Johanna Breen explains a battle of names, colours and mascots following the bankruptcy of one of Prague's most popular clubs
Observers of the Czech Republic’s Gambrinus Liga will have noticed that two clubs in the Czech league’s top division lay claim to remarkably similar green kangaroo logos and both go by the name of Bohemians.
In a game between fellow Championship strugglers, Simon Hart watches the away side continue their poor travelling form, while a debut for the home manager and a hard-fought win sees optimism bloom in Yorkshire
“Normally you’d get 18 to 19,000 here for a Peterborough game but we’re expecting 24 today – a couple of wins on the bounce, a new manager, there’s a feelgood effect.”
The art of the programme is alive and well in the lower echelons. Owen Amos flicks through the pages
Once, football clubs had programmes. Now, they have matchday magazines. They have shiny covers and shameless names: Blue Review, Red Watch, or worse. They are, they stress, official – as if, somewhere, there’s a thriving market in knock-off Southend United matchday magazines. And, of course, cliche wafts into every corner, like smoke in a taxi. Worst of all, they cost £3.
Wolves are the quintessential Championship side, in the second tier for two decades, bar one season. Coventry used to be the epitome of top-flight survivors. Both are casting their eyes upwards this autumn, though neither is exactly confident, writes Josh Widdicombe
At 2.15pm in the car park Molineux shares with a 24-hour Asda, a sprinkling of people amble away from their cars, the odd old-gold replica shirt peeking out from under a coat the only clues that they aren’t here for the weekly shop. The loudest shouts come from the raffle-ticket sellers and the strongest evidence of pride in the home colours can be found on the metalwork in and around the ground, an area painted on the Midas principle: anything that can be gold, should be gold.
When Nacional lingered one minute too long in the dressing room, the referee called off their match. Chris Bradley reports
Players from Nacional, one of Uruguay’s most successful and popular clubs, walked down the tunnel on August 31 knowing they needed a win to stay top of the table. Yet by the time they reached the pitch they found their game against Villa Española had been abandoned. Referee Liber Prudente ruled Nacional had forfeited the match by being one minute late. He subsequently left the stadium with a police escort to avoid fans waiting outside, baying for his blood. The unprecedented conclusion to the match plunged the once tranquil world of Uruguayan football into violence, threats, hearings, appeals and intense debate.