In this exclusive WSC Supporters’ Club edition of the podcast, magazine editor Andy Lyons, writer Harry Pearson and host Daniel Gray find a peeved Random Topic Generator urging them to talk about Greed and then Monstrous Hubris. Resulting subjects include the bungled folly of the recent Super League plot, the murky world of closed-shop divisions, wacky penalties, George Reynolds and Harry Kewell’s marble fittings, and new stadium follies from Brunton Park Butterfly World to John Hall’s Leazes dream. Record Breakers takes us to Kaiserslautern, Kinshasa and Moscow.
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Stories
The idea of football becoming more “authentic” the lower down the leagues you go simultaneously patronises those fans and hinders modernisation
The crises faced by Portsmouth and Darlington call into question the way in which of some our clubs are run, argues Tom Davies
Past failures of regulation are rebounding on perhaps the two most persistently crisis-plagued English clubs of the past decade, Portsmouth and Darlington. The legacies of years of debt, unsuitable ownership and mismanagement have pushed both closer to the brink than ever.
Ron Hamilton asks where next for Darlington, as they endure another woeful season
Supporting Darlington has long had a certain Beckettian quality – an unceasing bleakness punctuated by bursts of farcical tragicomedy. Even in the aftermath of May’s FA Trophy victory, the joy of a winner in the 120th minute at Wembley soon gave way to cynical muttering about how long it would be before things went wrong. Less than six months later the club’s future is, once again, hanging in the balance.
Ed Parkinson on how Darlington’s demise means Hartlepool need a new local rival
For the best part of a century Hartlepool and Darlington were bound together through shared derbies that added a couple of high points to what were, more often than not, long and dreary seasons. Holding little hope of any more substantial achievement, fans of both clubs focused intensely on beating “them” once or twice a year. There was the occasional season apart but the breaks never lasted long as both clubs quickly returned to their natural habitat of the fourth division.