ITV have launched a football preview programme with an old name and no new ideas, as Andrew Pitchford reports

I know it’s early days, but can there ever have been a football preview programme as stultifyingly tedious as the all-new On the Ball, ITV’s networked reanimation of the old Brian Moore classic? Since the demise of the Saint and Greavsie double act, the commercial stations have been toying with the idea of introducing another competitor into the pre-match routine on a Saturday lunchtime and, after years of pondering, researching and focus grouping (or maybe after one lunchtime meeting and several fat cigars), they have finally come up with a package which boasts as its unique selling points the very blonde Gabby Yorath and the occasionally blond Barry Venison.

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Fans complain about being priced out of football, but what about the radio networks? As Haydn Parry reports, the BBC isn't too worried, for the moment

BBC Radio Five Live is facing competition for its commentary coverage from the national commercial station Talk Radio. Paul Robinson, Talk Radio’s general manager, has already persuaded the BBC to allow it to broadcast Nationwide League games, and securing European games is now part of a wider gameplan. The station can attempt to outbid Five Live for rights to a club’s home games in Europe because it’s up to the clubs involved to handle rights themselves.

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Davy Millar remembers the drubbing of Belgium and the shortest, most successful international career of all time

November 1977 and Windsor Park is looking less than inviting on a cold, grey Wednesday afternoon. Northern Ireland are rounding off another unsuccessful World Cup campaign with a game against Belgium, themselves trailing far behind group winners Holland. The Irish have staged one of their textbook qualifying bids, starting with a splendid draw in Rotterdam before going on to lose in Iceland. Small wonder that George Best has packed it in again. Enraged by such inconsistency, he’s decided there are better ways to spend a bleak, winter afternoon than casually humiliating some hapless Belgian.

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Borussia Dortmund are a modern and corporate club but that hasn't stopped them constructing a huge new standing terrace. Uli Hesse-Lichtenberger reports

It started to rain a few minutes into the game. No drizzle, mind you. Real, heavy rain. Thick, grey clouds. Chilly gusts. The works. We had been promised the roof would be ready in time for this, the first home game of the season but, meticulous planning being what it is, there were gaping holes above our heads. I always wear my lucky baseball cap and my old leather jacket on match days, so the weather didn’t bother me, but those around me who were either less superstitious or too trustful when it comes to workmen’s promises got soaking wet within seconds. What was more, the roofers had left piles of tiles lying around. They dammed up the water until it periodically came crashing down on our heads like a torrent from a giant bucket.

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Patrick Harverson explains why the football authorities' waiving of their own rules will make more corporate takeovers difficult to prevent

It is understandable that there is a lot of anger within football about the proposed takeover of Manchester United by Rupert Murdoch’s British Sky Broadcasting. Any deal that combines the country’s most-liked club with its most-feared media tycoon is bound to go down like a lead balloon.

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