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Maidstone United hoped that the sale of a talented young player would allow them to return home. As John Bunyard explains, this hasn't happened

I first saw it one Saturday as I walked down the side of the Sittingbourne pitch. It was best described as a half-Fellaini: an attempt at an afro curtailed by an over-zealous barber. It sat atop the head of the kid deputising for our regular centre-back, absent for the unlikely reason of being under arrest on a charge of attempted murder. Though a tall lad, he looked too young to buy a drink.

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After only a handful of Liverpool appearances an error of judgement means the French goalkeeper is starting again. Ben Lyttleton reports

Perhaps the fact that Charles Itandje refused to answer his phone and briefly went into hiding when Liverpool first tried to buy him was a sign that he was destined never to succeed at Anfield. That was back in 2001. On the day of Liverpool’s amazing 5-4 UEFA Cup win over Alavés the goalkeeper was due to meet Gérard Houllier to discuss a move. “I had an appointment but I didn’t go,” Itandje remembered. “I almost pretended to be dead. I had just signed a pre-contract with Lens, where I was set to become number one, and I did not want to turn it down.”

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The Alan Curtis Story
by Alan Curtis, with Tim Johnson and Stuart Sprake
Mainstream, £17.99
Reviewed by Paul Ashley-Jones
From WSC 278 April 2010

Buy this book

Having grown up watching Alan Curtis from the terraces of the North Bank at Vetch Field, I expected to enjoy this book and wasn't disappointed. Curtis had three separate spells with Swansea as well as playing for Leeds, Southampton and Cardiff City (where he was voted Player of the Year despite his background) while winning 35 caps for Wales.

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New legislation is aimed at a lack of homegrown players but, as Andy West reports, the issues are deeper than that

September’s announcement that Premier League clubs will be required to adhere to a “homegrown quota” from the start of next season came as no surprise. The question of whether clubs should be forced to limit the number of overseas players has been openly debated for a long time. In the face of increasing pressure from the government as well as the football authorities, it was sensible for club chairmen to follow the example of the Football League and voluntarily introduce new legislation.

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Tim Springett bids a less-than-fond farewell to former owners, but hopes for signs of recovery under a new regime

When Rupert Lowe invited himself back to Southampton last summer, two years after being ejected by leading shareholder Michael Wilde, there was palpable dismay among Saints supporters. There is no doubt that the finances of the club were in a perilous state – late in 2007 a sale to the SISU hedge fund that later took over Coventry City had been thwarted by Lowe, Wilde and Leon Crouch, a local businessman who also held a large number of Saints shares. Several of the highest earning players subsequently went out on loan and Saints avoided relegation by just one point. Nevertheless, there was a new manager in Nigel Pearson, who had given fans cause for optimism that better times might lie ahead. Then Lowe – aided and abetted by his former adversary Wilde – returned and the mood changed dramatically.

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