Sunday’s final at Wembley will be well attended but that has been far from the norm since the Football League allowed under-23 teams to competeDespite vastly reduced numbers going through the turnstiles for the early rounds of this season’s revamped Checkatrade Trophy, more than 72,000 tickets have been sold for the final, between Coventry City and Oxford United. Sunday’s crowd at Wembley will fall short of the record for a Football League Trophy denouement – 80,841 watched Wolves beat Burnley in 1988 – but it is a significant increase on the 59,230 supporters who attended last year’s decider, when Oxford lost a thriller 3-2 to Barnsley.The Football League is likely to see Sunday’s attendance as vindication for its much-maligned overhaul...
It is 10 years since the reconstructed stadium opened at a cost of £757m after years of arguments about its financing and role. Its world-class status is scarcely in doubt but not everyone considers it an unadulterated successWhen photographers converged upon Wembley on 24 March 2007 to capture the first proper match since its reconstruction, they discovered no expense had been spared. The working area was as spacious and plush as should be expected in a state-of-the-art £757m football stadium; shooting England Under-21s’ curtain-raiser against Italy would present few major problems but it was an addition to the facilities that raised eyebrows. To some astonishment, those present opened the doors on a fully equipped darkroom, with sinks provided for the...
A threadbare attendance rather undermined parliament’s vote of no confidence in the FA, and the wait for more meaningful and radical change is likely to go onA vote by MPs in parliament of no confidence in the Football Association, the 154-year-old governing body of our hugely beloved national sport, ought to stand as a grand historical moment, a necessary response by politicians to calamitous failures. Sadly, the “ayes” which had it for the motion brought by Damian Collins, the chair of the culture, media and sport select committee, cannot realistically be said to have written themselves into text books.Leaving aside that Collins’s was a backbench motion with no legal force, considered an irritant by the sports minister, Tracey Crouch, who...
FA is said to be culturally incapable of reform due to its rather non-diverse personnel. So who better to demand reform than the culture, media and sport committee, made up of 10 middle-aged white men and one womanAt times, it feels as if the sole dynamic in British public life is one body accusing another body of being in existential crisis, in order to divert attention from its own existential crisis. And yes, of course that includes newspapers.Today, however, our business is governance. The culture, media and sport committee is composed of 10 middle-aged white men, one woman and not a single BAME representative. So who better to demand reform of the Football Association? Back in December, you may recall,...
Ancient Athens was arguably run more successfully than the FA for quite a long time, so why doesn’t the ruling body adopt a lot-drawing system for selecting council members – how could it possibly be worse?Biannual news in catatonia, now, with suggestions that next month’s Football Association council meeting may feature discussion on moving into the late 20th century. This would feel radical. It is normally advisable to think of these gatherings as akin to the movie Awakenings – except with all the hope, tenderness and learning stripped out. Related: FA aims to double number of women involved in football by end of the decade Continue reading...