The Scottish Premier League faces reorganisation again, but this time its leaders are determined to make a more permanent mess. Gary Oliver is unimpressed
Saturday afternoon football coverage on BBC Radio Scotland concludes with Off The Ball, a generally frivolous phone-in. Far from jovial, though, was a recent guest appearance by Roger Mitchell, chief executive of the Scottish Premier League.
Call us negative if you must (no, go on), but we feel obliged to record the worst football feats of the century before it’s over. Cris Freddi opens the series with an assessment of its most heinous fouls
No shortage of material in this category. We've all got our nominations and it becomes a question of which to leave out. One that gets in without much argument was perpetrated in Manchester United’s Champions League match against Feyenoord in 1997, when Paul Bosvelt crashed his studs into Denis Irwin’s calf, a really dangerous foul. Sándor Puhl, who didn’t even show a yellow card, was dropped from the rest of the competition as well as France 98, missing the chance of becoming the first referee to take charge of two World Cup Finals.
Padraig McKenna charts the moves in the botched takeover and flotation of Forest which have left the club in such a parlous state.
In autumn 1996 Nottingham Forest were approaching a crisis. Brian Clough was gone and we had already, briefly, dropped down into the First Division. The club was surviving largely due to the willingness of the banks to increase the overdraft regularly.
Ian Ladyman explains why Nottingham Forest have found themselves incapable of breaching the growing gap between the Premier League and the First Division
Looking back on what is likely to be a short stay in the Premiership, Nottingham Forest fans will wonder just when it all went wrong for their floundering club. They will have to look back further than this season to find the answers.
Cyril the Swan falls for the dark side of the media as AS Thomas reports
I know a young boy who is paralysed from the neck down after a horrific road accident. He currently resides at Swansea’s Singleton Hospital and is a Swans fanatic. In fact the local press recently had pictures of him being visited by some of the players and the now-famous mascot, Cyril the Swan. At the time he was promised by the club that should he want Cyril to come up for his birthday, then it would be arranged.