The Archive

Many early FA Cup triumphs deserve to be just footnotes of a bygone age but, as Tom Green explains, that of Blackburn Olympic in the 1883 final was a turning point in the history of the game

 At the start of 1882-83, Blackburn Olympic weren’t even the best team in Blackburn. If anyone was going to challenge the public school old boys who still dominated the game, it would surely be Blackburn Rovers. They were the team with the money, the connections and the support – they had even poached Olympic’s captain, Joe Beverley.

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Tranmere's Gavin Ward's celebrated 80-yard goal against Orient leaves just another 63 to go to match the current king of goalscoring keepers, as Robert Shaw reports from Brazil

Liverpool fans may recall the São Paulo goalkeeper’s heroics in Tokyo last December, but the truly distinctive aspect of Rogerio Ceni is the havoc he wreaks at the other end. When Ceni’s delicately clipped free-kick and penalty salvaged a 2-2 draw for São Paulo against Cruzeiro on August 20, he set a world-record scoring tally for a keeper of 64 goals, two ahead of the Paraguayan José Luis Chilavert.

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London clubs are shining at the highest levels, but some lesser lights in the city are in steep decline. Gavin Willacy charts the struggles of former semi-pro giants brought low in part by property prices

On August 15, Enfield FC marked the 25th anniversary of their first home game in the Conference. It was their first home game of the season, a local derby and, as on that day in 1981, was played alongside the A10. The car park was packed. Unfortunately, the drivers were there to play five-a-side next door to Ware FC, 13 miles from Enfield’s spiritual home. The home end was populated by just 13 Enfield fans and one pram (occupied), who bayed throughout their home defeat to Potters Bar Town in the Ryman League Division One North. 

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Some of the biggest global websites rely entirely on contributions from users. Ian Plenderleith looks at what two of them have to offer football fans and finds some artificial community spirit elsewhere

Going in to the “soccer” section of YouTube is a little like entering a massive second-hand record shop that has no categories or alphabetical order. You feel a shimmer of excitement, knowing there’s probably some good stuff in there somewhere, and possibly even everything you want. The difficulty, though, is wading through all the crap to find it.

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World renowned names arrive at Stamford Bridge with the added confusion as to who's signing them. Oh and England have a new man at the helm

Summer is usually spent finding ways to fill time before the next football season starts. No such problem this year, of course, with just four weeks between the end of the World Cup and the Football League’s opening fixtures. It may be an effect of the heatwave, but we’ve thought of a few reasons to feel optimistic about 2006-07.

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