Book reviews

Adam Powley wonders if Tottenham Hostpur could be selling their fans short by not taking up full allocations

It's a conspiracy theorist’s dream – not quite on a par with the Kennedy assassination, but of concern to football fans all the same. Tottenham had been accused of deliberately denying their supporters the chance to buy tickets for away games in order to force them to attend live screenings of the matches at Spurs, a serious accusation which required some clear answers. Getting them, however, proved to be a shade tricky.

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Harry Pearson charts the reversal of fortunes for Hamilton Ricard

The second and third things Middlesbrough fans least expected to see this season were resident Scandinavian fop Mikkel Beck winning a 50/50 challenge and Hamilton Ricard heading towards Christmas as one of the Premiership’s top marksmen. The barrel-chested Colombian arriv­ed at the River­side from Dep­ortivo Cali in a £2 million deal dur­ing the second-half of last season after an apparently bitter tug of love between Boro and Sheffield Un­ited over his affections.

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Everyone likes a good moan about their local council. Especially Jim Gwinnell and Rob Rushton, who suspect theirs of neglecting one half of their respective cities

BRISTOL
There has long been a feeling among Bristol Rovers fans that Bristol city council might just as well be named Bristol City council. Their suspicions of a pro-City bias on the Labour-run council have been heightened by the most recent moves in the seemingly endless saga over the future homes of the city’s two League clubs. Bristol City want a new 40,000-seater stadium to replace Ashton Gate, while Rovers are desperate for an adequate home of their own.

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Recent spats at the New Den have put the club's fans back under the microscope, but Lance Bellers explains why things are different this time around

Hooliganism would appear to be back at Millwall. Recently we have had Man City players supposedly “too frightened to go for a winner”, City fans kept in for an hour after the final whistle for their own safety and Fulham players confronted on the pitch by home fans. Same old story in south-east London? Well, yes and no.

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A proven manager was needed to steady the ship at the County Ground after the Robins' relegation from the Premier League. But as Chris Hall explains, that was not enough for some fans

Steve McMahon has gone. Vexed and exasperated by a cost-cutting administration on the one hand, an unforgiving and am-bitious group of supporters on the other. In the end it was no surprise. Things haven’t been looking good at Swindon; results have been poor for months and confidence is low.

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