Turning off into the great service station of life, magazine editor Andy Lyons, writer Harry Pearson and host Daniel Gray discuss hectic schedules and season ends from Canvey Island chaos to Alvechurch versus Oxford City and the activation of Nigel Davey. Magazine Deputy Editor Ffion Thomas previews WSC issue 433, Record Breakers brings us a Tbilisi tune, and we continue our sprightly feature The Final Third, in which a guest contributes a match, a player and an object to the WSC Museum of Football. Joining Dan as our visiting curator this time is Jen Offord, author of The Year of the Robin: Watching It All Go Wrong for Charlton Athletic and the World.
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Stories
Altrincham have a history of cup upsets. But as Richard Pulford argues they never seem to get the credit they deserve
The 2009-10 FA Cup began on August 15, just ten weeks after Chelsea’s win last season. The press will again be looking for this season’s giantkillers and again we’ll all have a bout of collective amnesia about the greatest giantkillers of all. People always mention Yeovil Town when this comes up. The most famous giantkilling moments? A close run thing between Ronnie Radford’s goal for Hereford in 1972, Blyth Spartans’ run to the fifth round in 1978, or Sutton United beating Coventry in 1989 – yawn.
With the Conference giving varying punishments to different clubs, fans are understandably unsure as to the reasoning behind their decisions. Matthew Gooding reports
Another season is reaching its climax, and the fate of football clubs up and down the country is slowly becoming clearer. But in the Conference, such trivial matters as final league position are often irrelevant when it comes to determining issues of demotion and promotion. For this is a division that has seen at least one club relegated for non-footballing reasons in each of the past three seasons, with Canvey Island and Boston suffering demotions, and Halifax and Scarborough going out of business all together and re-forming further down the pyramid.
Leigh RMI are no more. Gary Andrews struggles through the marketing speak and reports on their new identity
Renaming a team after one of Britain’s most derided soft-rock bands may not be the most conventional method of attempting to revive a club after two relegations in three years. But then Leigh Railway Mechanics Institute, now Leigh Genesis, are anything but conventional.
A minor indiscretion is set to cost AFC Wimbledon their chance of promotion. Robert Jeffery explains how the good disciplinary record of an ineligible player made matters worse, while Scarborough have had their troubles, too
There’s nothing AFC Wimbledon fans love more than a bit of drama. The years of fighting proposed moves to Dublin, Gatwick, Milton Keynes and God knows where else; the glare of publicity as the club took their first tentative steps in the Combined Counties League; the early flurry of trophies and promotions.