Seventy-five years ago, City and United clubbed together to strangle a new rival. Gary James explains how football history in the north-west could have been very different had Central been given a League chance

In recent years much has been made of the growth of FC United of Manchester and their impact on support, community work and attitudes in Manchester. However, the United offshoot were not the first Mancunian side created following dissatisfaction among supporters. In fact FC United arrived 80 years after a bigger offshoot had seriously challenged the livelihood of Manchester’s two major sides. The difference being that in the Twenties it was Manchester City’s move to Maine Road that prompted the creation of a new forward-looking club – Manchester Central FC, who joined the semi-professional Lancashire Combination in 1928-29.

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As you may have read, Newcastle recently reappointed a former manager, to some acclaim. Harry Pearson  assesses the mood of the “Geordie Nation”

In football, “they” are often credited with saying things. Among the most popular aphorisms of this anonymous collective so frequently quoted by the pundits are “Never go back” and “Never say never”. Resolving this paradox did not delay Kevin Keegan long when he was offered the chance to manage Newcastle for the second time. “It took me about two seconds to decide,” he said, before going on to create a little conundrum of his own by declaring that returning to St James’ Park was like “coming home”, while more or less simultaneously proclaiming: “I have never really left.”

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Should NRR replace QPR in the league tables? Thom Gibbs reports on a takeover by Formula One bosses and a steel magnate that seems to promise much more than mere survival but carries risks of its own

On the evening of August 14, 2007, during a League Cup match against Leyton Orient, Gianni Paladini’s world was in tatters. QPR’s Italian chairman thought he had secured a deal to save the club from impending administration. Flavio Briatore, managing director of the Renault Formula One team, was set to take over, until significant shareholder Antonio Caliendo balked at Briatore’s offer. The deal looked dead. Rangers were destined for financial meltdown, possibly complete extinction. They also lost 2-1 to Orient.

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Liverpool’s American white knights have become the focus of protests after less than a year, so fans including John Williams are dreaming of the day that 100,000 of them will buy out Hicks and Gillett

Sat, irritably, on the Kop at the recent home match against Sunderland, I hunched, as always, next to the man now charged with raising some £500 million for a Liverpool fans’ buyout from the current, unloved, American co-owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett. Rogan Taylor enjoys ambitious projects. Back in 1985, after Heysel, he formed the national Football Supporters Association to give fans a public voice that the press and the authorities might listen to, before later setting up a football MBA at the University of Liverpool. Today, he thinks this club are in even greater danger than back then, when the fans were labelled beasts and the English game seemed spent. “The biggest crisis in over 40 years,” he says. Since Bill Shankly first arrived, in fact, with Liverpool languishing in the old Second Division.

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“…but first, the classified football results, with James Alexander Gordon.” Generations have hung on every word of Sports Report, but Csaba Abrahall  believes that the BBC is squandering its heritage

The BBC, never slow to congratulate itself on its sport coverage, devoted two hours of air time in early January to a celebration of the 60th anniversary of Sports Report, the Saturday evening results and review show currently residing on Five Live. But among the procession of presenters and personalities wheeled out to reminisce about crowding round a wireless, body tingling at the evocative theme music, there was little discussion about the challenge to the programme posed by the changing nature of the football weekend – a largely television-driven challenge that the old radio stalwart is struggling to meet.

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