Poor management, failed takeovers and petty squabbling – the struggles facing Cardiff City, West Bromwich Albion, Oxford United and Barnet
“It is almost as if the club has forgotten how to do anything successfully,” one recent visitor to a Cardiff City internet bulletin board remarked. That includes selling it to a member of the Sullivan family, which has been a regular agenda item since the early 1990s, when David Sullivan first expressed an interest.
Wednesday 1 Holders Spurs slink out of the Worthington Cup at Fulham, their 3-1 defeat described by George Graham as "by far our worst performance since I became manager". A crowd of 17,000 sees Aston Villa trounce Southampton 4-0. "The crowds have been crap because we've played crap until tonight," says the forthright John Gregory. In the Scottish equivalent Rangers' mini-crisis continues with an extra-time defeat at Aberdeen (yes, Aberdeen). Huddersfield threaten legal action against the Football League for referee Jeff Winter's failure to award a penalty during their Worthington match against Wimbledon. That'll work. Darlington are the lucky losers drawn to play at Villa in the third round of the FA Cup. "I have a direct line to the big man upstairs," says their safe-cracking chairman. The government rejects plans for the new Wembley, on the grounds that it would not be able to stage major athletics tournaments as well as football matches.