Despite all its depressing ills, this silly game can still help you forget all your banal worries – even if it’s only for a few secondsAnd so we put ourselves through this all again. Where exactly does the hope come from? Why have I put a – responsibly small – wager on Cambridge United to win the League One play-offs, when they only stayed up on the final day a couple of months ago? I look at our fixtures and cannot see us dropping a point in August. One game in and I’ve already checked the table every day since the weekend. Still fifth.How much of my, albeit very limited, journalistic integrity have I lost by placing Spurs second this...
Grimsby’s owner on the sensible efforts to self-regulate – and why the outcome could benefit National League clubsIn the coming weeks, the government white paper that outlines the path to an independent regulatory body is due to be released. With that in mind, the Premier League and the EFL have resumed negotiations on a range of topics, including but not limited to financial distribution, fixture congestion, and the potential to align the number of teams promoted and relegated from all divisions. It appears there is an effort to self-regulate before the new authority is established. It is logical and sensible for the leagues to discuss collective issues and come to agreements, rather than have their hands weakened by individual rule-making.Regarding...
The game needs a sustainable financial framework and an independent regulator for clubs to attract the right ownersI have been invited to speak on Monday evening on a panel about ethics in football and, specifically, the Owners and Directors Test: in short, how we get the “right” type of owners into the game. The mini-budget announcement last week by the government has made me think tangentially about this issue and what place regulation has in football.Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng have been nothing but clear about what they stand for – we are in an era of deregulation, tax cuts and growth at all costs. I understand the logic of trying to get the economy growing and using the resulting...
Matches are a place of shared experience in an atomised world – they should have gone ahead following the Queen’s deathLike most people, I was deeply saddened by the news about Queen Elizabeth. Events over the past few days have demonstrated how important the royal family is to our sense of identity as a nation. Even the most committed republican can share the sense of loss of such a symbol of humility and grace at the centre of our nation, someone who, as the BBC has repeatedly and correctly said, represented stability in an age of ceaseless change.Three days after the death of King George VI on 6 February 1952, Grimsby Town beat Carlisle 4-1 in front of 16,000 fans....
Mothers and partners provide the foundations of the game, but their dedication often goes unrecognisedWhen I started training with West Brom as a youngster, my family did not have enough money for a car. We lived in Coventry and training was in Tipton, near Birmingham. Mobile phones were only just starting to become popular and my mum bought me one.Every day I would get two buses from school to the railway station and then get on the train; my mum would ring to speak to the conductor, making sure I would stick right with him and not be travelling on my own. It would be the same on the way back, at 9.30pm. We had very little but she always...