The Archive

The Conference could claim both sides, but the fans of these supporter-owned clubs will not give up easily, no matter how many points the players throw away. Taylor Parkes reports

It has never been fun being bottom of the heap. The Conference spreads its jaws, so you can smell its breath. It smells of damp, failure and loss, empty stands and uncertainty. When you’re low, you think you might never stop falling. The last thing you need is to hear that someone somewhere might consider you “unsustainable”.

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After years of coughing up whatever it cost to watch Preston, Gavin Willacy has had enough. Or rather, too much, as ticket prices spiral beyond common sense

Last August Bank Holiday was a pivotal day for me as a football fan. For the first time, I decided against going to watch my team, Preston, solely because of the ticket price. We were away at Ipswich – a relatively local game for me, living in Hertford – and I was away on holiday when we won down the road at Watford on opening day. So surely I would go to Portman Road? Not with tickets at £25 a pop (plus an extra two quid on the day!), especially as it was live on Sky. Instead I watched it in a pub and celebrated our astonishing 4-0 win with friends at a barbecue.

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Bruce Wilkinson finds out about the added extras you have to pay on the internet in order to acquire tickets

 When the cost of watching a Premiership match can be upwards of £50 it can come as quite a shock to find that this is far from the complete price of admission to a game of football. You may have to pay several pounds in booking or administration fees; fork out to join a membership scheme or away travel club; or even have to give the club thousands of pounds for a debenture or to join a bond scheme. Whereas once you were able to turn up to a match and hand the turnstile attendant your tenner, supporters now need to be aware of a multitude of add-on costs to the advertised admission price.

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As the World Cup approaches, the possibility of violence is a concern but so is the ability of the German police to tell the difference between a fan and a hooligan, writes Paul Joyce

On November 27, 53 Polish hooligans drove to a wood in Briesen in north-east Germany for a pre-World Cup fight with 45 hooligans drawn from the region’s Hell’s Angels and nightclub bouncer scene, one of whom had been involved in the assault on French policeman Daniel Nivel at the 1998 World Cup. Although German hooligans had previously been keeping a low profile at home, fears of a resurgence of organised violence had already surfaced last March, when more than 40 Germany followers were arrested after rioting during a friendly in Slovenia. 

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England v Trinidad, France v Togo – former imperial powers playing ex-colonies is a special World Cup theme. Phil Town reports on reaction in Lisbon to a similar game 

Portugal and Angola have met just twice on the football pitch, both trouncings that went Portugal’s way: in 1989 they won 6-0, in 2001 5-1. But if you wanted evidence of the much longer links between the two countries you need only look at the latter game, and the whiff of a colonial war about it.

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