Search: ' Jack Lester'

Opened in 1871, one of the oldest football grounds still in use will shut at the end of the season. While grumbles about the football will always endure, some things will never be the same again, says Roger Titford

The first Taylor Report into ground safety appeared in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall was breached. Just like the Berlin Wall, there’s precious little left standing today of our traditional Football League stadiums. One of these terraced grounds really ought to have been preserved in its entirety for the nation by English Heritage but instead I pay homage to Saltergate, while a few fixtures remain.

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The Sven circus has rollled into town and pitched up at the league's oldest club. Dave Evans explores the ramifications

The day before Sven-Göran Eriksson was unveiled as the Director of Football at the sixth worst League club in England I said to a friend “we are in danger of turning into a circus”. His reply, echoed by around 90 per cent of fellow Notts fans, was: “I’d rather pay £20 to see a circus than the rubbish I’ve been watching for the past ten years.”

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Asian players are still thin on the ground in English football. There are some good prospects but, believes Gavin Willacy, the round-ball game should look at the success of rugby league in this area

Two years ago WSC 225 focused on the Asians Can Play Football campaign. Of the four British Asians playing professionally then, Michael Chopra, the mixed-race son of an Indian grocer, is trying to prove he is a Premier League-quality striker with Sunderland, and QPR midfielder Zesh Rehman has clocked up nearly 100 appearances in the Championship. They are making a career – and a lot of money – from football. Adnan Ahmed is on the fringes at Tranmere and Harpal Singh – who got into Leeds’ squad but didn’t play a first-team game there – is coming to the end of an injury-ravaged season in Ireland, sitting on the bench for Bohemians. Coming into the League this season has been former West Ham trainee Anwar Uddin, after captaining Dagenham & Redbridge to the Conference title.

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Massed ranks of WSC writers and interviewees reflect on the best and worst of 2000

Jim Rosenthal
Ups
– Premier League highlights acquired by ITV
– Cardiff losing at Gillingham to ensure Oxford United avoid relegation
– Playing for the Cookham Dean Parents against 12-year-old son Tom (lost 8-7)

Downs
– Hearing the country I had backed to win Euro 2000 (Italy) had lost in the final in extra time. They were still leading with two minutes to go when I boarded a flight home after the French grand prix.
– Oxford United’s owner Firoz Kassam telling the fans after the Luton game to “piss off” unless they gave him their support. The club’s “saviour” is taking us into the fast lane out of the League.
– Sitting in the stadiums of Florence, Rome and Turin and hearing the racist abuse directed at black players of Manchester United, Arsenal and England

Hope for 2001
– It stops raining and English clubs go all the way in the Champions League.

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Doug Everitt is a typical grey-haired accountant – and the chairman of Grimsby Town. Ian Rodwell takes a deeper look at the man who looks odds-on to oversee another relegation

Distinguishing features A typical, grey-haired, middle-aged accountant. Vice-chairman Bryan Huxford, who seems to think of himself as a local celebrity, has most of the contact with the media.

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