The Archive

Football's popularity soars as Pompey are only the second southern team to become Champions, Mike Ticher writes

The long-term significance
Never has football been more popular than in the third full season after the war. Or, to put it another way, never have people’s lives been so bereft of entertainment and escape that they gorged themselves even on the Third Division South. Clothes rationing ended in 1949, but half-time tea and sugar were still restricted until the 1950s, as were petrol and soap. Almost 18 million glamour-starved people watched First Division football (compared with nearly 13 million for the Premiership last season). But the most remarkable figures were in the third divisions, where the presence of Raich Carter and Tommy Lawton pushed average crowds above 30,000 at Hull and Notts County, respectively. Seven current League clubs drew their record crowd that season.

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The FA's reaction to the Burns Report

Several mysterious half-seen creatures are said to exist in the UK. There’s the Beast of Bodmin, a giant cat that’s held responsible for the death of livestock in south-west England. The Loch Ness monster lurks in various hazy photographs, lovingly reproduced on early-hours TV documentaries. And, perhaps the most spectral of all, there’s Geoff Thompson. He’s a bearded man in late middle age, occasionally sighted getting in and out of taxis, and is said by some to be the chairman of the FA. Many doubted his existence, but suddenly at the end of October 2006 he both appeared in full public view and made a useful contribution to an important matter. Thompson voted to abolish his own post, one in a series of measures for reforming the FA proposed by the Burns Report.

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Cameron Carter bemoans Sky 3's obsession with Manchester Utd

Digital television, if it were a person, would register at a high point on the autistic spectrum – nervous as it is of any change, limited in imagination and happiest when repeating its behaviour. Sky 3 is a very digital channel. Their latest big documentary idea was George Best – Football Genius, first shown on October 24 and which is certain to run and run.

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In his home town of Burton Mark Rowe discovers the FA's latest "white elephant"

My home town of Burton upon Trent has few claims to fame. It once had two teams in the League. I was at junior school with the younger sister of Garry Stanley, who played for Chelsea. Last season Burton Albion took Manchester United to an FA Cup third-round replay. You can still see the commemorative scarves at the Pirelli Stadium, no doubt complying with all intellectual property laws, half in United ­colours, half in Burton’s yellow and black.

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Panorama caught a few people making embarrassing statements, but David Stubbs wonders if the producers should have done better and if they were looking at the right targets

The way the BBC flagged up Alex Millar’s exposé of bungs in football like an overexcited linesman may have been an attempt to reflate the reputation of the beleaguered Panorama, or because they had struck serious dirt. The lack of advance tapes heightened the air of expectation. It was enough, evidently, to unnerve Harry Redknapp, who protested that he was an astonishing “one million per cent” clean as a whistle and any attempt to suggest otherwise would incur his legal wrath. In the event, all they had on Harry was footage of him putting up a jowly stonewall as he was offered a free trip to the 2006 World Cup to view some players. “Sounds fantastic,” he remarked, non-incriminatingly. What could he possibly have been worried about?

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