Search: ' phoenix club'
Stories
Orient have been issued with a winding-up petition and the “regeneration” funds could be used to make them a supporter-owned club
The rise, fall and rebirth of Gretna football
by Anton Hodge
Chequered Flag, £11.99
Reviewed by Paul Brown
From WSC 347 January 2016
The rise and fall of Gretna FC is one of the most fascinating football stories of recent times. After swapping English non-League for the Scottish Third Division in 2002, the border-town club won three successive promotions, reaching the Premier League and a Scottish Cup final, plus the UEFA Cup qualifying rounds. But, after just six years in League football, the club fell into administration and folded. Then came the rebirth, the tale of which Anton Hodge is well placed to tell, as he was the first chairman of phoenix club Gretna 2008.
Simon Tyers reveals the farcical pre-match build-up of the 2009 FA Cup final
Now that every ultimately meaningless mid-table game shown live on Sky gets at least three quarters of an hour of build-up, it’s odd to feel nostalgic about old FA Cup final broadcasting marathons. Yet if it hadn’t happened already, this was the year when the Cup final became self-referential.
An English Club's Century in Scottish Football
by Tom Maxwell
Northumbria Press, £17.99
Reviewed by Harry Pearson
From WSC 294 August 2011
Ninety per cent of the players in the club's history have come from another country, they play in a stadium – with "a sound system comparable to a Walkman in a bowl of soup" – that is overlooked by grain silos, one of their greatest ever players is the son of a shepherd, they are not allowed to play in their county cup competition for political reasons and they won their first ever football match by a margin of "one goal and two tries to nil".