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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Richard Parkin describes how two fanzines set out to defuse a local derby with a recent history of trouble

“I wish to state now that players, officials and fans of Sw*** n T**n (sic) have been, are and always will be SCUM.” So read an excerpt from one letter sent to the Oxford United fanzine Raging Bull. The fanzine’s editor, Ed Horton, was able to identify him as a regular contributor to the publication. This letter was one of many received in response to a joint initiative proposed by the editorial staff of Raging Bull and ourselves, the Swindon Town fanzine The 69er. The initiative addressed the growing problem of crowd violence at derbies between the two clubs. The letter, though untypical of the feedback we received, gave us an idea of what we were up against.

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The significance of fan loyalty is called into question as FA Cup tickets go to the highest bidder

We would like to apologize for an omission from last month’s ‘wish list’ editorial. We failed to require Graham and Sir Bert to pay to get into a Cup Semi-Final – though obviously Sir Bert would have to go on a ‘Decimalisation Made Easy’ course before setting out for Old Trafford or Villa Park.

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