Socrates, futebol de salão and Premiership ambitions – Steve Wilson looks at the strange case of Simon Clifford's Garforth Town
Watching Garforth Town crash out of this season’s Northern Counties League Cup on the kind of wet and windy Tuesday evening in northern England that foreigners are habitually assumed “not to fancy much”, it was difficult to imagine anywhere further from Brazil.
Likelihood is that Premiership newcomers Crystal Palace will be heading back to the Football League come May. Matthew Barker explains why a power struggle at Selhurst Park isn't going to help
Simon Jordan can be a difficult man to like, but equally one can easily feel rather sorry for him. This, after all, is the man who arrived at Selhurst Park in 2000, sorted through the rubble of the Mark Goldberg era and pulled the club through one of their darkest hours. A seemingly bright young thing, he spent money – lots of it (most estimates home in at around the £30 million mark) – and brought a new zippy business sense to a place that had barely survived the previous two years of calamitous mismanagement and misjudged transfer dealings.
Leeds United's financial dealings are coming under scrutiny
Televison cameras picked up Peter Ridsdale slumped in his seat during Leeds United’s match at Goodison Park, to where travelling fans had brought banners reading, among others, “Lies United” and “PLC = Pathetic Leeds Chairman”. In view of the fact that he is receiving advice from PR expert Max Clifford, he might have unveiled one of his own: “Blame Liverpool”. If it hadn’t been for the latter’s cave-in over the last few fixtures of 1999-2000, Leeds wouldn’t have finished third and qualified for the Champions League, with all the unfortunate effects it has now brought.
Carolyne Culver watches a film aimed at dispelling a myth or two
“Anyone can cook aloo gobi, but who can bend it like Beckham?” From this bizarre strap line emerges a comedy drama about women’s football that kicks many celluloid efforts about the men’s game into touch. The tale of a British Asian teenager who outclasses her male counterparts in the park and has a shrine to David Beckham in her bedroom, Bend It Like Beckham takes two British obsessions – football and race – and produces a pacey comedy-drama that takes the women’s game seriously.
Jan Lotze takes issue with the webs leading purveyor of exclusive nonsense about top players, which it is keen to keep a firm grip on
First came the internet, with unlimited free access to all the information that was on it. Then came people who thought that the internet would be a good way to make themselves some money, which was inevitable. Then came people who wanted to have their cake and eat it, like icons.com.