Book reviews

XLeeds United and fiscal responsibility may not have belonged in the same sentence in years past, but as Duncan Young explains, they might just be turning it around

Ken Bates must be delighted that, despite the uproar surrounding ticket price rises at Leeds, crowds are up by 44 per cent. That is, of course, compared to the opening three home games of 1986-87, the season following Leeds’s last 14th place finish in the second tier. To find comparable gates to this season you need go back 18 seasons, to just after Leeds missed both promotion and an FA Cup final by minutes. The surprising thing is not that Leeds are getting crowds of 21,000 this season, but that they averaged 8,000 more in last year’s grim campaign directly following relegation.

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The derby between Luton and Watford has not been of national significance for a long time, but that hasn’t diminished its intensity. Neil Rose reports on a fixture so highly charged that the clubs will happily give up TV money in a bid for some peace

The very idea of the “M1 derby” may seem risible to outsiders, but for Luton Town and Watford, their clashes are anything but a laughing matter. So much so, in fact, that Luton have turned down a much needed £60,000 on offer from Sky to televise the first league meeting of the pair in eight seasons.

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The supporter-led takeover was a start for Rushden & Diamonds, but for Graham Dunbar there's still a long way to go yet

For a brief few days at the end of last season, Rushden was near the centre of our sporting universe. Homegrown local players showing off their abundant natural talent in a theatre of dreams, watched by a live television audience numbered in millions. Of course, they were doing it in waistcoats while brandishing a stick of wood at the Crucible.

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TNS did Wales proud against Liverpool, but Carmarthen and Rhyl went one better, as Paul Ashley-Jones explains

You wait for ages for a European club success for Wales, then three come round at once. While TNS’s 6-0 aggregate defeat to Liverpool in the Champions League may look like a whitewash, the Welsh club did not disgrace themselves and the result would have been a lot closer had it not been for Steven Gerrard’s late goals. The real plaudits, however, must go to Rhyl and Carmarthen Town for their first preliminary round victories in the UEFA Cup.

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Michael Owen is a very good striker – but does his Spanish experience show that that is no longer enough? Phil Ball assesses what Newcastle have got for their £17m

The mildly interesting aspect of this summer’s Michael Owen yawn-fest has been the contrasting reactions of the English and Spanish media to the issue. In England, despite the prominence of a new hero in Andrew Flintoff, both the quality papers and the tabloids have demonstrated a touching insistence on not forgetting our Michael, stranded out there on the bench, surrounded by unappreciative foreigners. The Spanish in general, and Real Madrid in particular, have hardly raised a line about the matter – but neither would most writers if they had just witnessed the arrival of Robinho and Julio Baptista. However, the Madrileño press itself never once suggested that Owen was suddenly “fifth in the starting order” of strikers – the English phrase of the summer. They know that managers such as Vanderlei Luxemburgo do not think so simplistically. Owen could have had a future at the Bernabéu.

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