A home game against the reigning champions is often a foregone conclusion. On this occasion things went very differently as Neil Hurden saw the hosts comfortably dominate their out of form visitors

It’s the Saturday before Christmas, it’s uncharitably cold and my mind is dis­orientated by mixed signals. Only three days before, Fulham performed heroics in the St Jakob stadium in Basel, hanging on to win 3-2 and to secure a last 32 draw against UEFA Cup holders Shakhtar Donetsk in the Europa League, the financially poor but spiritually enriched man’s Champions League.

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In an unlikely setting, David Wells enjoyed several hours in the company of some famous English footballers

It’s a damp, blustery evening a few weeks before Christmas. There are more than the usual number of middle-aged men about, some furtively clutching carrier bags and cardboard tubes. Many are heading to the Wolverhampton Civic Hall, a large soulless venue with the feel of a school hall circa 1975, where earlier in the week Alice Cooper had been appearing. Tonight is billed as “An evening with the 1966 England World Cup Squad”. It should read “or most of them”, as two cannot appear and Bobby Charlton presumably prefers not to. The company run by agent Terry Baker (“the only worldwide agents for Pelé’s signature”) do a steady line in selling signed memorablia in the foyer. One of their clients, Jimmy Greaves, is the evening’s compere.

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The 2010 World Cup draw has revived US interest in a meeting with England 60 years ago, as Ian Plenderleith reports

In an era when English football seems to carelessly treat its pre-1992 history as an embarrassment that only serves to complicate clean-cut Premier League records, the United States is paradoxically looking to resurrect a past that will help it to feel more accepted in the global game. Unfortunately for the US, that past largely consists of a single game – the 1-0 victory over England in the 1950 World Cup.

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Andrew Scowcroft explains why he's no longer willing to help service his club's debts as much as ten months in advance

During Crystal Palace’s 4-1 win over Blackpool, my friend Chris and I had the break-up conversation, the one in which I said: “I’m not renewing my season ticket.” Although October 3 seems ridiculously early to bring it up, it was the date that Crystal Palace published their season ticket brochure for 2010-11.

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Al Needham observes the turbulence at Meadow Lane from the other side of the river

When it was announced in the summer that Notts County’s Supporters Trust had given their stripy monochrome cow of a club away to Munto Finance in exchange for a fistful of magic beans, the immediate reaction on the south side of the Trent was genuinely positive. If ever any club needed a sugar daddy, it was them. The thought of a proper cross-town rivalry was an exceedingly tempting one. And as a friend of mine said: “So what if they ended up in the Premier League while we fell out of the League? We’d still be patting them on the heads and saying ‘Are you in Europe, then? Good on yer, duck’ while we were playing Ilkeston Town.”

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