Football in New Zealand is being threatened by the demands of the Asian Confederation. Ed Jackson explains
In December, with New Zealand still celebrating World Cup qualification, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) announced a move which may spell the end of the Wellington Phoenix – the country’s representatives in the Australian-based A-League.
Phil Town analyses the plight of Boavista in the last decade
The turn of the century was very kind to Boavista FC. They had finished second two years earlier but still surprised everyone in Portuguese football by winning the title in 2001 – only the second team outside the Três Grandes (FC Porto, Benfica and Sporting) to do so, the other being Belenenses in 1946. Around this time, they were also putting in very respectable performances in Europe, the highlight a UEFA Cup semi-final in 2003 which Celtic just shaded. Paradoxically, however, it was this purple period that was a key contributing factor to Boavista’s current plight.
Mark Bosnich is back in the headlines – and for all the right reasons so far, as Matthew Hall reports
“They say you don’t truly miss something, or know how much it meant to you, until it’s gone or taken away from you… and I have missed it.” And with that, Mark Bosnich, aged 36, returned to professional football, if signing a seven-week contract with Australian A-League club Central Coast Mariners can be considered anything of a return.
Halifax bounced back into the League once, but a failure to do so again has led to aseemingly terminal decline. Many want to keep football in the town but, writes Peter Brooksbank, they cannot agree how
Friday May 9, 2008. As the rest of the football world was being ordered by Sky to whip themselves into a frenzy for the final Premier League Sunday of the season, supporters of Conference strugglers Halifax Town spent their day glued to the internet, tapping the refresh button every other minute and glancing nervously at the clock. They weren’t, however, waiting on updates of a play-off game or a Trophy final. In a macabre parody of online minute-by-minute match reports, they were watching the Halifax Courier’s live updates from a meeting organised by administrators Begbies Traynor with the club and their owners, a last-ditch effort to keep Halifax Town alive. And, to the fans’ horror, it was not going at all well.
Dear WSC
Who made the biggest blunder on the second weekend of the Premier League season? Rob Styles gave a dodgy penalty for Chelsea against Liverpool, but was this the worst example of a paid professional making a basic error that affected the outcome of a game? What about Jens Lehmann’s rubber wrists against Blackburn? Tony Warner at Fulham flapped at a daisy-cutter, while in the same game Clint Dempsey missed a gaping net from six yards out, a goal even Styles could have scored. Yet these players weren’t endlessly lambasted by the pundits and will not be forced (by their professional body at least) to sit out a game or two until they’ve learned their lesson. This strikes me as a double standard that fans and managers alike should be ashamed of. Either that or Carlos Tévez should be made to sit in the naughty chair at next week’s game for missing a simple far-post header in the derby game
Mark Lewsey, Glasgow