David Harrison offers views on the current state of play in the Second Division from which his club Watford have just made their escape
Before considering playing styles, and the overall Division Two experience, it is perhaps worth spending a moment on the most fundamental element of the lot: the playing surface.
An overview of the prevailing standards in the Football League, with Reading fan Roger Titford describing what he saw from the wrong end of the First Division
By general consensus it has been a bad year for the First Division. Its lack of quality has been characterised by “the widening of the gap”. At the time of writing it looks quite likely that all last year’s promoted teams will come back down and the three relegated teams will return to the Premiership. If it happens it will probably be a fluke never to be repeated but it comes at a very bad time for the image of the Football League.
Ian Plenderleith recalls an usual cup tie consisting of flares, invading fans and a surreal amount of goals
Have you ever had your home stadium taken over by away fans? I don’t just mean being outsung by supporters of a victorious opponent, or having your end steamed in on by a bunch of future novelists. We’re talking here about an occupying army, a cacophonous, flag-waving force running on the adrenalin of new-found nationalism, a rabble which banged, bayed and basked in its superiority of numbers for 90 minutes and more while the awe-smitten home supporters barely squeaked.
In Germany the debate over players' wages has been conducted in public during Bundesliga matches, as Uli Hesse-Lichtenberger describes
On A day in late March, Schalke 04’s business manager Rudi Assauer stormed through the corridors of power at UEFA headquarters. Grey-haired functionaries ducked out of his way, detecting a take-me-to-your-leader glint in the man’s eyes that heralded trouble. And they were right: Assauer was on a mission to save the world of football all by himself.
Patrick Harverson examines the furore that followed the publication last month of a report that detailed huge rises in footballers' wages in the past year
Are footballers paid too much? It is a simple enough question, but one that evades a simple answer. It can be, and often is, argued that footballers are paid too much in relation to the amount of money their clubs earn, or in relation to the performance they deliver on the pitch, or – as several tabloid newspapers suggested recently – in relation to the amount of money a nurse earns.