Success for Ipswich came under a traditional style of ownership. Csaba Abrahall looks back on a local dynasty and would love to know something, anything, about the club’s current chairman
As the first issue of WSC was running off the photocopier in March 1986, all was not well at Ipswich Town. After 18 largely successful seasons in the top flight, an inadequate team, shorn of the bulk of the squad that had tasted domestic and European glory a handful of years previously, was fighting a losing battle against relegation in front of dwindling crowds. The sense of decline was inescapable.
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Thursday, July 21st, 2011 - Book reviews
This month’s 25-year retrospective takes on the thorny issue of ownership at three contrasting clubs. Mike Ticher begins with Chelsea, unrecognisable from 1986 but difficult to love for very different reasons
In about 1996 I interviewed a pleasant man in a suit from Deloitte & Touche about its work on the finances of football clubs. He patiently took me through one of their early annual surveys, explaining why the industry was unsustainable. If clubs could not rein in players’ wages, there would be a disastrous crash within years.
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Thursday, July 21st, 2011 - The Archive
A dramatic season finale lives up to the pre-match hype. Swansea wobble but survive Reading’s comeback as the Welsh fans look forward to top division games and being patronised by Gary Lineker. Huw Richards recalls the events at Wembley
The essential character of this Championship play-off final was determined 13 days earlier when Reading won the second semi-final. With Cardiff’s elimination it became, as a Swans-supporting friend texted, “a football match, not a civil war”.
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Thursday, July 21st, 2011 - The Archive
The Europa League has had a bad press recently. Georgina Turner sets out to defend the tournament and dispel some myths
It’s May 9, 2012. About 10.30pm local time in Bucharest. Tottenham captain Ledley King looks embarrassed as he turns away from UEFA president Michel Platini, raises the Europa League trophy not much above chin height and quickly hands it down the line. Around him the Stadionul National is silent except for the noise of television crews packing up, litter being picked and the runners-up heading back down the tunnel – their supporters have already filed out of the ground and Tottenham’s were never here. Some of them have seen the result on the news and some received texts from friends. But who cares?
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Thursday, July 21st, 2011 - The Archive
Dermot Corrigan tells of how a player more used to scoring in Drogheda and Derry made his full international debut in Tripoli
On the first weekend in June, most Irish football eyes were fixed on Macedonia, where the Republic of Ireland won 2-0 in a Euro 2012 qualifier. One head though – that of Dublin-born Eamon Zayed – was more interested in Group C of the African Cup of Nations qualifiers, where his Libyan team drew 1-1 away to the Comoros Islands to remain in the hunt for a place at next year’s finals.
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Thursday, July 21st, 2011 - Book reviews