Huw Richards pays tribute to Gary Speed after his deathEven discounting for the inevitable reaction when someone dies young and suddenly, there was something different and genuine about the tributes to Gary Speed. Along with shock and disbelief was simple bafflement. Why? Maybe the inquest, which reopens on January 30, will provide some answers. His case appears to differ from other sportsmen’s self-inflicted deaths.
James McMahon questions why there are no openly gay footballers
It’s now just over 20 years since Justin Fashanu, Britain’s first and, to date, only openly gay footballer, agreed a deal with the Sun to come out. Last year, the PR kingpin Max Clifford teased the press by stating he’d recently advised two high-profile Premier League stars not to follow in Fashanu’s footsteps, adding that football “remains in the dark ages, steeped in homophobia”.
The Tragedy of Robert Enke
by Ronald Reng
Yellow Jersey Press, £16.99
Reviewed by Mike Ticher
From WSC 297 November 2011
Considering young men are a group at high risk of suicide, the number of active footballers who have taken their own lives is surprisingly small. Dave Clement, Alan Davies and Justin Fashanu are perhaps the best known in Britain, all in their declining football years. That makes Robert Enke a rarity among rarities: the Hannover 96 goalkeeper was at his peak, in a season that should have led to the World Cup, when he walked in front of a train in November 2009.
Is ITV's former pundit an idiot, a racist, or both? Al Needham wonders whether that is what matters most about a pundit's fall from grace, or whether his fate tells us how far we have come and how far we have to go
In the end, after all the finger-pointing, hair-shirt wearing, editorials and think-pieces, the only truly shocking thing about what Ron Atkinson said was that, for pretty much the first time in his public life, he came out with a phrase that came frighteningly close to plain English. He didn’t describe Marcel Desailly as “totally nigmatic with his workrate, to be enocular”. He refrained from mentioning that the Chelsea defender had been “giving it big lips all game”. He didn’t even advocate giving minorities the full gun, or bunging them in the mixer.
Leroy Rosenior is settling in well as the far south-west's latest black manager, but Nick House is puzzled by the route that took the former striker to Plainmoor
It’s fair to say Leroy Rosenior’s appointment as Torquay United’s first-team coach – manager in old money – met with some scepticism. The concern was simple yet forceful: was he any good? Reports from travellers were decidedly mixed: acclaimed as part of a trio at Bristol City; steady at Gloucester; hardly a success at Merthyr