Search: 'George Graham'

Rather than being a blessing, new owners often leave managers looking for a new job of their own, writes Mark Segal

Apart from the first day of the season, there are very few times in the life of a football team when you think anything is possible. The arrival of a new manager often brings increased expectation, but the fact they have been appointed more than likely means the club are already in the mire.

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The crises faced by Portsmouth and Darlington call into question the way in which of some our clubs are run, argues Tom Davies

Past failures of regulation are rebounding on perhaps the two most persistently crisis-plagued English clubs of the past decade, Portsmouth and Darlington. The legacies of years of debt, unsuitable ownership and mismanagement have pushed both closer to the brink than ever.

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Football managers do the game no favours when they back their own players at all costs

In a tumultuous year of revolutions, natural disasters and financial crises, one of the most shocking moments came in the final fortnight of 2011 when Chelsea showed some common sense. That is rare at a club whose officials have to pretend it is run as a regular business rather than at the whim of a billionaire. In December, however, they emerged from their cocoon to show an awareness of the world around them. Chelsea players were apparently keen to wear T-shirts showing their support for John Terry after it was announced he will face criminal charges in February for alleged racial abuse of Anton Ferdinand. Manager Andre Villas-Boas had already declared that Terry will get his full support “whatever the outcome”, whereas his employers took a step back, saying: “We did not think that the wearing of T-shirts was an appropriate or helpful show of support.”

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Jon Spurling goes back to Boxing Day 1963, when 66 goals were scored in the First Division

As Christmas 1963 approached, weathermen warned a shivering nation to expect a recurrence of what had happened 12 months previously. The winter of 1962 was the worst since the big freeze of 1946, when the snow began on Boxing Day and wiped out football for virtually the next two and a half months. The occasional game was played here and there, but most were played out in the minds of the newly created Pools Panel, who met each weekend in a secret London location and guessed what each result might have been.

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On a rare weekend when Tyneside’s sporting focus was not on football Harry Pearson saw Gateshead take on Cambridge United

It’s the Saturday of the Junior Great North Run. At Newcastle Central Station the usual hordes of stag and hen-nighters in identikit Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirts, nurse’s uniforms and pink cowboy hats with signs saying “sperm donor needed” have been temporarily displaced by mobs of enthusiastic tots in running gear, herded together by harassed adult helpers. (“Emma, man, if you drink any more of that pop before you set off you’re gonna throw up, I’m telling you.”)

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