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Tom Lines looks back on the season in League One, and the considers the divide between many clubs in the division and their well-to-do guests who have fallen from the Premier League
The FA’s decision to hold England matches around the country during the rebuilding of Wembley is generally agreed to have been a great success. Football’s heartlands got to see the national team in their own backyards while the players benefited from performing in front of passionate, knowledgeable crowds. Fans in League One are now enjoying a similar scheme involving former Premier League clubs. This season the division contained no fewer than four sides that have graced the top flight in the last six years. Charlton, Southampton and Norwich were making their first visits, while Leeds Utd had married a local girl and were trying to make a go of things.
When the opening day of the 2010 League One season paired newly-relegated Norwich with local rivals Colchester, few would have predicted the scoreline or the season-long feud that followed. Paul Buller documents events in East Anglia
Norwich City and Colchester Utd fans rarely have anything more in common than flat landscapes and a mutual distaste for Ipswich Town. Following Norwich’s relegation to League One, however, two matches, 13 goals, two new managers, accusations of skullduggery and even a demand for an unprecedented points deduction finds both clubs inextricably linked – whether they like it or not.
There’s less at stake in the East Anglian derby than there once was, and discontent is in the air at the end of poor seasons for both clubs, but Ipswich are at least cheered by the prospect of pushing their neighbours closer towards the third tier and by the imminent ousting of an unpopular manager, as Csaba Abrahall witnessed
It can’t have escaped your attention that the BBC recently moved Countryfile to prime-time on Sunday evenings. I’m not sure why, as it seemed the perfect accompaniment to coffee and croissants in its late-morning slot, but I imagine the unavailability of a large section of the agricultural community twice a year proved too detrimental to the viewing figures. The East Anglian derby hasn’t been played on a Saturday for 11 years and the scene at Diss station on this spring Sunday morning, rural-accented supporters in blue and white, green and yellow, heading to football instead of listening to John Craven’s views on otters, has become a common one.
When David Beckham starts playing for Los Angeles Galaxy, a surge in interest in US soccer is expected. Yet there is already a sizeable British presence in the game there and, as Gavin Willacy explains, it’s not just the MLS that is attracting attention among clubs from this side of the Atlantic
Crystal Palace have recovered from a dodgy start to climb to mid-table, poised for a play-off push. Sadly, only 257 turned up for a recent home win in their 30,000-seat stadium. Fortunately for Simon Jordan, they were rattling around in the Navy Memorial Stadium in Annapolis, Maryland, and we are talking Crystal Palace USA.