories · Comments (6)