Fierce forward with a heart of gold has been England’s in-form striker since moving to Bristol Rovers. What took him so long?Bristol Rovers, or indeed any League One club, are scarcely mentioned in the same breath as Premier League or Champions League winners but sandwiched between Sergio Agüero and Sadio Mané in the nation’s goalscoring charts, Jonson Clarke-Harris is in good company. Only Agüero, Teemu Pukki and James Collins of Luton have more league goals than the 19 he has registered this calendar year. Since joining Rovers on deadline day in January from Coventry, where he started his career as a 15-year-old, no player in the country’s top four tiers has scored more league goals.Ten years ago Clarke-Harris, raised by...
Demise is another warning that huge social value of clubs cannot beat the cold, hard edges of a free marketA good day to bury Bury. The swell of public sympathy at Bury FC’s expulsion from the English Football League was tangible on Wednesday morning. And yet, as ever with Big Football, the wheels will continue to grind on.Thursday will bring the Champions League draw, with further details of how Europe’s club elite plan to divvy up the season’s £2bn revenue. Friday promises more news on a potential mega‑move for the house of Neymar, with the proposed £135m transfer to Barcelona playing itself out up to deadline day. Beyond that, the Premier League fixture list will continue to fill the skies...
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...
Protests against the owner are on hold with Doncaster lying in wait for Friday’s League One play-off semi-final second legBe it mock funeral processions, plastic pigs or packets of crisps pausing play, it has been impossible to escape the negativity that has clouded Charlton Athletic in recent seasons.The deeply unpopular owner, Roland Duchâtelet, remains the elephant in the room as uncertainty continues to reign, but things have been going so swimmingly on the pitch that, for now at least, the protests are on hold and the off-field noise has been somewhat muffled; a run of eight wins from nine matches has propelled Lee Bowyer’s side to within touching distance of a return to the Championship. For fed-up and fatigued fans,...
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...