Search: ' Ian McParland'

Forty years ago the Atlanta Chiefs of the North American Soccer League played across the baseball infield, over gridiron markings and beside a smoking teepee – called into action for goal celebrations – to bring the city its first sports championship

Stadium demolition is something of an American art form. They typically attract crowds who chronicle the devastation for later enjoyment. The destruction of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium early one day in August 1997 was no different. Some 30,000 people turned out so they could experience first-hand the seismic jolt triggered by a chain-reaction explosion that in half a minute buried a brief three decades of sporting history.

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Cameron Carter takes a look at the Joey Barton story, while discovering how the game has changed since 1957

Gabby Logan has a great listening face, possibly one of the best on television. Her gleaming eyes and soulful nodding, even when filmed after the interview, lead her subject and viewer alike to believe that this is a woman who not only cares, she might also remember some of the things her interviewee said 20 minutes later. The expression is one of distilled empathy, her listen a strong, steady listen – rather like the diligent way you attend someone who’s telling you his life story while buying you drinks all night. This bedside manner was seen at its best on Inside Sport (December 3, BBC1) as she asked Joey Barton to explain himself to the nation.

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{mosimage} That didn’t last long. There will be no more jokes about Big Sam and Little Sam at Bolton – but Chris Deary wonders whether Gary Megson will become the biggest joke of all

With the nation picking over the bones of England’s hat-trick of sporting failures in football, rugby and Formula One, it was a good week for Bolton to bury the bad news. Sammy Lee had managed just three wins from 14 games since taking over from Sam Allardyce in April, leaving Wanderers second from bottom. Yet the timing of his departure on October 17 – ten days after his last game (a 1-0 defeat to Chelsea) and only three days before a daunting trip to Arsenal – suggests it was not just about results. 

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Jeff Hill pays tribute to a famous building that is about to disappear

The Wembley that we all love to hate – the dog track with a football ground in the middle – will soon be no more. Next year it will be pulled down, and by 2002 or thereabouts only the famous twin towers are likely to remain of the present structure. Barring last minute hitches, the rest is to be transformed into a multi-sports National Stad­ium. So England will have a site to equal the Stade de France and all those other sporting venues which are supposed to symbolise “the nation”.

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Following Wales' 7-1 drubbing at the hands of Holland, Cris Freddi looks back at the heaviest defeats suffered by the British and Irish in Europe

The Welsh might take a few crumbs from knowing a) they weren’t alone in conceding seven in a game against the Europeans, and b) the English were the first. After the historic 6-3 home defeat by Hungary in 1953, Billy Wright and boys must have travelled to Budapest in some trepidation, though you wouldn’t have known it from listening to Stanley Rous, who said simply “We will win”.

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