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Debt doubt

After being plunged into administration in February, Darlington have been left wondering if they will be able to continue to play in League Two. Thom Kennedy investigates the depth of the clubs problems

If a week is a long time in football, events at League Two Darlington have proved that a day is long enough for a crisis to unfold in the bottom division. On February 21 fans were celebrating a 1-0 victory over Grimsby, and another obstacle on the path to promotion cleared. Curtis Main, 16, had become Darlo’s youngest ever scorer, dropping a neat match-winning header into the bottom corner within moments of coming on, and an exciting run-in lay ahead.

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Clash of cultures

Everton and the BNP recently clashed over the timing of a party campaign. Mark O'Brien looks at how the police deal with disruptons to the matchday routine

From the England team’s Nazi salute in 1938 to the T-shirts worn by Robbie Fowler and Steve McManaman in support of striking dockers, politics has frequently exerted an influence on football. That convergence caused quite some concern on Merseyside when the British National Party announced recently that they planned to conduct a leafleting campaign in Liverpool city centre on the afternoon of Saturday March 14, the same afternoon as Everton were scheduled to play host to Stoke City in the Premier League.Tranmere were at home to Huddersfield on the same afternoon, while Liverpool supporters would also be returning from their early game at Old Trafford, and according to Chief Superintendent Steve Watson of Liverpool North: “If they had all taken place at the same time it would have placed extraordinary pressures on demand and would have affected the ability to police those events effectively.”

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ITV advert blunder

After ITV failed to broadcast a Dan Gosling's goal against Liverpool questions were raised as to the why the error occurred. Simon Tyers examines the history of football on the channel.

Until the start of February my favourite ever football related onscreen cockup was when the scrolling graphic on Soccer Saturday announced that a player had scored their “9YJ GOAL THIS SEASON”. Trust ITV to take football on television’s standards into the hitherto uncharted depths of high farce in their coverage of the Everton v Liverpool FA Cup tie. Pity Dan Gosling, who might have come off the pitch hoping people would ask each other if they’d seen his goal only to find they were instead asking who hadn’t seen it. Such was the timing, such were the circumstances, that if you’d written it as an ITV sitcom punchline it wouldn’t have been any more credible.

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Price of success

With small attendances and full-time wages the Football League is proving costly for Accrington Stanley, as Karl Sturgeon reflects

The Racecourse Ground, April 2008. Wrexham are playing their last home game as a Football League team, and it’s not hard to see why they’re going down: they’re losing 3-0 to Accrington Stanley, a team with a goal difference of minus 29. In the final seconds, however, Wrexham win a penalty. 3-1. Little consolation for fans already more concerned with finding Ebbsfleet on a map, but, up in the flimsy old directors’ box, someone is happy.

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Vote of confidence

When Ebbsfleet were bought by 32,000 fans last February it was heralded as real-life fantasy football. A year on membership has fallen dramatically. Gary Andrews ponders the future

It’s unlikely any champagne corks would have popped at the headquarters of MyFootballClub.co.uk (MyFC) on the anniversary of their takeover of Conference side Ebbsfleet United. For a start, they probably wouldn’t have been able to afford it given their membership – and with it the cash that kept the project going – had just dropped from 32,000 to under 10,000.

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