Martin Warrillow warns West Ham fans of what to expect now that Birmingham City's former owners are in charge of their club
It was the jacket that did it. The spectacularly naff claret-coloured jacket David Sullivan was wearing when he swanned into Upton Park having, as he put it, “defied commercial and financial sense” by buying West Ham United despite their reported £110 million debts.
Stockport supporters have been taking action to highlight the crisis that has gripped their club, as David Meller reports
On a freezing Wednesday morning late last December around 300 Stockport County supporters gathered outside Edgeley Park and downed shots of whisky and hot water to keep warm. After eight months of administration we were preparing to march to the club’s administrators in Manchester city centre, to raise knowledge of a club moving towards liquidation and those responsible for doing so. The question was whether the march would yield anything constructive.
In the first part of a feature on the financial turmoil that has enveloped football, Ashley Shaw looks at the fury caused by the Glazers' attempt to load even more debt on to Manchester United
There have been few more important documents in the history of Manchester United than the bond prospectus published last month. The admission that the Glazers have already taken out £22.9 million in loans and fees, and could suck a further £500m out of the club over the next seven years, means there can no longer be any pretence about the motivation for the 2005 takeover. The age of the football asset-stripper is at hand.
Ian Plenderleith uses websites like YouTube to discover a metaphorical gold mine of bad punditry from around the world
Who is the game’s worst broadcaster? The debate has embraced a wider cast of dubious characters now that we can head to YouTube to hear the gibbering vacuity and perverse analysis of commentators and pundits from around the world. And, thanks to the internet, British viewers were well warned ahead of the arrival on their screens this year of the lead candidate for football’s most nonsensical TV goon, ESPN’s diminutive, smooth-topped Irish export, Tommy Smyth.
When the opening day of the 2010 League One season paired newly-relegated Norwich with local rivals Colchester, few would have predicted the scoreline or the season-long feud that followed. Paul Buller documents events in East Anglia
Norwich City and Colchester Utd fans rarely have anything more in common than flat landscapes and a mutual distaste for Ipswich Town. Following Norwich’s relegation to League One, however, two matches, 13 goals, two new managers, accusations of skullduggery and even a demand for an unprecedented points deduction finds both clubs inextricably linked – whether they like it or not.