by Dave Roberts
Bantam Press, £12.99
Reviewed by Tristan Browning
From WSC 359, January 2017
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Stories
Football charities and voluntary organisations are struggling to survive in the face of austerity, writes Alex Lawson
The National Council for Voluntary Organisations estimates that by 2016 the voluntary sector will lose £911 million in public funding. The age of austerity is already having a major effect on grassroots football. The UK’s sporting charities are remarkably fragmented – the likes of the Football Foundation and Football Aid represent the larger organisations in a pyramid featuring professional clubs’ charitable arms, corporate philanthropic projects, small-scale grassroots organisations and long-standing local government initiatives.
Hayes and Yeading’s controversial merge has yet to have the desired affect off the pitch with fresh doubts over the financial future of the club. John van Laer looks at where it all went wrong in West London
The official statement to announce the formation of Hayes & Yeading United FC in 2007 asserted that the two major clubs in the west London suburb of Hayes would “join forces, integrate resources and bring together a community, creating a new super-club on the non-League scene”. A key part of this ambitious plan was to sell Hayes FC’s stadium and land on Church Road, and use the funds raised to redevelop Yeading’s council-owned ground to create a multi-purpose facility that meets Conference grading regulations, while also generating extra income from renting out all-weather, floodlit pitches to the local community.
Owen Amos explains how two brothers dealt with rejection in England – by becoming footballing celebrities in the Philippines
While Chelsea wait for Josh McEachran to establish himself (or be sold to Fulham), two of their other youth team graduates are doing rather well. James and Phil Younghusband, brothers from Middlesex, were released by Chelsea in 2006 and 2008 respectively. Now, they’ve got 50 caps between them, a string of sponsorship deals and – most importantly of all – 200,000 followers on Twitter. The Younghusbands have made it; they’ve just made it 7,000 miles away, in the Philippines.
Chris Taylor explains that while FC United of Manchester’s FA Cup exploits are exciting, news of a new ground is the best thing to happen to the club this season
My dad used to point at stars and tell me that they could have expired thousands of years ago, and yet we can still see them because of how far away they are. I can now tell him that the away end of the Withdean Stadium is so far away from the pitch, you see events roughly 70 minutes after the rest of the ground.