Youngsters in search of a football career are turning to the sport’s equivalent of a public school. Gavin Willacy wonders whether this experiment will work or if good money is going after bad
Borehamwood’s Hertswood School v Birmingham City was a league fixture. On the same day, Dagenham & Redbridge lost at home to Brightlingsea Regent, Conference club Histon played Queens’ School in Bushey and Oxford United lost at home to someone called FCV Reds.
With only one promotion left until the Football League beckons, St Albans City now have the money on board for required ground improvements. Steve Menary reports
To most non-League clubs, a marketing officer is an unaffordable luxury. John Gibson tends to agree. When Verry, a £100 million turnover construction firm owned by Gibson, opened a new office in St Albans four years ago, he decided that instead of hiring a marketing man he would buy the local team. “Their manager played for a pub team I ran. He said, ‘The club’s in real trouble, can you help?’ ” says Gibson. “I was going to get a marketing manager but decided to spend the £50,000 to £60,000 a year that would cost on a club.”
Cambridge United’s slide out of the League threatened to bring a renewal of derby hostilities against Cambridge City. But, writes Andrew Bennett, suddenly prospects are bleak for the Conference South side, now fighting for survival as a separate club
There’s no such team as “Cambridge Football Club”. And if the supporters of the seat of learning’s two senior sides, City and United, have their way, there never will be, despite current talk of a possible merger. But, as one club fights for its existence, the question arises: when is a “merger” not a merger?
Monday 1 How long do you go on waiting for results?” asks Wolves chairman Rick Hayward after sacking Dave Jones with the club 19th in the Championship. Bradford’s Dean Windass has the second yellow card shown to him during a 4-0 defeat at Luton rescinded – he had protested at the referee allegedly taunting him about the score.
Tuesday 2 “There is no need to get dramatic because we are still unbeaten in Europe,” says Arsène as the Gunners are held 1-1 at home by Panathinaikos. Pascal Cygan, now firmly established as the new Frank Sinclair, contributes an own goal for the visitors’ equaliser after the Greeks miss a penalty. Chelsea are through to the Champions League knockout stages, though, after a 1-0 win at CSKA Moscow who also squander a spot-kick. Celtic can still avoid elimination after beating Donetsk 1-0. In the Championship, managerless Wolves are only three points above the relegation zone after a 3-1 defeat at Sunderland and West Ham lose to Cardiff for the first time since 1952, 4-1 at Ninian Park. The top two, Wigan and Ipswich, both win, the latter setting a club record by scoring in their 29th consecutive game, a 5-1 victory over Sheffield United.
Premiership crowds slipped a bit this season but, as John Morgan explains, it's boom time in Divisions One, Two, Three and beyond after yet another year of bumper attendances that put the rest of Europe to shame
The last thing you expect to find at a Dr Martens League Eastern Division game is a crowd. But when King’s Lynn played Histon in a top-of-the-table clash on Easter Monday there definitely was one: 1,617 people gathered together of their own free will in the same place. Empty seats in Lynn’s cavernous old wooden main stand were hard to find. The attendance might not seem much at first sight, but when you consider that the DML Eastern is on the seventh tier of English football, it becomes quite astonishing. It proved to be the highest gate of the season at that level, just one example of the attendance boom currently being experienced in England.