The argument for financial reform is at last beyond credible dispute as historic clubs face ruin owing to the Covid-19 crisisEven before football was plunged into crisis by the Covid-19 pandemic, influential people in the game were discussing the need for the Premier League’s improbable fortunes to be shared more equally. As historic, stalwart lower-division and semi-professional clubs stare at ruin, and promised investment could drain from the grassroots, the argument is finally beyond credible dispute.However the Premier League resolves its struggle to finish this season so that it can clutch the remainder of the TV money, it will still be a huge draw for broadcast billions when normal life finally returns. The pre-pandemic position, that the big clubs keep...
For many fans of lower league sides the best case is nothing happens in the new season, but developments at Gigg Lane show us that our clubs may not always be thereIt’s 5 August 2017. It’s hard to tell how many Cambridge United fans have made the trip to Exeter City for the opening game of the season. The records say 318. It didn’t seem that many at the time.Exeter have chucked us in the main stand in the corner – not because they thought our ultras would make it feel like a U’s home game if they put us behind the goal, but because the away end is a building site. Just some hoardings, some sand and a digger....
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...
The world’s oldest professional football club are used to hard times but their present dire situation on and off the pitch has reached a new lowWhen the wind was coming from the wrong direction, the most salient feature of a visit to Notts County in the old days was the smell drifting down from the abattoir further up Meadow Lane. Last week the stench was coming from inside the club itself. From the chairman’s office, in fact. To add insult to the injury of sitting plumb last in the fourth tier, the world’s oldest professional football club was in the hands of a man who, during the course of a spat on Twitter, pressed “send” on a photograph of his...
Notts are on their third manager of the season, eight points off safety at the bottom of League Two and straying dangerously close to losing their title as the oldest Football League clubIn ordinary circumstances Notts County, rock bottom of the entire Football League, would have been preparing to play Newport this weekend. These, of course, are not ordinary circumstances. Newport had an FA Cup tie against Middlesbrough to take up their time and that left the 92nd-placed club in English football facing a blank weekend. To borrow an old line from Jasper Carrott, their best result for ages.Not that the supporters of this proud old club will find that particularly amusing when Notts are currently eight points off safety...