Tom Davies looks at three more clubs in crisis

One of the genuinely encouraging success stories of recent seasons has been Stockport County, rescued by a fans’ takeover three years ago, promoted via the League Two play-offs last year and well placed in League One until a recent slump. However, the realities of running a club to budget could yet overwhelm County, with lingering debts threatening to push the club into administration before the end of the season and a familiar search for investment becoming the priority.

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Bruce Wilkinson looks at government attempts to control how football tickets are sold

Football supporters are making a growing number of complaints about the ticketing industry and the huge expansion in secondary sales. In response the Department of Culture, Media and Sport has combined with another clumsily titled ministry, that of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, to produce a consultation paper on the issue. Modern technology has revolutionised ticket buying in many positive ways, such as giving a wider range of purchasing and payment options, but it has also democratised touting on an unprecedented scale. This ranges from supporters buying extras in order to make a bit of cash to organised gangs hoovering up blocks of seats and agencies offering big match entrance at extortionate rates. Internet-based auction sites have radically changed resales, giving the opportunity to make a quick buck to anyone with good broadband access and limited scruples. As a consequence, legislation is struggling to keep pace.

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Cameron Carter on extreme tourists disrupting his regular football fix

You know when people tell you that things were better in the olden days: the wars were more righteous, the bank notes bigger and crinklier, bread really tasted of bread and so on? Well, we forward-looking rationalists come right back at them with higher life expectancy, 24-hour garages and Doritos, which absolutely silences the fools. But then there are some modern innovations that are so wrong that the argument is immediately lost again. Match of the Day 2 on March 15 was interrupted halfway through by Adrian Chiles to inform us that the next programme on BBC2 was High Altitude and would feature two glittering-eyed hearties ski-biking across Iceland. They actually showed these men in the snow contemplating the difficulty of their challenge. To put that into context: that’s two minutes of preview footage of a couple of extreme tourism bores biffing on about the terrible weather on an Icelandic glacier. In my quality football time.

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Wigan's chairman Dave Whelan gives his views on his opposite number at Newcastle, Mike Ashley

“Mike Ashley has no class whatsoever. I think he has got what he deserves at Newcastle. You don’t go in there and lower the standards.” Such comments about Newcastle’s beleaguered owner and his fondness for XXL replica shirts could have come from any number of columnists. Instead they were made by another Premier League chairman. Managers snipe at one another publicly all the time these days but it is quite rare for club owners to feud. It’s less of a surprise however that this unofficial protocol should have been breached by Wigan’s Dave Whelan. Of course, Whelan’s beef with Ashley doesn’t really stem from his concern about falling standards in the boadroom. This much is borne out by other comments at the same press conference about Ashley’s predecessor: “Whatever you think of Freddy Shepherd, he had great dignity. People say he made a good living out of it, but he was also Newcastle United through and through.” That’s the same Freddy Shepherd who alternately scandalised and embarrassed Newcastle supporters with his crass behaviour over a period of several years before making £50 million in selling up to Ashley.

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With every team desperate to find the quickest route to success, the debate over clubs' spending patterns rages on

It’s rare enough that Rafa Benítez and Sir Alex Ferguson have an exchange of views that could be described as entertaining but they achieved it mid-March. It started with Benítez claiming that in his five seasons at Liverpool they had spent £100 million less on players than Man Utd. One can imagine that Sir Alex was a picture of wounded dignity as he asked a couple of United’s sports scientists to lay down their stopwatches and clipboards for an afternoon to look into this claim. Wouldn’t you know, they came up with figures to refute it.

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