England may have failed to live up to the promise of September 1, 2001, but as Pete Green will tell you the slide from a rare high has been even worse for Grimsby
In 2001 Grimsby Town were a second-flight football team and binge drinking was called “going out”. Quite a few England fans probably indulged in that pastime after the 5-1 win in Germany on September 1. So imagine the double hangover that awaited Town supporters as their side chose the same day to move top of the Football League.
Arsenal and England fan Cameron Carter has enormous respect for David Seaman as a goalkeeper, but his admiration doesn't extend past his football career after watching the ponytailed one's first foray into presenting
So farewell then, David Seaman, one of the great English goalkeepers in the classic no-fuss style and, despite his extraordinary record, one of the most haunted. Peter Schmeichel, in a feature for the Sunday Times, marked Dave’s professional passing with a piece on how unfortunate it is that such a model keeper may be remembered by many purely for his rare errors. Schmeichel then helpfully went on to outline those errors in unabridged, technicolour detail. To the Nayim lob, the Ronaldinho free-kick and the Macedonian fellow’s corner we can now add this video as one of old Safehands’ truly memorable mistakes.
Friday 2 Martin O’Neill denies being approached by Liverpool – “I’m going to try and remain calm and say that story is totally and utterly untrue” – while Lazio coach Roberto Mancini is the latest to be linked with the Spurs job. The transfer window opens with a creak: Leicester sign Nikos Dabizas from Newcastle and turn down a Blackburn bid for Muzzy Izzet; Wolves sign Romania striker Ioan Ganea on a short-term deal; Eyal Berkovic may take a wage cut to leave Man City for Portsmouth.
As a survey reveals the extraordinary sums the game has paid some people for doing very little, Barney Ronay hopes one man can be persuaded to put a little back
As Woody Allen once said, money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons. English football currently has both in equal measures: the League is rife with talk of exactly how many clubs are toting around life-threatening debts; meanwhile, the Sunday Times Pay List 2003, published last month, reveals that, of the 500 best-paid individuals in the United Kingdom, 56 made their money from football, 44 of them players.
They are simple in theory but increasingly contentious in practice, believes Philip Cornwall, because so much more can be at stake when a spot-kick is awarded today
That you have never seen everything the game has to offer was underlined once more in Istanbul on October 11. Something as simple, in theory, as a penalty produced a variation that was new to me.