Search: ' Brisbane Road'

Leyton Orient's dismissal of Martin Ling met with most fans' approval yet he left with his popularity intact, says Tom Davies

Supporters who clamour for their manager’s dismissal tend not to get a decent press, portrayed as they are as an impatient and fickle mob, wielding metaphorical pitchforks at the hapless gaffer at the drop of a point. Some of this is fair – sack-the-manager campaigns are often manifestations of the worst kind of phone-in led denunciation frenzies – but much of it isn’t, especially when popular sackings are accompanied not by anger but sadness.

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Mark Bosnich is back in the headlines – and for all the right reasons so far, as Matthew Hall reports

“They say you don’t truly miss something, or know how much it meant to you, until it’s gone or taken away from you… and I have missed it.” And with that, Mark Bosnich, aged 36, returned to professional football, if signing a seven-week contract with Australian A-League club Central Coast Mariners can be considered anything of a return.

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Bristol Rovers look to rebuild, reports Steve Menary 

With their discounts and perennially empty pockets, students are not big favourites of cash-strapped football club chairmen, but could that be about to change?

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Theo Walcott has made a unique backward step – making his England Under-21 debut after playing for the senior side. But, asks Csaba Abrahall, what’s the point of the junior team?

Thirty years ago this month, an England team featuring Ray Wilkins, Glenn Hoddle and, um, Steve Sims took on Wales at Molineux in their country’s first Under-21 international. A European Under-23 tournament had taken place in various formats since 1967, but UEFA felt the gap between Under-18 and Under-23 football was too large and opted to fill it by lowering the age limit leading up to the 1978 European Championship.

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Update on clubs in crisis, Tom Davies reports

The slow-burning decline of Bristol Rovers this decade has had less attention than other more immediately cataclysmic crises, but matters have come to a head recently with a batch of resignations. Four directors quit in the summer, taking promises of extra investment with them. The spat was sparked by the rejection of a plan by managing director Mike Turl to restructure the club, which would have involved Turl buying £200,000 worth of shares as part of a wider investment plan and the appointment of a new chairman and vice-chairman. But chairman Geoff Dunford and fellow director Ron Craig, who between them held more than 50 per cent of the shares, rejected this and criticised the plan in public. Turl resigned, as did three other directors, including the directly elected supporters’ club representative, citing a lack of boardroom democracy. Increasingly ill-tempered wars of words involving the ex-directors, fans and Dunford have followed, while the team and club continue to stagnate.

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