THE ARCHIVE
Editorials
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Summer is usually spent finding ways to fill time before the next football season starts. No such problem this year, of course, with just four weeks between the end of the World Cup and the Football League’s opening fixtures. It may be an effect of the heatwave, but we’ve thought of a few reasons to feel optimistic about 2006-07. A fair proportion of the prophecies of doom of previous pre-season editorials have thankfully failed to materialise. Mass extinction in the lower leagues in the wake of ITV Digital has so far been held at bay, if only narrowly in many cases. The Football League is still enjoying a mini-boom in attendances, defying the synthetic magnetism of the Premiership; its annual turnover in excess of £300 million makes it the sixth wealthiest domestic league in Europe. This season features the best comeback story in history with the return of Accrington Stanley, the club with the funny name who dropped out of the League two years before Match of the Day began.
While clubs right at the top, the Champions League cabal, continue trying to pull the ladder up behind them, the rest of the top flight is being steadily leavened with ambitious clubs on the rise. Wigan and Reading may not be to everyone’s taste, both benefiting from a home-grown Abramovich effect, but their progress over the next couple of years should at least make for interesting watching. Alongside Wigan, another of last season’s promoted clubs, West Ham, showed that survival in the Premiership doesn’t necessarily involve grimly hanging on to 17th place with a series of grinding defensive performances. From WSC 235 September 2006. What was happening this month On the subject...
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