The Archive

Reform is on the agenda in Scotland – but that’s nothing new. Dianne Millen takes a sceptical look at the latest proposals on restructuring the divisions and introducing promotion from non-League

 In December George Peat, chairman of the Scottish Football Association, announced the “biggest and most thorough investigation yet” into the structure and governance of football in the country. Coming just a few days before the final meeting of the arbitration panel convened to rule on the 2006 proposal for a break­away “SPL2”, the proposals took a low-key tone, with SFA chief executive Gordon Smith explaining: “We’re not necessarily making major changes – we’re just looking to see whether if, when you bring together all the stakeholders that are involved within the game, whether there are ideas that could be put forward.” 

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In May, St Andrew’s and the Madejski were cloaked in relegation doom. Now the hope of automatic promotion – with the play-off anxiety that accompanies that prospect – suffuses the meeting between the teams second and third in the Championship. Are they about to swap places? Roger Titford was there

Only an idiot or a football manager would say this was just another game, just another three points.  It stands like a giant sign post, the opening game of the second half of the Championship season, a potential turning point.  Birmingham City have occupied one of the automatic promotion spots from the off but they are beginning to splutter, trailing Wolves by six points. Reading are now only one behind the Blues. Both clubs were relegated from the Premier League last season and both are desperate to get back up before the parachute money runs out and they fall to parsimonious ignominy with a dull thud. It is second versus third in a three-horse race where only the first two get decent prizes and it is being run at an exceptional pace. We’re all off to witness and feel “momentum shift”. If I just wanted to see what happens I’d be better off at home watching it on Sky with my cough. But I’m making a rare away trip, despite Sky, because Reading will need every voice and body we can get in the stadium.

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Some retired footballers go into management, but for many lazing on the cosy pundits' sofa is irresistible. Harry Pearson observes

Back in the 1960s, commentators such as Kenneth Wolstenholme and Huw Johns effectively spent 90 minutes on Saturday afternoon talking to themselves: “Now I wonder what United can come up with in response to that?” They would probe, before replying, after a brief pause: “This boy Brown looks like he may have half an idea!”

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Carlos Queiroz's move home from Manchester United has not gone well. Phil Town reports on a national team suddenly in crisis

Despite a series of nearly-got-theres during five years as Portugal coach, by the summer of 2008 Luiz Felipe Scolari had overstayed his welcome and wanted out to lusher pastures. Perhaps seduced by his two successive World Cup wins at Under-20 level (1989 and ’91) and by his association with Manchester United’s successes in recent years, but apparently ignoring his indifferent previous spell as national coach (ten wins from 23 games between 1991 and ’93), the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) put their faith in the Mozambique-born Carlos ­Queiroz, at the time a popular choice. 

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Six months after winning La Liga, Bernd Schuster has been sacked by Real Madrid. Phil Ball thinks it was always a mismatch

And so Bernie Schuster is gone – he of the porn moustache and the Pringle sweaters. Sacked by Real Madrid, by “mutual agreement” five days before the clásico at the Camp Nou, he has walked off after 18 months with a paltry €7 million (£6.6m), and is currently taking calls on his mobile for his next job, from the leafy confines of Madrid’s swankiest golf course.

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