Ian Plenderleith reports on how the new model Champions League is likely to discriminate further against teams from the smaller football nations

It’s time for the Champions League highlights on German television with guest star, Franz Beckenbauer. It’s approaching midnight before we get to see the game between Steaua Bucharest and Widzew Lodz. “Well,” says Franz, relishing a rare opportunity to win some points from a public fed-up at his attempts to interfere with the game at every level and at every opportunity, “this is really the game we’ve all been waiting for!”

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Joyce Woolridge explains why a guided tour of Old Trafford left her with mixed feelings

A confused Japanese woman on Piccadilly Metro Station had asked me, in what amounted to sign language, what tram she needed to board to get to Old Trafford. She waved a photocopied tourist information sheet which presumably suggested that there was only one place worth visiting in England outside London, and that was the self-styled Theatre of Dreams.

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Brighton's survival hopes were boosted by a unique event at the Goldstone Ground. Kevin Bartholomew reports

At the time of writing, Brighton’s future is being decided in protracted negotiations between chairman Bill Archer and consortium leader Dick Knight. Meanwhile, the appointment of new manager Steve Gritt to what was described in the press as “the worst job in football” has resulted in a dramatic improvement in the team’s fortunes.

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Andy Medhurst reports on bleak times for fans of Hull City

The name of the Needler family appears in several chapters in the gloriously unsuccessful history of Hull City AFC. The late Harold Needler, a wealthy businessman and chairman of his beloved Tigers, pumped hundreds of thousands of pounds into the club in the 1960s as they just failed to grab a place in Division One.

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Robert Fordham on Liverpool's chairman

Looks like: Keyboard player with a rock group that had a couple of hits in the mid 70s and still play them to big audiences in Kuala Lumpur, Harare and Auckland. Product of an expensive private education, David has reinvented himself as Super Scally. He may have learned the accent phonetically but it seems to have stuck. More recently, he has started to look like a prospective father who turns up at the hospital only to find out it might be a phantom pregnancy – Roy Evans’ continued specialization in almost-but-not-quites is starting to take its toll. Also known as Freddie Boswell.

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