The Archive

Tom Davies looks at three more clubs in crisis

One of the genuinely encouraging success stories of recent seasons has been Stockport County, rescued by a fans’ takeover three years ago, promoted via the League Two play-offs last year and well placed in League One until a recent slump. However, the realities of running a club to budget could yet overwhelm County, with lingering debts threatening to push the club into administration before the end of the season and a familiar search for investment becoming the priority.

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In 1989 football’s future was uncertain. Roger Titford looks at how Hillsbrough began a process which created a safer but less visceral experience for fans

Just as they had been in 1969, the 1989 FA Cup semi-finals were scheduled for simultaneous 3pm kick-offs at Villa Park and Hillsborough. Twenty years on in 2009 they will be both be at Wembley on different days, live on TV and under the banner of “E.on, bringing families and football together”. If you can remember 1969 and 1989 you will read a hidden sub-text in that banner; something like “keeping young blokes and football apart”.

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Ian Plenderleith examines a selection of websites that remember stadiums from football's past

There’s an online version of a book filled with aerial pictures of Lost Football Stadiums that shows a bird’s eye view on the sites of demolished grounds. Some are shockingly prosaic views of housing projects, industrial estates and supermarkets. To many of us, it seems like sacrilege not just to demolish a ground, but also to leave little or no evidence that it ever existed. Scunthorpe’s Old Showground is nothing but a memorial brick in a wall, while the flats of Leicester’s Filbert Village no more resemble a rural settlement then they do a former football stadium. The preservation of Highbury’s façade is an honourable exception.

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Dear WSC
Harry Pearson’s Riverside revisited (WSC 265) is undeniably trying to inflate Middlesbrough’s collective status and ego, as one would rather expect from a supporter of the club. He has tried to stretch the comparison just a little too far. Wealthy backers or otherwise, Manchester City have a history, status and, most importantly, a support Middlesbrough FC can only wish for. They, along with the the likes of Blackburn, Fulham and Wigan, are artifically sustained at an inflated level, due to wealthy indulgence from their owner/backer. It is quite clear their respective publics are unable to sustain a level of support home or away that would be expected, or indeed viable, for a club in the top tier. This is one of the consequences of the Premier League and the effect of wealth (one individual’s in these instances).The sole reason for Middlesbrough ever attaining Premier League status was down to the largesse of their chairman, rather than his selection of his “hero” as his first appointment as manager.
Steve Browne, Leigh-on-Sea

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Ivory Coast’s match with Malawi ended in horrific circumstances as 19 fans lost their lives. James Copnall investigates where things went wrong

The 19 dead and 132 injured in Africa’s latest stadium disaster, in Abidjan in Ivory Coast, suggest lessons haven’t been learned from past tragedies. On Sunday the problems started outside the stadium. Thousands of supporters, many without tickets, milled round the freshly painted bright orange walls of the Félix Houphouët-Boigny stadium. Music was blasting from inside the stadium, and queues outside stretched hundreds of metres even four hours before the 5pm kick-off. The World Cup qualifier, against a limited Malawi side, was expected to be an easy and morale-boosting victory. Local football fans needed a lift after the fiasco of the inaugural international tournament for African-based players in February, which Ivory Coast hosted and flopped at; the national side had also performed badly at an African junior competition in Rwanda. Perhaps more importantly, in a country where he has reached a staggering level of stardom, Didier Drogba was playing on home soil, for the first time in over a year. What happened next will be a topic of debate for a long time.

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