The Archive

A club's sudden demise has left many fans angry, or worse, suspicious. Saul Pope sheds some light on events in Russia's capital

At this year’s New Year celebrations, FC Moscow fans toasting their side would have been looking forward to the new season. The club had finished in the top six the previous year, was in the semi-final of the Russian Cup and had a promising young manager in Montenegrin Miodrag Božović. But in early February they suddenly found themselves without a club after their main investor announced they were stopping sponsorship and removing the club from the league. This sponsor is Norilsk Nickel, the world’s biggest producer of nickel, based in Taimyr, a peninsula 6,500 kilometres from Moscow.

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Dermot Corrigan reports on the very different approach of a club bucking the trend of financial chaos in the League of Ireland

The self-made millionaire who takes over a football club, bringing initial success followed by disappointment and disaster, is a stock character in football, as fans of English clubs as disparate as Chester City and Crystal Palace know well. But the story of Wexford Youths and Irish property developer/philanthropist/philosopher Mick Wallace is different. Or so it seems anyway.

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Maidstone United hoped that the sale of a talented young player would allow them to return home. As John Bunyard explains, this hasn't happened

I first saw it one Saturday as I walked down the side of the Sittingbourne pitch. It was best described as a half-Fellaini: an attempt at an afro curtailed by an over-zealous barber. It sat atop the head of the kid deputising for our regular centre-back, absent for the unlikely reason of being under arrest on a charge of attempted murder. Though a tall lad, he looked too young to buy a drink.

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Cameron Carter settles down to watch the 2010 Carling Cup final and spends most of his time wondering whether it is worth his attention

Historically speaking, it is not always possible to determine something’s significance at the time. Who knew that an off-hand shooting of some old Austrian guy would lead to the First World War? Or that Howard would be a non-expendable member of Take That? The BBC experienced the same dilemma with the Carling Cup final. While whoever has the rights to the FA Cup coverage each year repeatedly informs us it is a competition everyone really still strains to win, the Carling Cup’s significance is an even tougher media sale.

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The Premier League recently rejected a proposal to introduce play-offs for Champions League places. David Wangerin explains what even its consideration tells us about the state of the game

You could be forgiven for thinking that the most important thing about English football this season is not who will win the Premier League, but who will finish fourth. To many, it’s a slightly surreal notion and one not easy to reconcile. Have we become jaded by the monotony of the same four teams jousting for English supremacy? Or is the Champions League casting an ever-larger shadow on the domestic game?

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