The 20-year-old midfielder has been a revelation on loan at Doncaster and has plans to impress Jürgen Klopp when he returns to Liverpool in the summerGrowing up, Herbie Kane’s hero was Steven Gerrard, so playing under him for Liverpool Under-19s last season was the stuff of dreams. “I had a few shirts with his name on the back and, when I was little, I used to watch some of his goals and want to be able to do what he had done; I used to practise in the back garden, pretending to be Gerrard,” Kane says, breaking into laughter. Related: Celtic sign 15-year-old Karamoko Dembélé to first professional contract I went to Chelsea for a few weeks, had a look...
As Herman Ouseley announces his impending retirement from Kick It Out after 25 years, a game that can gift Richard Scudamore £5m can surely fund the campaign properlyIt is probably a measure of the man – and the fact he would never draw attention to this himself – that I must confess that, until the last week, I did not realise Herman Ouseley had never received a penny in wages during all the years he has been at the forefront of football’s anti‑racism campaigning.He announced on Tuesday that he will be retiring from Kick It Out at the end of the season, when he will be 74, and it probably sums up the modern‑day sport that he will be lucky...
Showing Premier League and European midweek matches live causes a dip in attendances that hits smaller clubs’ revenuesDuring the early 1980s, when English football began its slow-shuffle towards showing one live game a week, the Guardian’s venerable correspondent David Lacey warned of the potential consequences. In a column titled “The death threat of live television”, Lacey predicted: “Matches shown on the small screen, warts and all, far from stimulating interest, would be more likely to have the opposite effect,” and suggested: “A televised match would become the complete alternative to paying to watch football and more fans than ever would have reason to stay away.”Lacey was far from alone. Years before the dawn of the Premier League Brian Clough thought...
Darren Moore impressed as interim manager in the club’s unsuccessful fight for Premier League survival, and now results have brought the feelgood factor back to the HawthornsDarren Moore is never going to blow his own trumpet but, after the alienation, strain and pain of relegation last season, the Hawthorns seems a happier haunt these days. “I hope so,” Moore, the affable West Bromwich Albion head coach, says, sitting in a pocket of the stadium overlooking the pristine pitch. “It certainly feels a different place.”Results help. After almost hatching the greatest of great escapes, the Baggies are back in the Championship, for the first time since 2010. After impressing in caretaker charge – Moore memorably won the manager of the month...
Lower-division sides help young players develop and benefit from having them but there’s growing disquiet about demands that loanees play regardless of form“You can get a player, an 18-year‑old who’s on 10 grand a week, and you do a deal with the club on his wages,” says Darragh MacAnthony. “Then they not only want the wages, they want you to pay for his accommodation. They’re then on you all the time about ‘Why is he playing?’, ‘Why is he not playing?’ They’re on at you every day. If the player then has an attitude issue and we go and complain they say: ‘Get on with it, you’re not sending him back, you’ve agreed a contract, pay his wages.’”Forthright opinions, such...