The Archive

From Port Vale to Port of Spain, and now Los Angeles. Andy Fraser charts the progress of a Caribbean cult hero born in Stafford

When Chris Birchall signed for LA Galaxy this summer, it marked a new twist in a once-promising career that seemed stalled in the lower leagues. While Birchall had all but disappeared in the UK following his unlikely World Cup heroics for Trinidad & Tobago three years ago, across the Atlantic his performances for his adopted nation lingered longer in the memory. On signing the Stafford-born midfielder, Galaxy’s coach Bruce Arena spoke of his longstanding admiration for the player Trinidadians hail as a national hero and affectionately refer to as “Me Mum”.

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Taylor Parkes reflects on a new book that paints a gloomy picture of how young players are treated in Britain

In 1997, concerned that English football was falling behind in terms of youth development, the FA brought in Howard Wilkinson (then, as now, the last English manager to win the League). His mission was to produce a document which would outline the problems and propose a fresh approach; the amusingly titled A Charter for Quality still forms the basis of our youth coaching system. Its changes were far-reaching: clubs would take sole charge of recruiting and developing young players, while the age at which kids could be taken on “full time” dropped from 14 to nine. In the first half of last season, just 66 graduates of Premier League academies appeared on Premier League teamsheets, many of them confirmed benchwarmers. What went wrong?

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Andy Brassell looks at an organisation, run by a former international, that seeks to protect young players in Africa

While the football world at large queued up to applaud RC Lens’ stand against Chelsea after the Londoners were punished over the Gaël Kakuta affair, one voice from across the channel notably dissented. Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini may have mentioned Kakuta as a victim of “child slavery” and “child trafficking”, but Jean-Claude Mbvoumin knows the full meaning of those terms and the often neglected problem that they represent in the game.

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The experiment of using additional officials in the Europa League does not appear to be working

This season’s Europa League matches have generated more media interest than is usually given to Europe’s secondary club competition but it has nothing to do with the new league format and silly name change. The games are being watched with keen interest because they involve two extra officials stationed behind the goals.

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Numbers matter to the supporters of Brazil's biggest club sides but the figures don't always add up. Robert Shaw reports

Flamengo are seen by many as Brazil’s Manchester United – at least when it comes to support, if not titles. Size matters to their fans who proclaim themselves the biggest such group in the world (Maior do Mundo) by draping a large banner to that effect at all Flamengo games in the Maracanã. In a country where the away support for Serie A clubs hardly goes beyond a couple of coach-loads Flamengo routinely manage to compete with, if not outnumber, the home turn-out.

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