Owen Amos uncovers the facts surrounding Lee Trundle’s mysterious move Welsh Premier League side Neath

When Lee Trundle was released by Bristol City in May, he was expected to stay in the Football League. This, after all, was a forward with 118 league goals in 320 games. Indeed, Trundle was a million-pound striker: three years earlier, he’d moved from Swansea to Bristol for seven figures. But, despite offers from Swindon, Tranmere, Yeovil and Newport, he signed for Neath in the Welsh Premier League, a club with an average gate of 221. Trundle, the showboating star of Soccer AM, probably gets bigger crowds for his book signings (Lee Trundle, More Than Just Tricks – £16.99 in hardback if you’re interested).

Read more…

Al Needham gets nostalgic over a clash of two sides still hoping to return to a time of former glories

I don’t mean to bang on about the past, but this fixture really brings it out in me. Forest v Ipswich was the first game I ever went to, on October 4, 1977. I stood as a nine-year-old in the Trent End with Ian Marriott and his dad, gasping at the sight of the blues and reds merging with the green, floodlit pitch – just like the picture on the Subbuteo box that I’d just got from him in exchange for an Action Man (in one of those undersized tanks, where his arms hung over the side) – my head fizzing as Kenny Burns, Peter Shilton and Viv Anderson ran about in front of me just like they did on the telly.

Read more…

With chairmen often criticised over unjust sackings, Adam Bate asks if managers are actually being given more time than they deserve

On October 18, Steve Gibson accepted Gordon Strachan’s resignation as manager of Middlesbrough. The Championship season was just 11 games old. It is the second October in succession that the Boro chairman has overseen a change of manager. This may lead some to question Gibson’s long-established reputation as the most patient chairman in English football. In truth, could he perhaps be guilty of that little mentioned phenomenon – changing the manager too late.

Read more…

With the release of Darren Anderton’s autobiography, Georgina Turner explains why the former Tottenham player should be regarded as much of an England hero as his Euro 96 team-mates

Most people remember England’s Euro 96 campaign for Gazza’s goal and the dentist’s chair, Psycho going… psycho, Gareth Southgate, another heart-wrenching defeat to the Germans. France 98 is the tournament of Michael Owen and David Beckham each for different reasons. No one can think about them without hearing the Lightning Seeds. But I haven’t met many who remember first and foremost, as I do, how brilliant Darren Anderton was.

Read more…

With players going down easier, Matt Nation believes football is fast becoming a contactless sport

Watch an Over-55s game on my local pitch and you’ll rarely see a foul. The players may regale whoever will listen with stories of how a match wasn’t a match unless they’d broken their jaw at least once and then barged the opposing goalkeeper so hard that the game had to be stopped so that people could go and look for him, but they’re remarkably mild-mannered on the pitch. They have to be. Tackling is frowned upon or, if the referee is getting on a bit himself, banned outright.

Read more…