Alex Horsburgh explains why Cowdenbeath have particular cause to be grateful for the intervention of the motor car
There’s an old Scottish saying “it takes a long spoon to sup with a Fifer”. Meaning people from the ancient kingdom of Fife, once the stomping ground of Robert the Bruce, are hard to know, suspicious to the point of paranoia.
Kevin Bartholomew looks at how Brighton ended up being at the bottom of the Football League
On a Thursday evening in May 1983, Brighton lost 4-0 to Manchester United in the FA Cup Final replay. The outstanding memory of that day for many Brighton followers was the support the team received. Despite the result, by the end of the match Albion fans were, incredibly, outsinging the Red Army. This was in recognition of the Seagulls’ achievements in the FA Cup that season: the campaign had included victories over Newcastle, Man City and Liverpool, and we had come agonizingly close to beating United in the first attempt at the Final. But it also demonstrated the affection held for a club that had risen from being a mediocre lower division outfit to a side able to do battle with the best teams in the country.
Adam Brown of the Football Supporters Association was in Turin for a Champions League game between Juventus and Man Utd. He recalls seeing some highly old-fashioned police tactics first hand
This is getting to be a bit of a habit. Manchester United head off to Europe, full of optimism that this year we’ll get it right, only for things to go horribly wrong both on the pitch and off it. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised then, when our trip to Juventus ended in tears, not due to the 1-0 defeat but because we’d been tear-gassed, as well as beaten with batons and crushed.
Tim Springett explains why the FA's widely publicised anti-booze campaign is doomed to fail.
A mere day after Tony Adams owns up to an alcohol problem comes the announcement by the FA that they are to intensify their programme of random breath-tests of players. Such testing, so it seems, has already been taking place for three years. Apparently there have been no positive tests so far: for the FA’s sake, this is just as well.
During his time at Birmingham David Sullivan called for away fans to be banned – but he was talking about his own supporters. John Tandy is baffled
In the last issue of the Birmingham City fanzine Wake Up Blue there’s an interview with owner David Sullivan in which he describes himself as “pissed off”.