Chinese Football: Wilkinson’s Shanghai surprise
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.
05.14.2004, 9:59 AM · Sports, Stories · Comments (6)
