Book reviews

John Earls remembers the former Luton and Manchester United keeper who was a fearless cockney wide-boy 

Of course, the news came as a shock. How­ever, as anyone who saw and above all heard him in action, that Les Sealey had suffered a fatal heart attack was, unfortunately, not a to­tal surprise. For the Manchester United def­enders who played under both keepers, there would probably be some who felt that Peter Schmeichel’s roastings were lukewarm  com­pared to Sealey yelling at them like Brian Blessed doing an Alex Ferguson impression.

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With the club failing to find somewhere suitable to relocate, the owners seem intent on cutting their losses. Ole P Pedersen explains how businessman usually expect to get their own way – but in football that's not neccessarily the case

As Wimbledon’s Norwegian owners suffer another setback in their quest for relocating the club, the battles over the club’s future have not caused much of a stir with the media in Norway. VG, Scandinavia’s biggest daily, noted in passing that Bjorn Rune Gjelsten, the main owner of Wimbledon, had again failed to move the club from its humble surroundings to “more prosperous and forward-thinking communities”.

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Wimbledon supporters are mad as hell and they're not going to take it any more, Kevin Rye tells how the Milton Keynes plans finally roused Dons fans into action

What is so unusual about calling for the chairman of your football club to resign? Criticising the board is almost part of the fabric of football, but when Wimbledon supporters recently turned on Charles Koppel for applying to the Football League to relocate the club to Milton Keynes, it was also the beginning of the end of years of apathy and denial by their fans.

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Brighton's chief executive Martin Perry talks to Andy Lyons and recalls the club's fraught period groundsharing at Gillingham and draws some parallels with Wimbledon's current situation

“If Brighton had had to stay at Gillingham for any longer than we did, I don’t think we would have survived. In our final season at the Goldstone (1996-97) our average gate was around 6,000. But in the first season at Gillingham gates dropped to some­thing like 2,500. It was a 150-mile round trip for our fans, similar to that now being proposed for Wimbledon supporters. Travelling fans were setting off before lunch and getting home after eight at night.

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Divided opinions as two fans debate as to whether Scottish football would be better off without the Old Firm

For ~
The reaction of Scottish Premier League man­agers and administrators to the suggestion that Rangers and Celtic were to leave for the English Premiership was pre­dictable, with much “Woe is me” wailing. Less predictable was the reaction of a sizeable number of fans of other clubs, which could best be sum­mar­ised as a well-known two-fingered gesture and a hearty cry of “See you later”.

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