Book reviews

With small attendances and full-time wages the Football League is proving costly for Accrington Stanley, as Karl Sturgeon reflects

The Racecourse Ground, April 2008. Wrexham are playing their last home game as a Football League team, and it’s not hard to see why they’re going down: they’re losing 3-0 to Accrington Stanley, a team with a goal difference of minus 29. In the final seconds, however, Wrexham win a penalty. 3-1. Little consolation for fans already more concerned with finding Ebbsfleet on a map, but, up in the flimsy old directors’ box, someone is happy.

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After being plunged into administration in February, Darlington have been left wondering if they will be able to continue to play in League Two. Thom Kennedy investigates the depth of the clubs problems

If a week is a long time in football, events at League Two Darlington have proved that a day is long enough for a crisis to unfold in the bottom division. On February 21 fans were celebrating a 1-0 victory over Grimsby, and another obstacle on the path to promotion cleared. Curtis Main, 16, had become Darlo’s youngest ever scorer, dropping a neat match-winning header into the bottom corner within moments of coming on, and an exciting run-in lay ahead.

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As national manager Guus Hiddink takes charge at Chelsea, Dan Brennan reflects on worries in Russia over what is said to be only a temporary job-share

If Guus Hiddink turns Chelsea’s season around, don’t expect too many loud cheers in Russia. The Dutchman’s decision to combine his permanent job as Russian national team coach with a makeshift one at Stamford Bridge has been met with what might best be described as resigned dismay.

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How could the best player in the school end up doing DIY while an unknown captained England? Howard Pattison ponders the thin line between international stardom and obscurity

A friend once told me that at school he had been voted the boy most likely to become a professional footballer. We never had opinion polls like that at my school. Most of us never had opinions. But if we had been asked which of our classmates would go on to kick a ball around a field for a living, I can guess who it would have been. Captain of the school team, played with both feet, read the game brilliantly. Perhaps he was a bit on the short side, but he was stocky with it. “A low centre of gravity” they would say now, like Maradona. Had stamina too, what they would call a real box-to-box player. Bryan Robson, perhaps.

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Kevin Donnelly had always been jealous of footballers’ parents – until he went to watch his mate’s son play

In 40 years attending football matches, I thought I had experienced everything. That is, until the day I went to a match with the dad of one of the players taking part in a Scottish Premier League game. As a young player who is basically starting out, his son was looking to build on a promising string of results for his team in which he had started all the games.

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