Book reviews

As a neutral watching English clubs playing in Europe, Adam Powley finds it difficult to get behind 'our' teams

If there’s one thing to be certain of this season, it’s that at some point during the various European campaigns, the nation will be exhorted to “get behind the English teams”. There is an unwritten rule, adhered to in particular by the TV companies broadcasting the Champions League, that all English fans will by default support English clubs in European competition. English success is held to be “a great advert for the Premier League” and thus incontrovertible proof of the health of the game in this country.

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Amid anger and recriminations, has David Beckham's US "project" failed? Neil Forsyth considers an alternative view

While most British footballers watched Ayia Napa slide sadly away through aero-plane windows before returning to pre-season training, the most famous of all has had a far more demanding month. David Beckham returned to America and a controversy that could bring a premature end to a relationship that always seemed built on artificiality and misjudgement on the player’s part.

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Neil Rose looks at a ruling which looks to have given clubs some power back from the players

When Andy Webster used an obscure FIFA rule to buy himself out of his contract with Hearts for a relatively nominal sum and then sign for Wigan, it was seen as a contract-breaker’s charter. But a recent ruling involving Brazilian Matuzalem appears to have restored some balance in the never-ending power struggle between players and clubs.

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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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Tim Springett bids a less-than-fond farewell to former owners, but hopes for signs of recovery under a new regime

When Rupert Lowe invited himself back to Southampton last summer, two years after being ejected by leading shareholder Michael Wilde, there was palpable dismay among Saints supporters. There is no doubt that the finances of the club were in a perilous state – late in 2007 a sale to the SISU hedge fund that later took over Coventry City had been thwarted by Lowe, Wilde and Leon Crouch, a local businessman who also held a large number of Saints shares. Several of the highest earning players subsequently went out on loan and Saints avoided relegation by just one point. Nevertheless, there was a new manager in Nigel Pearson, who had given fans cause for optimism that better times might lie ahead. Then Lowe – aided and abetted by his former adversary Wilde – returned and the mood changed dramatically.

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