Bury’s opening game of the season has been suspended while the EFL tries to find out if the club has enough money for the whole campaignFor supporters of clubs in crisis who have repeatedly accused the English Football League of weak governance in recent years, it was striking to see the league issue an ultimatum on Monday and finally, determinedly, stick to it. Bury, in League One, were subjected to a last-resort measure, of having Saturday’s opening fixture suspended, on the grounds that the owner, Steve Dale, has not provided the required information to show how the stricken club will be funded.Dale hit back with a characteristically beefy, pugnacious statement on Tuesday, arguing the EFL was “ignoring the facts”, he...
It is Lampard v Bielsa and a West Midlands derby in the Championship while Mansfield take on tricky NewportAway from all of the talk of peering over fences and peeking through bushes, at least 180 minutes of on-field entertainment will separate these bickering teams. Marcelo Bielsa’s side need to stop the rot, and fast, having warmed up for the tail end of the season by losing to the worst team in the division. As for Derby, they should take confidence from their recent run of four wins in six matches. History suggests Leeds, despite flagging, have the best chance of being promoted. Since 1992, the inception of the play-off system in its current four-team format involving the teams between third...
As Vale fight to stay in League Two supporters are protesting against Norman Smurthwaite, the owner once feted as a heroFor apathetic Port Vale supporters, the promotion party on the pitch at Wycombe on the final day of the 2012-13 season when fans donned Smurf costumes in homage to their owner, or the moment they chaired Norman Smurthwaite round a Burslem pub, feels a lifetime ago.These days they are in no mood for fancy dress; Vale are in a relegation battle for the third consecutive season, their 100-year run in the Football League under threat. There is a fractious relationship between swells of supporters and the owner, who was assigned Karl Oyston, the much-maligned former Blackpool chairman, as a mentor...
At a prison in Devon professionals from country rivals Exeter City and Plymouth Argyle are participating in an innovative pilot programme putting football at the centre of rehabilitationThere is a fiercely contested drop-ball during a five-a-side kickabout with a difference. Behind the barbed wire and through the giant blue main gate at HMP Exeter, in the gymnasium perched round the back of C wing, where a pair of tracksuit bottoms are drying out of the window of cell 32, a handpicked group of offenders are taking on a team comprising professional footballers from Devon rivals Exeter City and Plymouth Argyle. “Nice and fair,” says Mike Reece, one of five prison officers who specialise in physical education here, as the game...
From Leeds United’s Jack Clarke to Middlesbrough’s Marcus Tavernier, these 10 talented teenagers are quickly becoming fixtures in the future of footballAfter several game-changing cameos off the bench, the York-born forward was finally handed his full debut by Marcelo Bielsa last Sunday. Raw and direct, Clarke has the ability to grab games by the scruff of the neck; he kickstarted an extraordinary comeback victory at Villa Park last month and made a similar dent against Nottingham Forest and, before that, Sheffield United. Clarke has pleasantly surprised Bielsa, becoming the Argentinian’s go-to man, asked to spark Leeds into life at half-time on no fewer than six occasions since November. “When I started to look at his skills I didn’t imagine that...