The Archive

Steve Menary assesses the debts of clubs in the English league and discusses whether the goverment should intervene into football politics

Since the turn of the year, a committee of MPs from across the political spectrum have been interviewing football administrators to work out whether the game’s governance is “fit for purpose”. The hearings are over, the committee’s recommendations are due in June and the case for reform is compelling.

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Georgina Turner is sick and tired of an inane background hum – constant chirrupings from the extra in the commentary box

“I’ve got to say that to get away with that in such a hostile environment, you’ve got to count your chickens” – the wisdom of Ray Wilkins, following Peter Crouch’s second bookable tackle early in the first leg of Real Madrid v Tottenham Hotspur.

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Mark Segal questions whether an overtly strict approach to players’ use of Twitter is precluding an exciting new opportunity

During his undistinguished seven-match England career, striker Carlton Cole has failed to put a smile on the face of Fabio Capello or his bosses at the Football Association.

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Mark Brophy isn’t surprised that both clubs and players take the big-money gamble on promising teenagers

I wouldn’t recognise Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, the Southampton winger, if I saw him in the street. Thanks to the footballing gossip columns, I know that he’s 17 and the same kind of hot property Theo Walcott was in his Saints days, supposedly worth £10 million and interesting the very biggest English clubs. Ipswich’s Connor Wickham, perhaps better known, is another to be the subject of speculation on a close-season transfer. Should either make a move this summer they will be embarking on a well-trodden path.

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Continuing our anniversary series we look back at how the spectator experience has changed in the last 25 years. David Wangerin was fascinated with English football in the 1980s as everything was so different to his native US. Times have changed

I was unlucky, I suppose, that both of the first two English football matches I ever saw ended without a goal. But what I remember most about my first trip to Villa Park, on the first Saturday of February, 1984, wasn’t the score, the weather, or even the opposition: it was all the empty seats.

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