Book reviews

David Harrison explains why Watford decided to sell their stadium again after they had just bought it. It wasn't because they didn't like the colour

The trouble with detailing recent boardroom activity at Watford is that the goalposts keep mov­ing – on­­ly metaphorically to date, but confidence is dwin­dling that that is how it will stay. In February 2001, the club confirmed, to widespread local rejoicing, that re­location plans had finally and irrevocably proved fruitless. Three months later they announced they would pay a six-figure sum to buy the ground from the existing freeholders, Punch Taverns, thus “securing their fut­ure at Vicarage Road in perpetuity”. Hankies out.

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Paul Hutton reflects on a sordid affair north of the border

It’s enough to make even Marti Pellow weep – on July 9 Clydebank, the club whose shirts were once sponsored by Wet Wet Wet, ceased to exist as a Scottish League club. Having sur­vived more traumas in the last few years than anyone deserves, Clydebank were finally sold by the administrators to a Glasgow-based ac­countant and Airdrie fan, Jim Ballantyne. They will play next season’s fixtures as tenants in the ground left vacant by Airdrie’s liquidation, in Airdrie’s colours, under the name Airdrie United.

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From top to bottom, in Britain and abroad, fooball's finances are in a mess. Dave Jennings examines the plight of one club, Bradford City

I was sitting in my usual seat at Valley Parade, but something was badly wrong. There were only about 200 people there, and we were watching a truly dire game. A handful of away fans were chanting “Hello, hello, League rejects”. Fortunately, I then woke up and realised that it had all been a particularly vivid nightmare. Bradford City weren’t a non-League club… yet.

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Is Terry Venables really any good as a coach? Leeds' new manager is the subject of this month's Head to Head

Yes ~
I met Terry Venables once. He’d brought out a rather bizarre board game called The Man­ager and was trying to sell it as a TV pro­gramme. I was hired to answer the quiz ques­tions on it in front of some BBC big­wigs. They didn’t take it up and I had to spend the morning with Eric Hall, so it wasn’t a suc­cessful day.

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Gillingham will have to persevere without their leading light in attack, as Haydn Parry reports

Gillingham will be spending the season with­out their leading scorer Marlon King, after the striker’s appeal against a conviction for hand­ling stolen goods, namely a BMW convertible, was rejected in July. King’s sentence of 18 mon­ths, initially handed down at the Inner Lon­don Crown Court on May 10, will now be­gin from the date of the appeal.

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