Gloucester City's ground has been submerged, reports Tim Lezard
Trevor Howard climbed on to his roof to get a better look at Meadow Park. What he saw made his heart sink: the home of Gloucester City was underwater, the crossbars just visible above eight feet of flood water.
Thaksin Shinawatra buys Man City Ian Farrell reports
Upon taking control of Manchester City, billionaire businessman and ex-Prime Minister of Thailand Thaksin Shinawatra, clearly having been made aware that nothing wins the British over like a self-deprecating sense of humour, said that he didn’t mind that people had trouble pronouncing his surname and was happy to be referred to as “Sinatra”. It remains to be seen whether it will enjoy the same popularity as the nickname he’s commonly known by in his own country: Ai Na Liam, or Mr Square Face. This might seem harmless enough, but it wasn’t coined purely to poke fun at his rather Cubist features. There’s also a secondary sting that should worry all City fans: the Thai word for square-shaped also means “con man”.
Update on clubs in crisis, Tom Davies reports
It has been another fraught summer at Queens Park Rangers, with the club facing a winding-up order, further loan entanglements and worries about ongoing financing. QPR were served with a winding-up order in June over debts of £700,000-£800,000 to HM Revenue and Customs. The club was bailed out with the help of a new £1.3 million loan from the mysterious Panama-based ABC corporation, to whom Rangers were already paying back an earlier £10m loan (see WSC 230). Furthermore, the entire loan repayment deadline was brought forward to August next year from the original deadline of 2012.
Dear WSC
I’m sure I’m not the only Wednesday fan disappointed that the recent takeover was unsuccessful. However, whatever the rights and wrongs, our initial disappointment was lessened when we found out that would-be buyer Paul Gregg was a leisure magnate rather than the purveyor of quality pastries to our high streets. I was quite looking forward to Leon Clarke puffing up and down our newly laid pitch with “Steak Bake” emblazoned across his ample midriff.
Paul Sullivan, Pontefract
Their country’s victory in the Asian Cup provided a respite from bad news for Iraqis everywhere, but, as Justin McCurry explains, a competition with four host nations left plenty of others unhappy
After Japan’s politically charged victory over China in Beijing three years ago, few expected this year’s Asian Cup to amount to much more than the beginning of a regional power struggle between the Japanese and the confederation’s newcomers, Australia. In the end it amounted to the continent’s answer to total football: decent matches played in searing heat, organisational cock-ups (perhaps unsurprising given that there were four host nations), managerial resignations, and that old friend of FIFA knock-out tournaments, the soporific stalemate otherwise known as the third-place play-off.