Reviews from When Saturday Comes. Follow the link to buy the book from Amazon.
So, the big-money takeover didn’t happen. As Charlton fans go back to what they know, Tom Green takes a rueful look at recent events
The announcement, when it came, was blunt. “The board of Charlton Athletic plc was today informed by Zabeel Investments that it will not be proceeding with the proposed acquisition.”
What’s it like to have not seen your team play for 15 years?Matt Nation makes an unsentimental return to Ashton Gate
The point behind school reunions, find-your-mates websites and other sewers of nostalgia has always seemed rather moot. There are reasons why people haven’t seen each other for half a lifetime. The hugs may be cloying, the air-kisses sloppy and the compliments gushing, but they do not alter one crucial fact. If they had wanted to stay in touch, they would have.
Bruce Wilkinson assesses Blackburn's attempt to gain Asian supporters
Blackburn Rovers are based in a town with a large Muslim population who traditionally have not followed the team. Over the last couple of years, the club has worked hard to attract more Asian supporters. The roll call of contributors to the club’s equality document (then Minister for Sport Richard Caborn, chair of Kick It Out Lord Herman Ouseley and former president of the Lancashire Council of Mosques Lord Adam Patel) shows the level of importance afforded to the issue.
Manchester City’s owners have divided opinion over the years, but the latest incumbents have been welcomed deliriously. David Conn wonders if the fans’ loyalty is being exploited
The takeover of Manchester City was celebrated uproariously by most of the club’s supporters, but it prompted me instead to question the very basis of fans’ loyalty to their clubs. I am talking not about today’s surreal ownership by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, but a deal that looks positively homely by comparison, the 1994 City takeover by Francis Lee.
Developing local young talent used to be the way forward for Millwall, but they can no longer see the point. Paul Casella takes up the sorry tale
After a close-season tribunal judged that teenage starlet John Bostock’s sale to Tottenham Hotspur was worth just £700,000 to Crystal Palace, their owner Simon Jordan decided it was time to look for a buyer for his club. And he wasn’t the only south London chairman to question the point of developing homegrown talent this summer. Last season Millwall lost youth hopes David Amoo to Liverpool, Sam Walker to Chelsea and Tom Kilby to Portsmouth for combined fees of £400,000. They were all products of a youth set-up that an ailing third-tier club could barely afford to run. The club’s American chairman, John Berylson, was so enraged by the size of the fees that he closed the Millwall academy.