Pitch Publishing, £12.99
Reviewed by Pete Brooksbank
From WSC 414, November 2021
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Stories
Simon Tyers on how documentaries investigating football’s underworld are flattering to deceive
If making an impression is as much about what you don’t say as what you do, Martin Tyler gave a masterclass after Fernando Torres’ eye-rubbingly bad miss in the Manchester United-Chelsea match on September 18. After an “Oh no!” in the shock of the moment, Tyler couldn’t bring himself to elucidate about what we’d all just seen for a full five seconds. Hardly Pinter length, but by Sky Sports standards it was the sort of delay that would make nervous editors prepare an apology caption. Andy Gray would have shouted all over it. It was quite sweet, really.
Steve Menary assesses the debts of clubs in the English league and discusses whether the goverment should intervene into football politics
Since the turn of the year, a committee of MPs from across the political spectrum have been interviewing football administrators to work out whether the game’s governance is “fit for purpose”. The hearings are over, the committee’s recommendations are due in June and the case for reform is compelling.
These Yorkshire rivals may yet head in different directions out of the Championship. But in a tense occasion on a sunny day the confident pre-match favourites fall to a chastening defeat. David Stubbs reveals all
Bramall Lane’s highest ever attendance was the 68,287 who witnessed an FA Cup tie against Leeds in 1936. The rivalry between the two clubs is intense but fitful, as both have bobbed up and down between divisions over the years. In the early 1970s, when Sheffield United climbed back into Division One under manager John Harris, I recall as a young lad in Leeds watching highlights of the home and away Sheffield fixtures on Yorkshire TV the following Sunday afternoon.
Newcastle United are in the headlines as Mike Ashley prepares to sell the naming rights to St James' Park
Newcastle businessman Barry Moat has been depicted in the press as the club’s potential saviour for several months now but, like someone running up a down escalator, he never seems to get any closer to his goal. With Moat having reportedly failed to come up with the £80 million required to cut a deal, owner Mike Ashley has now taken the club off the market, appointed Chris Hughton as full-time manager and, to general dismay, auctioned the naming rights for St James’ Park.