As national manager Guus Hiddink takes charge at Chelsea, Dan Brennan reflects on worries in Russia over what is said to be only a temporary job-share
If Guus Hiddink turns Chelsea’s season around, don’t expect too many loud cheers in Russia. The Dutchman’s decision to combine his permanent job as Russian national team coach with a makeshift one at Stamford Bridge has been met with what might best be described as resigned dismay.
It's a phrase which is regularly repeated throughout the world to describe football. Ian Plenderleith looks at its numerous appearances in modern sport writing to decide if the game really is beautiful
God curse Pelé for the beautiful game. Not for having played it, but for having said it. The cliche has become so entrenched in football writing, it’s almost as though some all-powerful totalitarian linguist had banned the word “football” from public use, and we have developed this cunning euphemism instead. Never mind that football, like any other sport, is only beautiful in rare, fleeting moments. And disregard all those other profound authors from the past two decades who’ve been telling us that football is in fact more than a game. There are numerous books, columns and websites which have co-opted the five syllables as their main moniker. We can presume they all thought they were the first.
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.
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.”
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.