The Archive

Al Needham gets nostalgic over a clash of two sides still hoping to return to a time of former glories

I don’t mean to bang on about the past, but this fixture really brings it out in me. Forest v Ipswich was the first game I ever went to, on October 4, 1977. I stood as a nine-year-old in the Trent End with Ian Marriott and his dad, gasping at the sight of the blues and reds merging with the green, floodlit pitch – just like the picture on the Subbuteo box that I’d just got from him in exchange for an Action Man (in one of those undersized tanks, where his arms hung over the side) – my head fizzing as Kenny Burns, Peter Shilton and Viv Anderson ran about in front of me just like they did on the telly.

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Owen Amos uncovers the facts surrounding Lee Trundle’s mysterious move Welsh Premier League side Neath

When Lee Trundle was released by Bristol City in May, he was expected to stay in the Football League. This, after all, was a forward with 118 league goals in 320 games. Indeed, Trundle was a million-pound striker: three years earlier, he’d moved from Swansea to Bristol for seven figures. But, despite offers from Swindon, Tranmere, Yeovil and Newport, he signed for Neath in the Welsh Premier League, a club with an average gate of 221. Trundle, the showboating star of Soccer AM, probably gets bigger crowds for his book signings (Lee Trundle, More Than Just Tricks – £16.99 in hardback if you’re interested).

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Big spending Premier League clubs could learn from the style and management of the newly promoted sides

The English Premier League is a festering mess of greed, sleaze and stupidity but, allowing for that, the 2010-11 season is shaping up quite well. It is at least less predictable than at any time in the century so far. It may be too much to hope for only three months in, but there is cause for thinking that, for only the second time in Premier League history, none of the three promoted clubs will go straight back down. For anyone other than local rivals of the clubs in question, this ought to be seen as a sign of progress.

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Simon Hart looks back at the 1980s experiment that was the Screensport Super Cup

Football loves its anniversaries but not even the most nostalgic-minded supporters are likely to dwell for too long on the Screensport Super Cup, the ill-conceived substitute for European football that began its short life 25 years ago this autumn.

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Analysis of John W Henry’s controversial ownership takeover at Liverpool

As the Guardian headline Enter Americans Exit Americans suggests, it is difficult to tell what has changed at Liverpool and what remains the same. After a long and complex legal battle, John W Henry finally took ownership of the club from the outgoing Tom Hicks and George Gillett this month. The takeover seemed to dominate the news for days on end. 

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