Scott Anthony looks back on Blackburn Rovers' Premier League triumph
The long-term significance
Kenny Dalglish’s Blackburn Rovers remain the only club outside the current Big Four to win the English title since the 1992 breakaway of the old First Division. Arsenal and Chelsea not only finished below Tottenham, Newcastle and Nottingham Forest, but also QPR, Southampton and Wimbledon.
The US college system is offering an increasingly popular way into the professional game for British footballers. Gavin Willacy examines the latest phenomenon in Major League Soccer
With Five no longer airing MLS games during the milkmen’s breakfast slot, even fewer British viewers will have seen the impact Darren Huckerby, Ade Akinbiyi and Danny Dichio have had on the American top flight than saw David Beckham try to inspire the hapless LA Galaxy last summer. While a string of English thirtysomethings understandably use MLS as a preferable last stop to Brentford or Brighton, there is another growing group of British footballers emerging in America.
With Ipswich hoping to rename a stand in tribute to Bobby Robson, Csaba Abrahall assesses the former manager's impact
Planning permission permitting, when Ipswich meet Newcastle at the end of September, Portman Road’s North Stand will be renamed in honour of Sir Bobby Robson, who died in July after a battle against cancer lasting almost two decades. It promises to be a day of celebration of the career of a man who managed both clubs with distinction.
With recent controversy surrounding English clubs signing Europe's young talent before they turn professional, Neil Rose looks at FIFA's plans to protect Europe's schoolboy stars
The furore over French teenager Paul Pogba – with Le Havre accusing Man Utd of stealing him – is just the latest controversy thrown up by English clubs signing the cream of foreign youth. United insist that they complied with UEFA guidelines in signing the 16-year-old and the row is reminiscent of that caused by their capture of Federico Macheda from Lazio in 2007, or Arsenal’s of Cesc Fàbregas, or several other players, mainly by the Big Four. Of course, signing players before they can pen a professional contract is not just an English pursuit – French clubs themselves have plundered Africa for a stream of young players. With transfer fees spiralling ever higher the appeal of relatively cheap, if raw, foreign talent is growing.
Thom Gibbs looks at the latest kit designs and finds only a few sartorial gems among the racks of polyester horrors and 'Climacool' fabrics
Pre-season is a time to nurse gently the bruises that football has inflicted on our souls in the past nine months. As the new campaign approaches we revert to a position of blind optimism and unreserved excitement. Nothing captures that dumbly hopeful glow better than the first glimpse of next season’s shirts. What unforgettable moments will we associate with our side’s new kit? Will it be remembered as a cocky disaster like England’s Admiral strips of the barren 1970s? Or surreal triumph, à la the radioactive bird poo kit inexorably linked to Norwich’s 1990s European adventures?