John Williams and Stephen Hopkins look at the departure of Roy Evans from Liverpool, and what it says about how football has changed in the past decade
So farewell Roy … after the inevitable media feeding frenzy comes the wailing and the wake. Most Liverpool supporters adjusted to Roy Evans’s departure from the club to which he had dedicated his entire professional life – and probably too much else besides – more in sadness than anger.
The biggest shock of the FA Cup first round came at Bedlington, and Ken Sproat saw it all
Bedlington Terriers are a new name to many, but have gained a massive profile following their debut in the FA Cup first round. New unless you know me, that is. I have been preaching Terrier lore with wide-eyed zeal since moving to the town in 1990. Strangely, it is only in retrospect that I realise it was love at first sight. The early matches were turgid, lower Northern League Second Division fare.
Harry Pearson charts the reversal of fortunes for Hamilton Ricard
The second and third things Middlesbrough fans least expected to see this season were resident Scandinavian fop Mikkel Beck winning a 50/50 challenge and Hamilton Ricard heading towards Christmas as one of the Premiership’s top marksmen. The barrel-chested Colombian arrived at the Riverside from Deportivo Cali in a £2 million deal during the second-half of last season after an apparently bitter tug of love between Boro and Sheffield United over his affections.
A brief guide to football on the English riviera from Nick House
1927 Torquay take Aberdare’s Football League place following a controversial second ballot. The new boys promptly lose 9-1 at Millwall and finish in the bottom five in all but two of their first seven seasons. Unusually bad results each August suggest the signing of holidaymakers on fortnightly contracts.
Adam Powley wonders if Tottenham Hostpur could be selling their fans short by not taking up full allocations
It's a conspiracy theorist’s dream – not quite on a par with the Kennedy assassination, but of concern to football fans all the same. Tottenham had been accused of deliberately denying their supporters the chance to buy tickets for away games in order to force them to attend live screenings of the matches at Spurs, a serious accusation which required some clear answers. Getting them, however, proved to be a shade tricky.