No saviour arrived for Grimsby last season but Jack Johnson remembers the brief appearance of a goal-scoring international defender a decade ago

Ten years ago Division One strugglers Grimsby Town were in the midst of a defensive crisis. The club's only senior centre-backs – Peter Handyside, Richard Smith and Paul Raven – were all spending more time on the treatment table than the training ground, so Grimsby boss Lennie Lawrence decided to make a few phonecalls. The fans expected a rookie Premier League reserve or two; what they didn’t expect was a Chinese international.

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Steve Bradley explains why the opening night of a new national stadium led to unnecessary embarrassment

Wednesday August 4 should have been a proud day for Irish football. With the covers lifted from Lansdowne Road to reveal the new 50,000-capacity Aviva Stadium, the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) threw a housewarming party to celebrate. But the invite list and guests’ behaviour left a sour taste for some fans.

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While Bosnia's national team continues to improve, their federation is under attack from fans, as James Taylor reports

Late at night on September 3, after Bosnia’s victory in Luxembourg, one of the presidents of the Football Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BFF), Bogdan Ceko, was attacked by unidentified assailants. This has nothing to do with safety in Luxembourg; it is an unsurprising symptom of the off-field troubles that plague Bosnian football.

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Alex Anderson reflects on the unusual task he has set for himself, of going to watch every team that has reached a European cup final

I’ve seen 66 of them. That’s exactly two-thirds. There are probably some who’ve seen the lot though. Probably even more, like me, will have realised that “every European finalist” is as worthy of bagging ambition as “every League ground”, “every League champion” and “every club Neil Warnock’s managed”. No doubt, I’ll be far from alone in recognising it as worthy of that kind of on-the-autism-spectrum attention. But when the list hits 100 – and Fulham last season were number 99 – everyone will want a piece.

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A reasonable start to the season for the home side comes to an end with a thrashing as the once illustrious visitors suggest that they may not hang around for too long at the third level. Harry Pearson reports

In the second half at Victoria Park there’s an odd moment when it seems we might be witnessing the birth of a new musical phenomenon. In the past people have successfully fused techno with jazz, hip hop with heavy metal and Indian bhangra with Celtic reels, but so far as I know nobody has until now thought of combining sub-Saharan African drumming with good old-fashioned north-east exasperated football moaning.

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