Once upon a time Dave Boyle found the idea of squad numbers exotic, but recent galloping inflation has caused him to question his own and football's sanity, while Barney Ronay has been looking into the wider history of the numbers game
The first leg defeat of Manchester United by Porto was the moment when I realised that football had, beyond all reasonable doubt, gone mad.
Newspaper rumours of a Manchester United bid for Steven Gerrard set Ashley Shaw thinking about just how rare transfers involving Liverpool have been in the modern era
As transfer stories go, Steven Gerrard’s recently rumoured move to Old Trafford would seem about as likely as an Osama Bin Laden peace mission to Washington. But why should this be? If Manchester United and Liverpool were ordinary businesses and a key member of staff spotted an opportunity for lucrative promotion at a rival company, then there would be few bars to a “transfer”.
In a dark season for the game as well as Stoke, Ken Sproat saw Newcastle inflict one of the Potters’ 31 defeats of 1984-85 – but can now see it wasn't all gloom
A football team cannot get much worse than Stoke City during the 1984-85 season. There, in the all-time records for being hopeless, they skulk alongside such Victorian disasters as Darwen, Loughborough Town and Glossop. The fewest points in a season (17), the fewest wins (three – all at home), the most defeats (31) and, with 24, the fewest goals (the leading scorer was Ian Painter with six, of which four were penalties). They failed to score in 25 of the 42 league matches. They suffered mathematically definite relegation with eight miserable matches still to play.
New Age health expert Cameron Carter has cast away his CD of rainforest sounds and is here to promote a new route to inner wellness: televised football
We have heard people complaining about football on television. Occasionally I agree with them. Yes, it is true that Ray Stubbs and Mark Lawrenson act out a school play about two men arguing every Saturday lunchtime. I too feel discomfort at the spectacle of Garth Crooks constantly reaching for some higher meaning that poor, simple football and its participants cannot give him.
A former Leeds chairman, an FA Cup run, a mass walkout; football is the talk of the tea shops. Mark Douglas puts down his scone to tell the Harrogate story
When the time comes to draw up a list of history’s most defiant gestures, it is fair to say the mass walkout of Paul Marshall and his Harrogate Railway first-team squad in February 2003 won’t be muscling out Nikita Khruschev’s shoe-banging rage at the UN in the Cold War’s frostiest days. Given that the repentant players were back at the club’s Station View ground within a few days, it probably ranks with John Gummer feeding his daughter a beef burger. Nevertheless, Marshall’s anger, provoked by the offer of a “disrespectful” £200 bonus for the team’s stellar efforts in their historic FA Cup second-round defeat to Bristol City, does at least draw attention to the crossroads which Harrogate’s football clubs are at. After decades of struggle, Railway and higher-placed rivals Harrogate Town find themselves with the finance and impetus to make a mark on the football world, but a strong conservative streak threatens to undermine the recent success and banish them to football’s backwaters.