Zesh Rehman has been praised for his work in the Asian community but not on the pitch. Jason McKeown explains

Saturday March 7, 2009, Bradford City are thrashing Aldershot Town 5-0 to climb into fourth place in League Two. Around Valley Parade there are Mexican waves, but in quieter moments a pocket of dissenting home fans can be heard protesting their displeasure. “We want Zesh!” is their loud, high-pitched cry. These were no regular supporters but children from local schools, predominantly Asian. And their vocal disapproval, aired during Bradford’s biggest win for 11 years, was due to the benching of Pakistan international centre-back Zesh Rehman.

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For five surreal seasons in the 1970s, the FA Cup had an extra round. Owen Amos looks back at the games no one remembers

Of all the FA’s daft ideas – and there have been a few – the FA Cup third-place play-off must be among the worst. If, as the saying goes, no one remembers the runners-up, then who cares who came third? The answer, as it turned out, was no one at all. These were, and are, the forgotten FA Cup ties. The first play-off was in 1970, between that season’s beaten semi-finalists, Manchester United and Watford. The game was played on a Friday night at Highbury, the day before the Cup final. United won 2-0; 15,105 people watched. And were they impressed?

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A fine League Cup run may be a welcome diversion from a relegation battle for the Hammers, but historical precedent worries Mark Segal

In a season which so far has bought nothing but pain, disappointment and misery, the Carling Cup is providing some light relief for West Ham fans. While Avram Grant’s limited team plod along unconvincingly in the Premier League, the season’s first cup competition has seen them score wins over Sunderland, Stoke and, most impressively, Manchester United in the quarter-finals.

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Qatar’s World Cup win was a surprise to many, but Steve Wilson argues that maybe it shouldn’t have come as such a shock

When pictures of public gatherings in Doha and London were beamed across rolling news channels on the evening of December 2, it wasn’t just the palm trees in the background, or lack of them, that helped the viewer with their geography.

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Alan Tomlinson looks at the avoidable mistakes, inherent problems and myriad challenges faced by the FA and its incoming chairman

“The highest parliament in English football… the mother of football parliaments,” football writer and former Cambridge Blue Geoffrey Green called the FA in 1959. And despite the power on the field of South American national sides and the legendary Real Madrid team, Green could also laud the FA as “an authority in every land”. 

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