Two decades after another publishing tycoon tried to sell the club, John Madejski's Reading have finally made the top flight, to the delight of Roger Titford and the surprise of the bookmakers

We have been sitting on an ever-plumper cushion since December – of five points, 15 points, 25 points – at the top of the Championship, warmed by unprecedentedly kind words from the rest of football and marinating in our own smugness. Not only has our title-winning season been perfect, it has also been quite unexpected – a 25-1 shot at the bookies.

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Portugal's most successful export is certainly admired at home for his achievements and wealth – but his compatriots don't exactly like José Mourinho, reports Phil Town

In the last two years, José Mourinho has been to Portuguese football what Manderley was to the heroine in Daphne du Maurier’s novel Rebecca and Hitchcock’s film: absent but omnipresent. At his old club FC Porto, various coaches have tried and failed to measure up to the historic yardstick set by Mourinho during his spell there, whether in material terms (back-to-back championships, a Portuguese Cup, a UEFA Cup and a Champions League title in two seasons) or in terms of style. Coach Co Adriaanse has just won the championship with Porto, but the team was widely seen as barely the best of a poor bunch vying for the title. And, however honourable the man might be, his appeal factor struggles to rise above the dishwater-dull when held up against Mourinho’s charisma, still hovering ghost-like above the Estádio do Dragão.

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Following their UEFA Cup run last season, Sorin Dumitrescu looks back on the finest hour of Steaua Bucharest, and one man in particular

Steaua Bucharest’s run in this season’s UEFA Cup brought the club to international attention for the first time since the 1980s, when they twice reached the final of the European Cup. Their triumph in 1986 against Barcelona was entirely down to one man, goalkeeper Helmuth Duckadam, who saved four penalties in Steaua’s 2-0 shootout victory. 

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After promotion back to the Football League, Ashley Shaw finds renewed optimism in a corner of the north-west

Few small clubs can match the fame of Accrington Stanley. Synonymous with a lost era, Stanley’s premature and unnecessary exit from the Football League in 1962 lent the club a certain romance, especially as, only a few years before, they had been riding high, attracting gates of more than 10,000 to Peel Park.

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Manchester United's new deal with AIG is set to net them £14.1m a year. Steve Menary reports on the big business that is shirt sponsorship

That sponsorship is taking over football is a routine gripe from fans, but clubs are unlikely to agree. The total value of shirt sponsorship across the top flights of England, France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain is £238 million this season, according to consultant Sports+Markt. That figure is 40 per cent up on 2000-01; no wonder Manchester United squeezed every pip out of their latest deal.

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