Monday 1 Manchester United miss a chance to go nine points clear, drawing 2‑2 at injury-hit Newcastle. Liverpool’s 3‑0 win over Bolton takes them third. “They’ve shown me in the last couple of weeks why they are down there,” says Alan Curbishley as West Ham crash 6‑0 at Reading, their third successive defeat. Wigan drop to 17th after a fifth straight loss, 3‑0 at home to Blackburn. Antti Niemi is hospitalised with a serious neck injury in Fulham’s 0‑0 draw with Watford. Derby’s 2‑1 win at Preston takes them to within three points of Championship leaders Birmingham, beaten by a 90th‑minute goal at Ipswich. Torquay are six points adrift in League Two after losing 1‑0 at Bristol Rovers.
Search: ' Denis Smith'
Stories
Wednesday 1 A David Bellion goal after 18 seconds is enough for Man Utd reserves to beat their counterparts from Arsenal in the Carling Cup. Liverpool also put out a shadow side, but still knock out Spurs on penalties after a 1-1 draw nicked through a Fredi Kanouté handball (“unforgivable” says Martin Jol) four minutes from the end of extra time.X
As Mark Griffiths reports, the bleak situation at Wrexham is slipping further downhill and threatening to snowball
It is a misplaced notion that all troubled teams find a knight in shining armour and scrape through: Wrexham are in serious danger of oblivion. Set to go into administration on December 3, they aren’t merely, like some other clubs that have taken that step, the victims of financial mismanagement: they have an owner whose interests would appear to be best served by the club disappearing. The situation reported in WSC 212 has worsened considerably. Then it seemed majority shareholder Alex Hamilton hoped to profit from relocating the club and selling the land the Racecourse Ground occupies. It now appears that such activity was merely a smokescreen. Next July Wrexham will have to leave their stadium, home since 1873, having been served notice of eviction by Hamilton. By then their assets might well have all gone: transactions have been taking place without directors’ knowledge; managing director John Reames’s attempt to warn fans of what was going on led to club officials being ordered to rip the offending page out of the programme.
Alun Rogers on promotion, Cup upsets and having big red neighbours
Are home crowds as big as they could get?
Attendances have long been a sore point. It can’t help having Manchester and Liverpool a leisurely 45 minutes away, but the town and outlying population have been expanding at an incredible rate over the past ten years. The inhabitants display a keen affection for Poundland-style shops; it might just be a cheapskate attitude that afflicts attendances.
Huddersfield Town have not had the best of times recently, but Steve Wade looks at their colourful history for comfort
To what extent is manager Mick Wadsworth being blamed for Huddersfield’s recent decline?
A very vocal section of the crowd regularly call for his blood. But despite a few questionable decisions, Wadsworth isn’t entirely responsible. The rot started to set in after the sacking of Peter Jackson and responsibility must be accepted by a number of players, too. The awful irony is the pain of that first home game this season against Brentford, when the PA voice announced the beginning of “the Wadsworth era”.