Last night I spent the evening in the company of a number of old friends who constitute football journalists and football-educated “civvies” and, as one would expect three days before the start of the season, the conversation was predictable. We gather about the same time every year to thrash out our hopes, dreams and, more [...]
Chinese tycoon Kenny Huang has stepped up his talks with Liverpool creditors in a bid for the club that is increasingly looking like it will be successful. This can only be a good thing for a club that is beginning to turn the corner from a poor season on and off the pitch last term.
Everyone who is living on planet football in England will know that in the next 14 days there are four huge semi-finals in European competition, and that two games in the Premier League on Sunday are likely to decide the title.
But where else in England and Europe should the discerning football fan be looking for the drama, excitement, elation and sheer gut-wrenching fear and desolation that makes this the greatest game on planet Earth…
Europe has been in shutdown this last week and a half because of a volcano in meltdown in Iceland, and football has not escaped its heavenly wrath. Meanwhile, League One continues to be an enigma right to the end – although at least Norwich have deservedly been promoted. And, the Premier League’s top four have had a poor season this year – but it may not be the same next season. Sean Smith writes…
Chelsea are just a few games from an historic double for the club, but the concensus of opinion is that they are a poor winner of a broken league weakened by the financial crisis of the last few years. What does this mean for the near future of English football. Is it heading backwards?
Labour’s new plan for fan ownership of football clubs, while in priniciple a good eye, smacks of political interference on a subject that football is more than capable of sorting out for itself. Uefa already has plans in place to tackle the difficult subject of club ownership and overspending. Politicians should learn from the mistakes they have made in the past, meddling in the game that we have invested so much in.
After the scourge of a brutal winter comes the gamblers scourge of unpredictable pitches. It looked like the usual rant of a madman when Sir Alex Ferguson suggested that the turgid pitch had “killed Wayne Rooney”, but he may have a point. The problems with the Wembley pitch are well documented, but elsewhere in England – as the permafrost threatened to lift across the country – an unprecedented number of managers claimed the pitch as a factor in iffy results. There were grumblings at Peterborough in The Championship as the poor surface did nothing to help a home side that prefers to play it on the deck, but the worst pitching – inevitably – further down the leagues.
