After three years in jail, Lee Hughes is a footballer once more. Oldham fan Dan Turner reports on the reaction from Latics and supporters elsewhere to the signing of someone who caused death by dangerous driving and the difficult questions about the rehabilitation of prisoners the case raises

Few events in modern football arrive right out of the blue. A much ridiculed post on a message board, a conversation in the pub with someone who knows someone… there’s usually at least a rumour that signals there’s a story knocking about. But not this time. When, in May, the news broke that Oldham Athletic were to sign Lee Hughes subject to his gaining parole from prison, nobody saw it coming.

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The heat is on – and not just because summer has put in a rare appearance. A spending spree has raised expectations at Upton Park, but so far money hasn’t bought Hammers happiness, as Barney Ronay reports

Money: does it ever really make you happy? Heading towards Upton Park through the exciting new infrastructure of the Greenwich peninsula prompts this kind of question. South London’s former dockland has been ambitiously made over of late. Money hasn’t just been spent, it’s been recklessly slathered around the place with a loaded pallet knife. Here and there it even covers some of the cracks. There is probably some kind of comparison here with the new model West Ham United. At its old industrial heart, Greenwich now has the Millennium Village, known for its gleaming white dome, symbol of an aspirational spending beano that never quite got where it wanted to go, but did spark off a whole load of aggravation. West Ham, these days, are fronted up by Eggert ­Magnusson, the Icelandic businessman also known for his gleaming white dome, ­symbol of an aspirational spending beano that… well, you get the idea.

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Racist incidents in games between Serbian and British sides have rightly led to condemnation – but not always of the right people, argues Jonathan Wilson. Some of the outrage is counter-productive, too

There is no subject more certain to set forth tidal waves of sanctimony than racism. Discussion has become impossible, largely because British football has been so successful in its campaign against racism that it now feels compelled to lecture the rest of the world on the subject. It isn’t helping.

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A new DVD about spectators around the world could do with a touch more explanation, but Al Needham still finds the spectacle enthralling

If Danny Dyer’s Real Football Factories: International has taught us anything (apart from a couple of dozen new descriptions for men in Stone Island jackets running at each other with their arms out), it’s that Johnny Foreigner has left us in the dust when it comes to football violence. Even though you couldn’t shake off the feeling that each “firm” will have been reminding each other to get their balaclavas on straight so their mums wouldn’t notice, it was a timely reminder that people can still get worked up about football without a television company or marketing agency having to tell them to.

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Just nine per cent of Premier League spectators are aged 24 or under. Sean Barnes asks whether the death of the football-going tradition among young people will mean a struggle to fill grounds in future

When football was invented by Rupert Murdoch in 1992, I was only five years old. Fast forward 15 years through the boom of English football – which we all know too well – and the story of my puberty – which, fortunately, no one knows at all – and here we are, footballers on seven-figure wages and English chairmen the exception to the rule of the modernised Premier League. Other well documented pitfalls include the increasing gap between club and supporter, the sanitisation of the match-day atmosphere and the decline of the ­working‑class fan. One problem that doesn’t get much attention, however, is my problem, and the problems of people like me. My generation may well be the last to appreciate fully the ups and downs of supporting a football club. The game needs to face up to its problem with the lack of English youth. And by that I don’t mean footballers, I mean fans.

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