Reviews from When Saturday Comes. Follow the link to buy the book from Amazon.
Between acting, punditry and chat shows, does Ally McCoist have the time to score goals for Kilmarnock? Graeme Jamieson reports
Is the fairytale over? Breaking his leg against Rangers in October may have been Ally McCoist’s last act in football. Those cheery souls in the Scottish press suggested that the Kilmarnock striker, who will retire at the end of the season, would never play again. The official line is that he’ll be back after the winter break. The question is, should he bother?
Huge debt, daily losses and a bankrupt chairman – Dominic Fifield recounts the sorry saga at Crystal Palace
Crystal Palace, founder members of the Premier League which they left just two years ago, have now been perched on the brink of oblivion for nearly a year. Over £20 million in debt and losing £40,000 every week, south London’s perennial under-achievers have been brought to their knees by gross financial mismanagement.
Blessed with an unpopular chairman, Colin Dobell writes on how a group of fans were encouraged to formulate a plan to make Mansfield their own once more
The story of Mansfield Town’s decline is a familiar one of dubious financial dealings, serially broken promises and a wanton lack of investment. However, it may not have a conventional ending if the efforts of a group of fans achieves its goal of ousting the current chairman Keith Haslam. Unlike other such campaigns, they also have concrete ideas about how to go about replacing him effectively.
Relieved to see the end of Peter Johnson's reign at Everton, Neil Wolstenholme hopes for better times at Goodison Park
Given the many false dawns over the past year I will only believe that Bill Kenwright has bought Everton when Peter Johnson’s shares are safely transferred. As Kenwright is a current director of the club, the process of due diligence, allowing for the books to be examined before the deal is a concluded, should not be a problem. A bigger concern for many fans lies in the identity of the new owner’s possible backers, rumoured to include marketing moguls the Barclay brothers and the corporate raider Philip Green, recently linked to an attempted takeover of Marks and Spencer. It is to be hoped Kenwright will identify his partners as soon as possible.
Jan Molby talks to Huw Richards and tells him about cultural changes in his time in England and the transition from player to manager
As a youngster, how conscious were you of British football?
Very aware of it. In my part of Denmark, the interest was in English and German football – in other parts it’s only in the English game. The Danish game then was still amateur. My first team was Arsenal. It was the year they won the double and while I didn’t know what the double was, you get interested in teams you see a lot on television. That interest in British football is still there in Denmark. There was a period when you had stars like the Laudrup brothers playing in Spain and Italy when they got the similar coverage, but nowadays all the kids want to play for Manchester United, who have incredible support in Denmark, the same way Liverpool do in Norway. I remember when we played Rosenberg, there were about 10,000 people to greet us at the airport and in a stadium holding 24,000 there were 21,000 supporting Liverpool.