9 February ~ A manager on the brink of quitting would typically walk head-down along the touchline after the defeat which seals their fate, ignoring abuse from fans nearby. But as Bradford's 1-0 loss to Bury on Saturday spelt the end for Stuart McCall – his resignation was confirmed on Monday – he embarked on a lap around the pitch at the final whistle to applaud supporters. Putting aside two and a half years of frustrating League Two failure, almost everyone inside the stadium applauded him back.

9 February ~ It's Apokries (carnival) in Athens at the moment. While transvestites, pirates and clowns bounced along the streets outside, Olympiakos were notching up a 5-1 win against Levadiakos in a match played at an empty Karaiskaki stadium, closed as punishment for previous crowd trouble. When the home side's Matt Derbyshire lifted up his shirt after scoring to reveal the legend "George Prionas" ("George Chainsaw") it might have looked like a carnival stunt.

9 February ~ We had reason to upbraid an Azerbaijani team last week for not putting the effort in on their club crest, yet here we are again with the same issue arising. FK Baku's resident designers have cast their eyes over the topography, landscape and history of the local area and come up with a sleeping dog interrupted by someone entering the room. At least they have incorporated a special effect, however. True, it is a scrolling duplication effect of the type last seen sometime in the mid-to-late 70s in the opening titles to We Are The Champions with Ron Pickering but even so, it is at least an attempt at livening up proceedings. Read more

8 February ~ Valencia are sitting comfortably near the top of La Liga, playing exciting football and blessed with some of Europe's best attacking players. So it is easy to forget that, just this time last year, they were facing financial ruin. In 2006, the club's president Juan Soler announced plans to build a new stadium, the Nou Mestalla, on local wasteland. The club was to go on using their existing venue until construction was complete, when the old ground would be sold. Additional funding would be provided by bank loans (paid back by the sale of broadcasting rights and sponsorship), annual qualification for the Champions League and, eventually, through money generated by the Nou Mestalla.

8 February ~ Strikers are notoriously selfish but some look petty in their self-serving behaviour. Such as Tomas Brolin, the Swedish striker who recently laid claim to a 19-year-old goal scored in a friendly – and which went in off his back as he ran across the path of the strike. The goal, attributed to former Sheffield Wednesday right-back Roland Nilsson, would make Brolin the joint seventh top goal scorer for Sweden with 27 goals, including the winner against England in Euro 92. If reversed it would half Nilsson’s international scoring record.