Book reviews

Fans going to the Boleyn Ground this season will have to dig even deeper for tickets, reports Darron Kirkby

There it was, lying on the mat next to the application form for an American Express card and the letter about how to become a millionaire by stuffing envelopes – the annual missive from the West Ham United ticket office telling us how much we would have to pay next season.Skimming past the platitudes about how much our support meant to the club, I came to the prices. Fortunately I was sitting down. My ticket had gone up from £370 to £520, a slightly out-of-line-with-inflation in-crease of 41 per cent.

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Patrick Harverson examines the furore that followed the publication last month of a report that detailed huge rises in footballers' wages in the past year

Are footballers paid too much? It is a simple enough question, but one that evades a simple answer. It can be, and often is, argued that footballers are paid too much in relation to the amount of money their clubs earn, or in relation to the performance they deliver on the pitch, or – as several tabloid newspapers suggested recently – in relation to the amount of money a nurse earns.

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His club Scarborough are doing well but as Mark Staniforth explains, getting to the play-offs in the Third Division is no great achievement

In my darkest moments – either a 4-0 defeat at Rochdale or an argument with a girlfriend brought about by a 4-0 defeat at Rochdale – I often wonder  what is the purpose of a Third Division football club.  It is no longer to act as a feeder club to any of the Premiership sides; they just go abroad or buy the boys when they’re six years old anyway.

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Three blood-curdling stories, one from the present day, two from the past, of the players who fell foul of their own supporters. Jonathan Barnes, Phil Ball and Al Needham explain

James Scowcroft, Ipswich Town
As Ipswich Town took the lead in their home fixture with bottom-of-the-table Reading in March, the celebrations of a certain section of the 19,000 Portman Road crowd were, to say the least, half-hearted. The displeasure of the fans is at the identity of the scorer – the man in the No 10 shirt. Rarely has a player been able to divide a set of fans as drastically as James Scowcroft.

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Despite three red cards at Oakwell that nearly resulted in a riot in the stands, Richard Darn feels that referees don't deserve the abuse they get 

In just 40 tragic minutes, Mr Willard, a “top” referee from Worthing, was crossed off 16,500 Christmas card lists in Barnsley. His crime was to cack-handedly preside over a home defeat at the hands of Liverpool. For most of the crowd, a bit of foul-mouthed bellowing sufficed. Others were moved to throw coins and spit. A few carted their beer-inflated carcasses onto the pitch to exact instant revenge.

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