The Archive

Football has more female fans than ever before but Simon Tindall wonders if they are to likely to take an interest in the women’s game

I’ll watch any kind of football from sons and dads on the beach, pub teams in the park to the Masters tournaments on Sky. But the words “women’s football” get me reaching for the remote as fast as if the continuity man had said Formula One or Open golf. The Women’s World Cup was an opportunity to reassess this position. The manner of the coverage on the BBC and in quality press obliges you to be interested, to view this as a “good thing” – like five fruit and veg a day – as opposed to a “bad thing” to be media‑ignored like speedway, greyhounds or most boxing.

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Avram Grant analysed

Avram Grant’s arrival at Chelsea has been confusing on several levels. Questions posed have included: do the players like him? How long is he going to hang around? And, crucially for journalists, what words do we use to describe him? Grant is undeniably exotic. A Jew, an Israeli and a pal of the owner: a first in every sense.

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Paul Joyce reports on Austrian clubs selling their indentities

If your average attendance is only 800, it might seem unwise to hint to supporters that there are better ways of spending their free time. Yet this is what happened in March, when Austrian second-division side SC Schwanenstadt changed their name to SCS bet-at-home.com. It could have been worse. “It was important for us to maintain the club’s identity,” enthused Klaus Gruber, marketing manager of the online betting company behind the rebranding. “That’s why we kept their initials at the front.”

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Apart from pubs and the stands themselves, internet message boards are the best place to debate your club’s fortunes and praise or criticise in the company of fellow fans. But, as Ian Plenderleith reports, this freedom of expression is increasingly under threat as clubs use lawyers to clamp down on dissent

Many people compare the football message board to their local pub. You can meet your mates there to relax, say anything you like, and the next day no one will remember a word. There’s the odd idiot who gets out of hand and maybe a fight breaks out, but after a while everyone calms down. Sometimes it’s quiet because there’s no one around, so you leave again. And strangers are treated with suspicion until they show they didn’t just come in to cause trouble, but rather gain acceptance by expressing the sort of opinion that’s greeted with knowing nods (the online equivalent of getting your round in unprompted).

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He was a defensive liability in League One but seemingly comfortable at international level. Chris Lynham reflects on Kent’s very own World Cup star

When Neale Cooper was installed as boss of freshly relegated ­Gillingham in 2005, he decided to use his knowledge of the Scottish market to rebuild the flagging squad. In among the deranged goalkeepers and tanked-up forwards he acquired on the cheap was ­Trinidad & Tobago defender Brent Sancho, signed on a free from Dundee. With the Medway towns possibly being the only conurbation on earth that could make Dundee look like an oasis of bohemian chic, it was hardly a glamour move for Sancho. But for Gills fans it was an exciting acquisition – an established international who was intent on sealing his ticket to the World Cup in Germany.

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