Search: 'Northwich Victoria'

Few promotion parties have been as damp a squib as Lewes' and, as Joel Abraham explains, it's been all downhill from there

How do you reward a promotion-­winning team? In Lewes’s case, you sack the manager and sell the entire squad. The Rooks’ first ever Blue Square Premier game against Kidderminster Harriers saw ten of the starting XI making their debuts, led by a manager who had never managed before. Four months and 12 defeats later, they are rock bottom of the league, and will in all likelihood be returning to the Blue Square South considerably worse off than when they left it.

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Leeds' battle against losing 15 points has failed to attract sympathy, but the history of deductions is a murky one, writes Neil Rose

Nothing illustrates the arbitrary nature of points deduction more clearly than the fact that you are better off going into administration in the Premier League (nine points docked) than in the Football League (ten). But it is Leeds’ case that puts deductions in the news and there are more mysteries here, with speculation that 15 points would be reduced to five. Why 15? Why five?

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Dear WSC
Vaughan Roberts asks (Letters, WSC 251) if any of the schoolboys who took part in ITV’s Penalty Prize competition went on to become pros after their appearance in the shootout before the 1974 FA Cup final. Well, at least one did. Stuart Beavon was already on Spurs’ books at the time he put five out of six spot-kicks past Gordon Banks, no less. He made only three first-team appearances for Spurs but became a fixture in Reading’s midfield, playing almost 500 games during the Eighties. His penalty-taking prowess remained intact and in March 1988 he returned to Wembley to put Reading into the lead from the spot as they beat Luton 4-1 in the Simod Cup final. However, Stuart’s most famous penalty was a deliberate miss. Before the FA launch a belated match-fixing inquiry, Stuart’s failure came in Channel 4’s football drama The Manageress. Gabriella Benson/Cherie Lunghi’s team were based at Elm Park and had to win their last game of their season to win promotion and, 1-0 up with a minute to go, conceded a penalty. The script, of course, required the actor keeper to save the spot-kick and Stuart was asked to take the penalty. Apparently, it took ten kicks before the director was satisfied. In Reading’s next game Beavon took a real penalty, which he missed, blaming his failure on becoming accustomed to missing through his TV appearance. That miss cost Reading a win and, nine days later, it also cost manager Ian Branfoot his job, surely the only manager to be sacked because of a TV series.
Alan Sedunary, via email

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Premier League to Prison
by Mark Ward
Football World, £17.99
Reviewed by Mark O'Brien
From WSC 271 September 2009 

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Mark Ward enjoyed a playing career that took in Northwich Victoria, Oldham Athletic, West Ham United, Manchester City, Everton and Birmingham City. He scored a goal in the Merseyside derby and was a key member of the Hammers side that finished third in the 1985-86 season, but what he will always be known for, and probably the only reason his autobiography was commissioned, is the fact that in 2005 he was arrested on drug charges and subsequently received an eight-year jail sentence.

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Northwich are hoping a takeover will save them, reports Michael Whalley

Neil Redfearn certainly knows how to pick a club in crisis. In the summer of 2006, he quit the manager’s chair at Scarborough as they lost their Conference place amid a host of financial woes. The former Barnsley and Bradford midfielder might have hoped for an easier ride when he pitched up at Northwich Victoria this summer. He didn’t get it. Nine Blue Square Premier matches brought eight defeats and a draw. So Redfearn packed his bags to find something less stressful to do.

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