Reviews from When Saturday Comes. Follow the link to buy the book from Amazon.
With talk of the club being up for sale, the heady days of Jack Walker's reign at Blackburn Rovers seem so long ago, Bruce Wilkinson writes
Reports in the Daily Mirror that the owners of Blackburn Rovers could be willing to listen to offers for the club have come as a shock to the team’s supporters, under the impression that the Jack Walker Trust, set up on his deathbed, would run the club in perpetuity.
Likelihood is that Premiership newcomers Crystal Palace will be heading back to the Football League come May. Matthew Barker explains why a power struggle at Selhurst Park isn't going to help
Simon Jordan can be a difficult man to like, but equally one can easily feel rather sorry for him. This, after all, is the man who arrived at Selhurst Park in 2000, sorted through the rubble of the Mark Goldberg era and pulled the club through one of their darkest hours. A seemingly bright young thing, he spent money – lots of it (most estimates home in at around the £30 million mark) – and brought a new zippy business sense to a place that had barely survived the previous two years of calamitous mismanagement and misjudged transfer dealings.
While the east midlands mourns a great manager, Brian Clough's native region has lost a great player. Harry Pearson traces a legend's goalscoring career
It was during the 1986 World Cup. England had got off to a pathetic start and in the ITV studio Mick Channon was lamenting the inability of English players to “get by people”. “The Brazilians do it,” he burbled. “The French do it. The Danes do it…” From off camera came an unmistakable whine: “Even educated fleas do it.” Brian Clough may have won titles and European Cups, but the queasy, humiliated expression that remark put on Channon’s medieval mug will likely live longer in my memory than any of them. To anyone who grew up on Teesside the tone, if not the accent (Clough’s peculiar vocal style was all his own) was unmistakable. Funny undoubtedly, but also scornful, the humorous equivalent of a slap in the face.
Where were you when you heard the news about Jimmy Glass's goal? In an excerpt from his autobiography, the goalkeeper recalls Carlisle United's JFK moment
We were well into added time when Scott Dobie hit a cross from the right. It came off a Plymouth defender and went out for a corner. I looked across at the manager, Nigel Pearson. At other times when I’ve wanted to run up the field, people have told me to go back. No faith in football to come up with a wonder moment. But now I thought, “Sod it.” What was there to lose? Nigel shrugged his shoulders and waved me up. I began my 100-yard dash up the pitch, hoping to arrive in the penalty area before Graham Anthony took the corner.
Regardless of how West Bromwich Albion fare in the Premiership this season, Neil Reynolds explains why the rocky ground between manager Gary Megson and chairman Jeremy Peace doesn't necessarily mean a sacking is on the cards
Gary Megson took over as manager of West Bromwich Albion on March 9, 2000 and saved the club from relegation back to Division Two; in his next season he got them to the play-offs. Automatic promotion to the Premiership came 12 months on, followed by not unexpected relegation and automatic promotion again last season. That’s an impressive record over the past four years, plus he’s young and he’s English. So how can there possibly be any doubt over his future?