Book reviews

Northwich are hoping a takeover will save them, reports Michael Whalley

Neil Redfearn certainly knows how to pick a club in crisis. In the summer of 2006, he quit the manager’s chair at Scarborough as they lost their Conference place amid a host of financial woes. The former Barnsley and Bradford midfielder might have hoped for an easier ride when he pitched up at Northwich Victoria this summer. He didn’t get it. Nine Blue Square Premier matches brought eight defeats and a draw. So Redfearn packed his bags to find something less stressful to do.

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Roman Abramovich and Avram Grant go back a long way, says Shaul Adar

José Mourinho would not have expected the Israel v Ireland World Cup qualifier of March 2005 to have a significant impact on his future. But that was the weekend when Israel’s coach, Avram Grant, was first offered a job by his FA’s guest of honour, Roman Abramovich. Israel had just achieved respectable 1-1 home draws with France and Ireland and an impressed Abramovich told Grant that he would buy whichever Israeli club the coach wanted to take charge of. Grant just smiled, apparently not believing that the Russian was making a serious offer.

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In the old days you had to wait for the Shoot! questionnaire to find out the likes and dislikes of your favourite players. Now, as Glen Wilson is alarmed to discover, such information is just a click away

Somewhere in my childhood, on a caravan park near Penarth, I kicked a ball about with a kid who told me his uncle was Clayton Blackmore. “Don’t ask my Nan about it,” he said pointing to the beige static home behind him, “she’ll tell you I’m lying.” Obviously I was impressed. As a child, perhaps due to one too many Hot Shot Hamish comic strips, I was convinced that footballers were some sort of super breed; bigger, stronger, more athletic than I could ever be. The fact that someone my age could know or be related to one of these people, even ­Clayton Blackmore, stunned me.

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TNS, the Welsh side famously named after a computing firm, have kept their initials but have a new name, a new ground – and a new country to play in. Owen Amos reports on the Oswestry border wars

Which two sides with grounds in England don’t play in an English league? There’s Berwick Rangers, of course. And now, joining them in the pub quiz, are The New Saints, of the Welsh Premier League. The Saints, formerly known as Total Network Solutions – them who played Liverpool in 2005 – moved in September from Llansantffraid, in Wales, to Oswestry, half a dozen miles away and over the border in Shropshire.

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José Mourinho has unexpectedly returned home – to make headlines, if not to work. Phil Town describes how Portugal has been coping

Once the natural incredulity at “the best coach in the world” being removed from office had passed, the Portuguese press and public shifted promptly to what really mattered: the dosh involved. Mourinho gets €24 million trumpeted sports daily A Bola. €26 million to keep quiet reckoned O Jogo. Filthy rich blared Record, trumping its rivals with €30m (£21m). Weekly magazine Sábado thought it had the right figure: “€25 million… less tax”. “Mourinho has shown that he’s number one on and off the field… even at getting ­compensation,” jested Benfica coach José António Camacho. Sábado had a graphic showing the rise and rise of Mourinho’s income over the years, starting in 1978 with the 500 escudos (€2.5) he would earn from writing reports on opponents for his dad, a goalkeeper with Vitória de Setúbal, and ending with the €7.5m a year he was being paid by Chelsea.

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