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Nottingham Forest have lost another manager and are playing their worst football of most fans’ lifetimes. Al Needham looks around frantically for signs of hope

When Joe Kinnear accused the supporters of Nottingham Forest of living in a time warp last month after resigning as manager, it was hard to deny that he had a point. After all, fans in pubs, factories and offices across the city have done little else this season than casting their minds back and trying to remember a Forest team as uniformly lamentable as the current one. The relegation teams of 1993, ’97 or ’99? The Matt Gillies-Dave Mackay-Allan Brown era of the early 70s, when Forest trod water in the old Second Division?

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Red Devils fan Ashley Shaw considers the problems facing Manchester United, with the help of a recent book

The decline of Manchester United has never been more apparent. The club’s hegemony is chal­lenged on and off the pitch by richer rivals and would seem to have all but disappeared following the recent loss of key personnel at all levels. When one factors in the date with calamity suggested by the civil case brought by the manager against the largest shareholder and the continuing spat with the Football Association over Rio Ferdinand’s memory lapse, it seems harder not to reach for cliche and file United under “club in crisis”.

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Tom Davies explores the role supporters are playing in saving their clubs

The supporters’ group that has assumed con­trol at Exeter City is facing a sizeable battle to keep the club alive over the summer. Their relegation from the Football League on the last day of the season was swiftly followed by the arrest of chairman John Russell and vice-chair­man Mike Lewis over allegations of fi­nancial irregularities. The pair, who were bail­ed to return to police in September, prompt­ly stepped down, leaving the club’s reported debts at more than £2 million with creditors closing in.

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The FA of Ireland have been castigated in a report sparked by the World Cup fiasco. Brian de Salvo hopes they take it more seriously than the last one

“The FAI is experiencing a confused present and faces an uncertain future.” That’s not a quotation from Genesis, the sports management consultancy ap­pointed to report on the organisation of Ire- land’s governing body after their World Cup campaign, who produced a damning indictment of the FAI. It’s the verdict of a previous report, pre­sented as long ago as 1996, which highlighted “a lack of vision, direction and planning… indecisive structures and… reluctance to consider necessary change.” Little has changed since. Will it now?

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This month marks the 40th anniversary of Accrington Stanley's controversial ejection from the Football League. Mike Gent explains what went wrong

“Probably the most famous football team in the land” is how a Lancashire County Council web­site describes Accrington Stanley. A contentious claim, but there is no doubt that the Stanley’s continued no­toriety stems not from the club’s modest playing record but from a series of off-pitch calamities which culminated in their departure from the Football League in March 1962. Since then, the spectre of Ac­crington Stanley has been regularly invoked whenever football clubs sink towards bankruptcy.

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