Newcastle United are in the headlines as Mike Ashley prepares to sell the naming rights to St James' Park

Newcastle businessman Barry Moat has been depicted in the press as the club’s potential saviour for several months now but, like someone running up a down escalator, he never seems to get any closer to his goal. With Moat having reportedly failed to come up with the £80 million required to cut a deal, owner Mike Ashley has now taken the club off the market, appointed Chris Hughton as full-time manager and, to general dismay, auctioned the naming rights for St James’ Park.

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Carson Yeung's takeover of Birmingham City results in the departure of a notorious trio

In a month of notable returns, including Avram Grant to Portsmouth and chairman Adam Pearson at Hull, there was also the long goodbye of a famous threesome. After a first takeover attempt failed in November 2007, Carson Yeung finally completed his purchase of Birmingham City on October 6. But the former regime, David Sullivan, David Gold and Karren Brady, did not depart quietly.

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Portsmouth appoint yet another new chairman as financial crisis looms

October ended well for Portsmouth with back-to-back 4-0 wins, against Stoke in the Carling Cup and Wigan in the League. They had seemed to be certainties for relegation after losing their first seven matches but on present form may have a good chance of hauling themselves away from the bottom three. While Paul Hart’s team were reviving their season, they acquired a new chairman.

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Jon McLeod looks back on the season Liverpool were last crowned champions of England.

The long-term significance
Tremors that would come to shape the landscape of English football were felt in 1989-90. UEFA announced that clubs would be readmitted to European competition following a five-year ban due to the Heysel disaster, while Aston Villa appointed the first foreign manager in the English top flight when Jozef Venglos replaced England-bound Graham Taylor at the end of the season. Liverpool claimed their last title to date and Alex Ferguson dodged the bullet at Man Utd.

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Dear WSC
In WSC 272 Jonathan O’Brien finds it remarkable that Celtic’s Bertie Auld “straightfacedly asserts that beating Dunfermline in the Scottish Cup final in 1965 was more important than the title win a year later”. But Auld is not alone in his assertion. No less a man than Jock Stein said in the Dunfermline history Black and White Magic: “It wouldn’t have gone as well for Celtic had they not won this game.” The Celtic history The Glory and the Dream also notes: “The largest framed photograph in [Stein’s] office at Celtic Park showed Billy McNeill borne aloft at the end of the match.”Celtic had won nothing since “the 7-1 game”, a freakish League Cup final triumph over Rangers in 1957. So this win, Stein’s first trophy seven weeks after officially becoming manager, stopped a rot which was threatening to turn Celtic into also-rans in Scotland. Without it the Lisbon Lions may never have been and there may only ever have been one “nine-in-a-row” in Scottish football. And that would never do.
Mark Murphy, Chessington

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