The Archive

Graham Forshaw decribes the season which saw champions Fulham accumulate 101 points

The long-term significance
The three promoted clubs all stayed up the following season – the only time this has happened since the Premier League started. Indeed, none of the three has been relegated since. Fulham’s Jean Tigana was the only black manager in the League at the time and the first foreigner to take a team up to the top level – Ossie Ardiles had won promotion through the play-offs with Swindon Town ten years earlier but they were then demoted for financial irregularities.

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With legislation enforcing all-seater stadiums on clubs in the top two divisions of English football, Steve Bradley examines whether this benefits either clubs or supporters

While the media’s attention was distracted recently over the question of who will secure tenancy of the new 2012 Olympic Stadium, a separate move began which could have major implications for the look and feel of any future stadium developments here.

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Mark Brophy looks at the emerging trend of former player agents becoming directors of football at Premier League clubs

If a Blackburn or Newcastle fan were to feel dismay towards recent personnel changes at the heart of their club, it might not be the sackings of Sam Allardyce or Chris Hughton that were exercising them. Supporters might find the growing influence of men who previously were in the business of promoting players infinitely more worrying. Jerome Anderson, a prominent agent, has been advising Blackburn’s new owners (see WSC 288) and Kia Joorabchian, best known here for his role in Carlos Tevez’s career, has reportedly also begun to act as an advisor to Mike Ashley at Newcastle. Chelsea fans needn’t be smug either: super-agent Pini Zahavi is a member of Roman Abramovich’s inner circle.

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Ever wanted to be a football pundit? Glen Wilson explains how easy it was to be mistaken for a virtual Andy Townsend

As Andy Gray took his final “boo” last month and emptied his desk of his telestrators and On The Buses DVDs, another much less prominent Andy also saw his media presence terminated. As Gray was exiting Sky Sports, Twitter was suspending the account of @AndyDTownsend, the satirical feed which had inadvertently found itself involved in the sexism scandals, having been mistaken by the Independent journalist Andy Herbert for the actual Andy Townsend.

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Qatar’s World Cup win was a surprise to many, but Steve Wilson argues that maybe it shouldn’t have come as such a shock

When pictures of public gatherings in Doha and London were beamed across rolling news channels on the evening of December 2, it wasn’t just the palm trees in the background, or lack of them, that helped the viewer with their geography.

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