Battling on despite the halt of Wagon Wheel production due to industrial action, magazine editor Andy Lyons, writer Harry Pearson and host Daniel Gray discuss club mergers from Thames Valley Royals to Manstock County. There is a delve into the pages of WSC issue 402 including the mechanics of the Season Guide and the difference between a “fan” and a “supporter”, and Record Breakers takes us to Rotterdam, Vancouver and Cardiff. Plus, international retirements and refusals and football grounds built into mountains.
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Stories
Roger Titford on the proposal to Oxford United and Reading in the early 1908s
If megalomaniac tycoon and serial football chairman Robert Maxwell had not made two monstrous errors, there could well have been a Thames Valley United in Division Three in 1983-84 in place of Reading and his Oxford United. And, as David Lacey wrote in the Guardian at the time, “as a method of killing off two Football League clubs at a stroke the scheme surely has few rivals”.
Pm Doutreligne is proud to support a Brussels club with a singular history, and opposes a merger with local rivals
In August my team, Union Saint-Gilloise, played a pre-season friendly, five miles away at FC Brussels. Although both based in the Belgian capital, the two clubs could hardly be any more different.
Ian Plenderleith looks back at the stunning contribution made to non-league football made by Tony Kempster, who passed away in June
Fans of the non-League game were unanimous in mourning this past June when one of its most devoted figures, Tony Kempster, died of cancer. This column has featured Kempster’s impeccable online guide to the nether leagues of England before, and used it for reference on countless occasions. He defied all internet trends by investing an unbelievable amount of time and energy to inform hundreds of thousands of fans about the structure of non-League football. There was no commercial motive, and there was no easy escape route into blogging and Twitter. Typically for the non-League milieu, Kempster’s work was born of dedication.