What happens when a national coach doesn't pick a star player who crossed him at club level? Luke Gosset reports on the resulting demo and lawsuits
Ahealthy sense of perspective has been lost somewhere along the line when a lawyer issues a writ to order a national coach before a court to explain excluding a player from his World Cup squad.
Where was Ian Wright for the October qualifiers? Simon Tyers begins the search
During the BBC post-mortem on England’s defeat in Northern Ireland, a shot of all the pundits supposedly listening to Alan Hansen’s words of wisdom briefly caught Ian Wright slamming the table with his open palm. This was telling, not only for demonstrating what we already knew about Wright having proper passion for his football but also that it showed in a funny way that a panel of tactically minded experts is no place for what is pejoratively known as a passionate outburst. After all, we can all feel aggrieved at an embarrassment without having someone to do it for us.
Sky would kill for last day dramatics like this. Bobby McMahon retells the tale of one of the closest ever title races
The long-term significance
This season brought to an end a period in which teams other than Rangers and Celtic actually won the Scottish League. In the 19 seasons after the end of the Second World War, non-Old Firms clubs took eight of the championships. In the 40 years since, that has only happened four times. After winning the domestic treble the previous season, Rangers slumped to fifth while Celtic could only manage to finish eighth.
It's often said that football has gone soft. However Philip Cornwall not only approves of that but believes the whole history of the game has been one of taming the back line
A brisk walk from The Valley is the home of a rugby side often known simply as Club. But while they are hardly giants of any game now and have never played Charlton Athletic, Blackheath’s role in the history of rugby and also football is a crucial one – had they not stood up for the rights of defenders, who knows what either game would be like today.
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.