In the old days you had to wait for the Shoot! questionnaire to find out the likes and dislikes of your favourite players. Now, as Glen Wilson is alarmed to discover, such information is just a click away

Somewhere in my childhood, on a caravan park near Penarth, I kicked a ball about with a kid who told me his uncle was Clayton Blackmore. “Don’t ask my Nan about it,” he said pointing to the beige static home behind him, “she’ll tell you I’m lying.” Obviously I was impressed. As a child, perhaps due to one too many Hot Shot Hamish comic strips, I was convinced that footballers were some sort of super breed; bigger, stronger, more athletic than I could ever be. The fact that someone my age could know or be related to one of these people, even ­Clayton Blackmore, stunned me.

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Concerns over dodgy club owners are not confined to England – and some regions are far worse off. Henry Mance reports from a country where gangsters use drug money to own players and win titles

“I left a message to see if you needed players, because I could get you some, and you’d just have to pay the salary, you understand? The players have a certain gratitude towards me.” A decent offer perhaps, but this is from no agent or chairman. It’s from Jorge 40, one of Colombia’s most feared paramilitary leaders, finding time in a hectic schedule of drugs and violence to dabble in the transfer market. He’s offering a director of his local team, Valledupar, several players on loan from Real Cartagena and América de Cali. The drugs influence is back in Colombian football, if it ever went away.

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Groundtastic, now in its 50th edition, has documented the huge change to British stadiums at all levels over the past 12 years. The fanzine’s co-editor Vince Taylor explains the motivation

For those of us whose pulses quickened at the sight of floodlight pylons towering over neighbouring housetops, and whose idea of bliss was to be stood in the middle of a crowded concrete terrace, the publication of The Football Grounds of England & Wales by Simon Inglis in 1983 was a moment of epiphany. Though it wasn’t quite “the love that dare not speak its name”, nobody before Inglis had articulated this fascination some of us have for football grounds as entities in their own right. He introduced us to Archibald Leitch, the Scottish civil engineer who more or less invented the British football stadium as it existed before the Taylor Report, and also demonstrated that every football ground, no matter how great or humble, generally has an interesting tell to tale.

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A-League clubs are allowed one star signing and Juninho has joined Sydney FC. But, asks Mike Ticher, does the Brazilian have what it takes to match the achievements of his predecessor, Dwight Yorke?

In 1975 the Australian leg-spinner Kerry O’Keeffe arrived in Blackburn for a season as the professional for East Lancs in the Lancashire League. All he heard on his first night there was how brilliant he would have to be to emulate a long list of predecessors – each one ticked off with a resounding: “He were a good ’un.”

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It may not be the best phrase to use around QPR, but “trigger happy” describes Milan Mandaric’s attitude to managers at Leicester. How will new boss Gary Megson fare against another man in the firing line, wonders Al Needham?

Leicester is a strange city. It’s actually the biggest in the east midlands, but it keeps it quiet. Until recently, the airport within its boundaries was called Nottingham East Midlands. It’s got a National Space Centre for no discernable reason whatsoever (unless they knitted a jumper for Neil Armstrong, or supplied NASA with space crisps) and, when you make the horribly long walk from the station to Walkers Stadium, you could swear blind you were in a rugby town. You spend most of the journey on Tigers Way (the part of the A594 dedicated to the local egg-chasers), craning your neck to see if there’s anyone in blue shirts ahead of you, and that you’re actually going in the right direction and the game is actually on.

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