Neil Andrews explains the sharp and sudden decline of a defender who found himself more popular with supporters than managers

There are not many former Millwall players who can claim to have played their last game for the club in an FA Cup final. In fact, there are only two. Australian midfielder Tim Cahill is one. The other is an amiable young Irishman named Robbie Ryan, who was part of a young Lions side that went from near relegation to the bottom tier of English football to European football in just six years. He was also one of the most popular footballers to have played at The Den in recent memory.

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Three years ago, Jens Heilmann began a project to photograph the footballs used in every World Cup final. From the introduction to a new book, The World Cup Balls, Norbert Thomma describes how they were painstakingly tracked down

Internet searches on World Cup footballs showed only that they had been badly photographed. There was scant information about the originals. Apparently the world was only interested in goals and artistic overhead kicks, in saved penalties and vicious fouls, in posing winners and fallen idols. But the single item they all fight over was often ignored.

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Taylor Parkes reads a controversial and much-delayed book on England's key player and tabloid star. And then wishes he hadn't

It’s known on the back pages as a “moment of madness”. Probing the Church of Scientology on behalf of the BBC’s Panorama, John Sweeney – investigative journalist of some repute – is harassed by sharp-suited goons. No surprise to anyone familiar with that organisation, but too much for Sweeney, who blows his top.

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Often contested by recent Premier League competitors, this year's Championship play-off final featured two clubs who last played in the top division in 1971 and 1962 respectively. Cameron Carter reports

Wembley, on a luridly hot day in May. Almost lost among the blue and tangerine hordes, down for this afternoon’s promotion showdown, glimpses of everyday north London life – the dreaming bouncers outside pubs, the Wembley branch of the school-age outdoor drinking club soliciting help to buy alcohol, the brightly-plumed, chirpy Lidl in the retail park. For the most part, though, this pocket of London is just Cardiff and Blackpool, ribbons of blue and tangerine filing magnetically towards the Wembley arch.

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Dan Callow travelled to the biggest game in Fulham's history and enjoyed the matchday experience away from the Premier League

It may seem a little churlish, stood in a fabulous stadium shortly before the start of the biggest game in your club’s history, to start remembering some of the awful matchday experiences you have suffered in the past. But as fans of about 87 other League clubs will attest, when it comes to following your team then the glass is always very much half empty even, so it seems, when stood on the threshold of possible European glory. Besides, it’s all bound to go wrong and we’ll be back in League Two in three years anyway.

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