Search: ' pitch invasion'

Employment status is a major factor in non-League success. Andy Ollerenshaw witnessed part-time Altrincham’s relegation

It was relegation decider day for part-time Conference Premier club Altrincham FC. A larger than normal home support poured through the turnstiles to witness the crucial end-of-season encounter with Eastbourne Borough, bringing with them the familiar tensions that saturate these occasions: the nerves, the nail-biting, an atmosphere fuelled by a heady mix of expectation and trepidation. A whole gamut of emotions that would, towards the end of the game, peak in several minutes of high drama.

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John Duerden hopes that the Indonesian FA may soon have a less corrupt president

2010 was a bad year for Indonesian football. It started with a 2-1 loss at home to Oman in an Asian Cup qualifier, the high point of which was a pitch invasion by a spectator. The fan, scarf around left wrist, got hold of the ball and ran half the length of the pitch only to see his shot saved by Ali Al Habsi.

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These Yorkshire rivals may yet head in different directions out of the Championship. But in a tense occasion on a sunny day the confident pre-match favourites fall to a chastening defeat. David Stubbs reveals all

Bramall Lane’s highest ever attendance was the 68,287 who witnessed an FA Cup tie against Leeds in 1936. The rivalry between the two clubs is intense but fitful, as both have bobbed up and down between divisions over the years. In the early 1970s, when Sheffield United climbed back into Division One under manager John Harris, I recall as a young lad in Leeds watching highlights of the home and away Sheffield fixtures on Yorkshire TV the following Sunday afternoon.

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Chris Taylor explains that while FC United of Manchester’s FA Cup exploits are exciting, news of a new ground is the best thing to happen to the club this season

My dad used to point at stars and tell me that they could have expired thousands of years ago, and yet we can still see them because of how far away they are. I can now tell him that the away end of the Withdean Stadium is so far away from the pitch, you see events roughly 70 minutes after the rest of the ground.

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Al Needham gets nostalgic over a clash of two sides still hoping to return to a time of former glories

I don’t mean to bang on about the past, but this fixture really brings it out in me. Forest v Ipswich was the first game I ever went to, on October 4, 1977. I stood as a nine-year-old in the Trent End with Ian Marriott and his dad, gasping at the sight of the blues and reds merging with the green, floodlit pitch – just like the picture on the Subbuteo box that I’d just got from him in exchange for an Action Man (in one of those undersized tanks, where his arms hung over the side) – my head fizzing as Kenny Burns, Peter Shilton and Viv Anderson ran about in front of me just like they did on the telly.

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