Simon Tyers reports that on European nights Gabby Logan shows her increasing propensity to wear yet more dark eye make up

The biennial search for the least thought-through cash-in on a major football tournament may have been settled right at the outset by the Budweiser Academy. Not only does the humour derive from the basic principle that Americans don’t know the first thing about soccer, a big comment to make when their national side are above England’s in FIFA’s rankings, but it appears whoever storyboarded the advert doesn’t even understand American sport. Bad enough that a real basketball coach, Kevin Cadle, is shown coaching gridiron footballers. Worse that we see a player collecting a punt from the goalkeeper and making off the other way with the ball in his hands, when, if he was aware of American football rules, he should be returning it towards the keeper’s end.

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With candidate after candidate ruling themselves out of the race, who will take up the poisoned chalice that is the England job?

“What a mess this is,” said Graham Taylor of the latest developments in the selection of the new England coach. And there’s a man who knows about mess. It’s hard to disagree with him as we write, a few days after Luiz Felipe Scolari said no and on the eve of an expected announcement that Steve McClaren will shuffle up the bench to occupy the seat Sven-Göran Eriksson is to vacate. Time, obviously, to dispense with the men responsible for this debacle.

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Saturday 1 “I think it is asking Chelsea a question,” says Sir Alex as Man Utd close to within seven points with a 2‑1 win at Bolton after the leaders are held 0‑0 at Birmingham (“The objective is to chase the game for 90 minutes and we didn’t,” says José). Spurs’ lead in fourth place is cut to two points by their loss 3‑1 at Newcastle while Arsenal thrash Villa 5‑0 with two-goal Thierry Henry starring again. “All I can say is that I want him to stay,” says Arsène, referring to Barcelona’s interest. Portsmouth’s 3‑1 win at Fulham – “We are hitting form like we did this time a year ago,” says Harry – takes them level with West Brom, who suffer a sixth defeat in seven games, 2‑0 to Liverpool. With Watford losing at Palace last night and Leeds going down 1‑0 at Hull, Sheffield United go seven points clear in the Championship’s runner‑up spot with a 1‑1 draw at Stoke. In League One, a 1‑0 defeat of Barnsley takes Huddersfield level with second-placed Brentford, who draw 1‑1 at Colchester. Forest are just five points off the play-offs after a fifth win in seven post‑Megson matches, 3‑1 at Chesterfield. Long‑time League Two leaders Wycombe are now four points outside a promotion spot following a 3‑1 home defeat by Bristol Rovers. Rushden move off the foot through a 1‑0 victory over Torquay, who are now bottom. Gretna become the first third-level club to reach the Scottish Cup final, with a 3‑0 win against Dundee.

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Derby won the title with a low 53 points, as the title fight was between a mish-mash of "town" teams. Roger Titford reports

The long-term significance
If there was a remake of this season it would be called “What Happens When Big Clubs Go Bad”. For the last time, possibly ever, a variety of “town” teams – Ipswich, Burnley, Derby and Stoke among them – contested the League title deep into the spring. It was an unusual year in many respects: miners did relatively better than stockbrokers in the economic crisis, glamrock was dying and punk not yet born, and England’s big three suffered like never since. It was Liverpool’s only trophyless season between 1973 and 1984. Arsenal spent some time bottom of the table, which they haven’t done since. Manchester United weren’t even in the top flight. Revie, Shankly, Nicholson, Greenwood and Sexton had all followed Sir Alf Ramsey out of long-occupied managerial seats in 1974 and a chance emerged for the lesser lights to shine. It sounds now like an impossible feast of equal opportunity, but at the time they said it was dismal, mundane, violent and “the death of football”.

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Dear WSC
The Spurs “yids” thing (WSC 230) is indeed well and truly weird. This derogatory term emanated from Arsenal, a club with a proud tradition of support from the large north London Jewish community. As an eight- or nine-year-old, sitting high in the Highbury east stand with my uncle at my first ever game, even my pre-pubescent jewdar was sufficiently sensitive to know I was among my own. These days it’s a London thing. The term is seldom heard from northern fans, whereas one Chelsea fan website, presumably popular as it is on Google’s first page, proudly lists the lyrics to more than 25 (I stopped counting) anti-Semitic songs. In the mid-1970s, some Spurs fans created an incomprehensibly bizarre variant on terrace youth sub-culture by wearing skinhead uniform, skullcaps and Israeli flags. There’s one for all the sociologists out there. I sit in a different east stand now and for years optimistically clung to the notion that, in reclaiming the word, Spurs fans displayed rudimentary class consciousness and solidarity with discriminated groups in our society. This forlorn hope has been shattered in the face of vicious, sustained homophobic chanting, ostensibly related to Sol Campbell’s predicaments. The lip service paid by most clubs to kick out racism seems positively enlightened by comparison, and if we can’t learn anything from all this then the future’s bleak for football.
Alan Fisher, Tonbridge

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