Richard Darn looks at how Barnsley created an international squad
If I said that Barnsley FC had a centre-back who is not only bilingual but also a qualified doctor you’d probably scratch your head for a moment and then conclude he must be foreign. And you would be absolutely correct.
Mike Ticher looks at Australians playing professionally in the UK
It took a long time for Australian players to be taken seriously in England, despite the success of some early pioneers. Joe Marston left Sydney to play 185 games for Preston in the early 1950s, and won a loser’s medal in the 1954 Cup Final. It was another twenty years before Craig Johnston followed in his footsteps. Tony Dorigo completed the meagre roll-call of Australians who made it in what might be called the freelance period. Dorigo had to write personally to every club in the First Division for a trial before finally coming over to join Aston Villa in 1983.
Matt Nation explains why his name can be added to the list of people who have had life-changing experiences involving Norman Hunter and a cinder pitch
Norman Hunter was one of the few players who would have induced me to wade bleeding and naked through an open sewer for a chance to see him, such was the esteem in which I held him. Although in the twilight of his career when he arrived at Bristol City, he was still famous, still a cut above the rest and still capable of turning the flow of a game by scything down the opponents’ playmaker in full flight. If there was one man who definitively captured and held my interest in football, that man was Norman Hunter.
Following Alan Ball's resignation, Steve Parish looks at the problems at Man City
Dave Bassett woke up screaming in the night and we reached the end of the month with Manchester City still desperately seeking a new manager. Well, not that desperately. All sorts of rumours abound, most about whether having an ex-pro as chairman was putting people off. Cobblers: if people would come and manage for Peter Swales, I don’t believe Francis Lee is that fearsome, nor that he is merely, as Simply Red’s manager Elliot Rashman reckons, “Swales with charisma”. Lee denies “interference” in team matters, though a simple thing like having the chairman on the new team photo may suggest otherwise.
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.