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An English Club's Century in Scottish Football
by Tom Maxwell
Northumbria Press, £17.99
Reviewed by Harry Pearson
From WSC 294 August 2011

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Ninety per cent of the players in the club's history have come from another country, they play in a stadium – with "a sound system comparable to a Walkman in a bowl of soup" – that is overlooked by grain silos, one of their greatest ever players is the son of a shepherd, they are not allowed to play in their county cup competition for political reasons and they won their first ever football match by a margin of "one goal and two tries to nil".

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In the run-up to the 2010 World Cup, Gabby Logan travelled to South Africa for BBC television's Inside Sport to talk apartheid, crime and vuvuzelas. Cameron Carter watches with interest

Since discovering the continent of Africa, Europeans helped themselves to its vast mineral and human resources. In return, Africa received smallpox and football. At least the latter is going to pay off for some of the population of South Africa next year. Inside Sport (BBC1, December 7) gave a brief history lesson on football in the apartheid era and addressed the two main fears of visiting European fans – the urban crime rate and a loud plastic trumpet.

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There is a section of Italy that it using football as a way of campaigning for independence. Matthew Barker tells all

Last month’s European and local elections saw the Lega Nord increase its support base beyond the traditional heartland of the Veneto and Lombardy in the north-east of Italy, reaching as far down as Emilia Romagna and the northern edges of Tuscany. The Lega, seeking to break away from the national government in Rome and the Mezzogiorno south, forms a strong coalition with Silvio Berlusconi’s ruling People of Freedom party, and has been steadily winning over disgruntled voters with far-right policies based exclusively around twin obsessions of immigration and security.

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After a winter of mud and ice Ligue 1 sides are eyeing a permanent solution to bad pitches, reports James Eastham

When French sports daily L’Equipe described the Emirates Stadium pitch as “magnificent” the day after Arsenal’s 1-0 win over Roma in the Champions League last 16, you could almost hear the envy in their voice. Ligue 1 has just emerged from a winter in which the dreadful playing surfaces made a mockery of dozens of games. The word bachee (tent) entered the sporting lexicon as French clubs erected great big canvases over their pitches in futile bids to keep the frost at bay. When the covers came off just before kick-off, referees would usually decide pitches were playable, but the evidence in front of our eyes said otherwise.

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Loftus Road has become a must-see destination for A-list celebs and reclusive billionaires, apparently – but this mysterious turn of events is yet to make much difference to facilities for fans or to the quality of the team, even if QPR are strong enough to see off promoted rivals, writes Taylor Parkes

When I was six, too young to have a team but old enough to understand, someone approached me in the playground and asked who I supported. In the late Seventies, any answer other than “Liverpool” was going to invite derision, but for once in my life I was determined to avoid the easy option. “Queens Park Rangers,” I replied, randomly, and was almost blown over by forced, hysterical laughter. “Hahahahaha – they’re rubbish!” This may have been true (they went down that year), but it struck me as somewhat ungracious coming from a six-year-old glory hunter. Ten minutes later, a stranger approached me and said: “I heard you support Queens Park Rangers.” I played along: “Yes, I do.” “Hahahahaha,” they said. “Hahahahahaha!”

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