Search: ' Grand Slam Sunday'

The Championship has been a strange division, full of surprises yet lacking in quality, reports Tom Green

It’s easy to see why away fans might enjoy visiting The Valley. Tucked away in a quiet south-east London neighbourhood, it’s a proper football ground, modernised and expanded but still on its old site five minutes from the train station. The club “superstore” is more like a corner shop and pre-match catering still tends to mean fish and chips or a kebab. While there are plenty of expensive players’ Range Rovers in the car park, the statue of post-war Addicks goalkeeper Sam Bartram that looms outside the West Stand is an effective reminder of the club’s history.

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Simon Tyers takes a look at Setanta Sports News, Sky's unthreatening rival

Watching Setanta Sports News, you are reminded of the scene in I’m Alan Partridge where, on being told by the BBC director of programming that the glut of regional police shows he has listed suggests there’s too many, Partridge suggests “that’s one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is, people like them, let’s make some more of them.” Sky Sports News is delivered by a combination of an authoritative father figure/elder brother type and a power-dressed blonde while information scrolls around them. Setanta has decided that the only way to improve on this is to have a go at it itself and hope nobody makes the connection.

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Respect reaction

On March 18, the FA launched a new strategy entitled “Respect”, designed in part to address bad behaviour at all levels of football. Within 24 hours, Ashley Cole was given only a yellow card for a dangerous tackle in the Spurs v Chelsea match, a punishment strongly disputed by his team‑mates. It had scarcely been mentioned in the immediate aftermath of the game, but Cole’s disrespectful reaction to referee Mike Riley soon assumed prime importance. By the time of Grand Slam Sunday three days later, the new FA chairman Lord Triesman was making personal appeals to Alex Ferguson to “show some respect” towards referees.

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Dear WSC
As a supporter of a smaller club myself, I sympathise with Luton’s current plight, but Eva Tenner’s letter in WSC 253 has brought out the devil’s advocate in me. To her list of those not responsible for Luton’s woes, she should also have added Liverpool FC’s board. Liverpool gave Luton quite a bit of help anyway by playing badly enough in the first tie to allow Luton a replay at Anfield. If you add the attendances at the 32 third-round ties and 12 replays together, only three pairings had a greater audience than Luton v Liverpool, so Luton arguably did as well as they could financially out of this season’s FA Cup. If Luton had been drawn away to my team, Tranmere, for example (average attendance around 7,000), would there have been a similar call for Luton to have all the gate money? I think not. Or what if Luton had faced another smaller team and lost in 90 minutes? Would a replay have been ordered to try to boost the Hatters’ coffers that way? No. I genuinely hope Luton find their way out of their current difficulties, but the fact is that meeting one of the Big Four should be seen as a helpful stroke of luck for them, rather than a reason for their fans to moan about Liverpool’s supposed meanness.
Tristan Browning, Reading

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Dear WSC
Amid all the furore over the arrival of Kevin Keegan at Newcastle, I was struck by the fact Kev’s old mate Terry McDermott has somehow been kept on at St James’ Park in the ten years since KK’s departure. He usually sat among the coaching staff on matchdays with seemingly no specific role and was never mentioned by TV commentators when the cameras scanned the bench (as they often did during the later days of Big Sam’s turbulent reign). His insignificance was such that I wonder if he had been there so long that no one at Newcastle could actually see him any more. He was visible from afar, showing up on photographs and on TV screens, but up close he blended into the background. Terry has rematerialised fully now that his little mate is back in charge, although his exact role remains unclear – I’m guessing that it doesn’t extend much further than making tea and going out to get Special K’s copy of the Racing Post.
Ross Cannon, via email

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