It would be unimaginable in the Premier League, but in League 1 a promoted side are challenging at the top. James Eastham reports
French football fans must have wondered what the fuss was about when Birmingham City went on a 12-match unbeaten run from October to January. In Ligue 1, there’s a newly promoted club challenging for the championship.
There was a severe shortage of goals, but no lack of controversy or politicking as Cameroon retained the African Cup of Nations. Alan Duncan reports
Their Malian hosts were convinced they use magical powers to win matches. They walked out, muscles flexed in sleeveless vests, having not conceded a single goal in the whole contest. And the president of the Confederation of African Football, Issa Hayatou, just happens to be one of their most famous sons. On February 10, the enduring legend which is Cameroonian football once again took hold when the Indomitable Lions became the first side since Ghana in 1965 to retain the African Cup of Nations.
Wednesday 1 Holders Spurs slink out of the Worthington Cup at Fulham, their 3-1 defeat described by George Graham as "by far our worst performance since I became manager". A crowd of 17,000 sees Aston Villa trounce Southampton 4-0. "The crowds have been crap because we've played crap until tonight," says the forthright John Gregory. In the Scottish equivalent Rangers' mini-crisis continues with an extra-time defeat at Aberdeen (yes, Aberdeen). Huddersfield threaten legal action against the Football League for referee Jeff Winter's failure to award a penalty during their Worthington match against Wimbledon. That'll work. Darlington are the lucky losers drawn to play at Villa in the third round of the FA Cup. "I have a direct line to the big man upstairs," says their safe-cracking chairman. The government rejects plans for the new Wembley, on the grounds that it would not be able to stage major athletics tournaments as well as football matches.
Joyce Woolridge explains why a guided tour of Old Trafford left her with mixed feelings
A confused Japanese woman on Piccadilly Metro Station had asked me, in what amounted to sign language, what tram she needed to board to get to Old Trafford. She waved a photocopied tourist information sheet which presumably suggested that there was only one place worth visiting in England outside London, and that was the self-styled Theatre of Dreams.