Search: 'Kevin Davies'

Tom Davies reports on the Plymouth takeover, as well as stadium issues at Truro and Wycombe

One of the League’s more enduring messes, at Plymouth Argyle, has seemingly reached a resolution. The local businessman James Brent’s takeover, agreed at the end of October, brings an end to a saga that lasted far longer than it should have. Brent will now take ownership of Argyle, while the city council has agreed to buy and rent back the club’s Home Park ground.

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While there is a certain inevitability about this home victory, it’s only August and these two clubs have very different expectations and requirements from a season in League One, writes Julian McDougall

Away, at Hillsborough. In the days leading up to and following this match, it is in the news again with speculation about relatives of the 1989 disaster victims getting access to crucial documents and Billy Bragg releasing a song about the phone hacking scandal called Scousers Never Buy The Sun.

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Dear WSC
I recently heard Alan Green and Robbie Savage give the customary abuse to Howard Webb during the Man City v Sunderland game. While Green’s job is to commentate on football, Savage, as a current player, is in an awkward position when he criticises officials from the safety of a studio in terms that would get him booked on the field.
Maybe the threat of a disrepute charge would concentrate his mind. As Savage himself commented during the broadcast: “The officials bring problems on themselves. First sign of dissent, bang, yellow card.” Well you said it, Robbie.
Paul Caulfield, Bradford

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Labour's suggestion for the governance of football reflect changes in political momentum, a failed financial model and thoughts about the future of the game. Tom Davies explains

Time was when politicians would stand on what they would do to football supporters, not what they’d do for them. However, the Labour party proposals to give fans a stake in their clubs – first option to buy them when put up for sale as well as to compel supporter-friendly reforms to the game’s governance – indicate how far we’ve come since the days of ID cards and away fan bans.

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The Tragedy of Robert Enke
by Ronald Reng
Yellow Jersey Press, £16.99
Reviewed by Mike Ticher
From WSC 297 November 2011

Buy this book

Considering young men are a group at high risk of suicide, the number of active footballers who have taken their own lives is surprisingly small. Dave Clement, Alan Davies and Justin Fashanu are perhaps the best known in Britain, all in their declining football years. That makes Robert Enke a rarity among rarities: the Hannover 96 goalkeeper was at his peak, in a season that should have led to the World Cup, when he walked in front of a train in November 2009.

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