John Tandy makes a case for there being signs of a method in Barry Fry's madness

What’s it like watching Birmingham City these days? Imagine you’ve tuned in to Coronation Street. You want to find out whether Kev’s going to buy the garage. Instead you find two strangers that you’ve never seen before, and they’re making no sense at all. You check the Radio Times and discover that they only joined the cast the day before. They’ve not had time to learn any lines yet but they’re making it up as they go along. Then Reg Holdsworth disappears. It’ll turn out three weeks later that he’s been transferred to Brookside in part exchange for Barry Grant. You tune in the next day, and Curly’s been flogged to Pobol Y Cwm.

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The European Parliament is looking forward to Euro 96 almost as much as we are, according to Philip Cornwall 

There’s a language school in London offering English courses to overseas fans which has captured a few headlines recently; perhaps they could also try teaching the Met enough Dutch, German and French to help the thousands following the Netherlands and Switzerland to Euro ’96.

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The recent death of Cissie Charlton drew attention to the mysteries that still surround England's most famous footballing dynasty, as Harry Pearson reveals

The names of football’s great and good are routinely prefixed with the word ‘legendary’, as if it is the most natural thing in the world for the media to suggest that, say, Sir Stanley Matthews is a partly fictional creation. The press coverage of Cissie Charlton’s death on March 26th followed this familiar pattern. In some ways this was fitting since the most well-known aspect of Cissie’s life, the hours spent patiently teaching her second son Bobby the skills of the game, was entirely the product of overheated journalistic imaginations.

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A fans' pressure group has come to the fore in Italy recently. Roberto Gotta explains who they are and what they want

The recent upheavals in Italian football – the players’ strike and the battle over the control of TV rights – produced a curious side effect: FISSC’s name was in the papers again, as big a surprise as a postcard from a long lost relative.

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Adam Brown looks into how a group of Manchester United supporters are successfully challenging the club hierachy

Victory on the pitch might be nothing new for Manchester United but victory for United’s fans certainly is. A year into their existence and the Independent Manchester United Supporters Association (lMUSA) are claiming limited success in their efforts to get Manchester United plc to take a bit more notice of their fans and to improve the stagnant Old Trafford atmosphere.

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