The Archive

The Northamptonshire marriage has already made it into (and out of) the Football League; now an east London club with roots in four others are riding high in the Conference. David Stubbs watches the battle of the mergers

There’s always that great Saturday afternoon matchday sense you get that you’re approaching a stadium. Suddenly, as you walk into the station, you realise you’re part of a steadily growing crowd. The pace has quickened, with everyone walking with a slightly cocky, anticipatory gait. You squeeze on to the District Line, a hitherto empty carriage now bulging. Then, two stops down, everyone ups and pours out of the carriages en masse. Everyone, that is, except you. For the stop is Upton Park. They’re all off to West Ham v Watford, whereas you are heading further up the line, towards Dagenham East. And now, as the train pushes on, you’re alone in the carriage, except for another bloke and a dog. And they’re getting off at Upney.

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A minor indiscretion is set to cost AFC Wimbledon their chance of promotion. Robert Jeffery explains how the good disciplinary record of an ineligible player made matters worse, while Scarborough have had their troubles, too

There’s nothing AFC Wimbledon fans love more than a bit of drama. The years of fighting proposed moves to Dublin, Gatwick, Milton Keynes and God knows where else; the glare of publicity as the club took their first tentative steps in the Combined Counties League; the early flurry of trophies and promotions.

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Paul Ince and the dearth of black managers

Should you need evidence that football is the global game, then England is the place to find it. The Premiership is the most widely followed league in the world (if not perhaps the best, whatever Sky may claim) and there are more nationalities represented in it than any other. All of which throws into stark relief that in one way English football upholds a very old tradition – almost all the managers are white.

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Agents or club chairmen – who are most disliked? Polling even worse are the growing subset who step from one job to the other. As one agent who helped bankrupt a club faces jail in Switzerland, Dan Brennan looks at the puzzling trend

Letting a football agent take control of your club might sound a bit like handing a burglar a spare set of keys to your house and telling him where the family silver is kept. That is certainly how it must now feel to supporters of Servette, the venerable Swiss club that went bankrupt two years ago and were forced to begin life again in the third division.

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A season ruined by a controversial points deduction. David Wangerin writes

A club unable to balance their books is nothing new to football; start with Chelsea and work your way down. In the case of Scarborough, though, there has been no Russian tycoon to underwrite their bid for glory and overspending problems have left the club languishing in administration for the past several years. This was converted into a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) last May, just before the Conference’s AGM.

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