Search: 'Barry Hearn'

Update on clubs in crisis, Tom Davies reports

The slow-burning decline of Bristol Rovers this decade has had less attention than other more immediately cataclysmic crises, but matters have come to a head recently with a batch of resignations. Four directors quit in the summer, taking promises of extra investment with them. The spat was sparked by the rejection of a plan by managing director Mike Turl to restructure the club, which would have involved Turl buying £200,000 worth of shares as part of a wider investment plan and the appointment of a new chairman and vice-chairman. But chairman Geoff Dunford and fellow director Ron Craig, who between them held more than 50 per cent of the shares, rejected this and criticised the plan in public. Turl resigned, as did three other directors, including the directly elected supporters’ club representative, citing a lack of boardroom democracy. Increasingly ill-tempered wars of words involving the ex-directors, fans and Dunford have followed, while the team and club continue to stagnate.

Read more…

We covered the Three Kings on December 3 but for the 14th day of the WSC advent calendar we’re looking at their home – the Orient. Leyton Orient, obviously. After going nowhere but down since 1989, Martin Ling’s unsung east Londoners battled the yo-yoing Mariners with promotion or the agony of the play-offs at stake in June 2006, issue 232. Tom Davies reported

They don’t do triumphalism very well in this part of London. And going into an Easter Monday six-pointer in third place in League Two, with automatic promotion still in their own hands, takes most Leyton Orient fans into completely uncharted territory. This is a club that have not won promotion since 1989 – when a late play-off charge took the Os out of Division Four – and have not gone up automatically since 1970’s Third Division title. Grimsby, a point and a place below Orient, have been up two divisions and back again in that 17-year period. Other teams yomp up and down the divisions with drunken cavalier abandon. But Orient fans look on wistfully as nothing much changes in their landscape. “It was so much easier when we were coming 17th every year,” grumbles one fan in the bustling Birkbeck pub beforehand. He’s joking of course. Well, perhaps half-joking.

Read more…

Neil Warnock’s love of Sheffield United has received plenty of publicity but the Wednesday are currently managed by a fan, too. Chris Turner has the job of rescuing the former Premiership regulars from Division Two and talks to Al Needham about how he plans to do it in these difficult times

Managers who have been successful elsewhere have struggled at Hillsborough. Was there a particular set of circumstances that made it a difficult place to succeed?
Very much so. Terry Yorath, Peter Shreeves and Paul Jewell were battling against the financial position. They had a lot of players signed during the Premiership days on high salaries who wouldn’t or couldn’t be moved on. From what I’ve heard from Terry and Paul, a number weren’t interested in playing or training. The difficulties they had were insurmountable. Peter Shreeves inherited a squad of players who had three years on their contracts who weren’t doing the business. While managers came and went, these players stayed. I was in the fortunate position of coming in at a time when something like 14 players were out of contract. So I didn’t have the worry of having to move these play­ers on. That doesn’t mean the problem of high salaries has gone – we still have players here on high wages, certainly too high for Second Division football.

Read more…

Ian Cusack inadvertantly found out where the next generation of Chinese stars is coming from – Slough

Most teachers of English as a foreign language spend the close season working in summer schools, where the work is badly paid and desperately unrewarding. This year, however, I found my dream post. “WANTED!! Exper­ienced teacher with a knowledge of football to teach a party of teenage Chinese student footballers.” A quick email of my CV and a five-minute phone interview got me the job. The place was called Teikyo Women’s College, just outside Slough. On arrival I was introduced to my colleague, who would coach the team while I was employed to teach in the afternoon and show them videos at night.

Read more…

The play-offs have now completed 15 turbulent seasons of drama and, some would say, injustice. Csaba Abrahall, however, is a devotee. He looks back on the ups and downs of their history 

You may not know the name Martin Lange, but the chances are he will have given you reason to shed tears of joy or despair at some point since the late Eighties. For Lange was the man behind the introduction of the Football League play-offs, the end-of-season extra­va­ganza that has just completed a 15th successful season.

Read more…