Life has, as ever, been stranger than fiction on Tyneside this season, to the dismay of the fans, but Harry Pearson wonders if their loyalty is part of the problem
“Patrick Kluivert was in the other night,” an employee at one of Newcastle’s most salubrious bars told me a few months ago. “By the time he’d walked from the door to the table he had the Jesmond wives stuck all over him like Elastoplast.”
Peterborough may have been relegated under chairman-manager Barry Fry but, as Graham Dunbar reports, they have arranged a lucrative testimonial
Amid all the fake outrage about Ashley Cole’s companions for afternoon tea in a swanky hotel and Rio Ferdinand’s chance partners for a plate-smashing session in a Greek restaurant, one potential tapping-up scandal has largely escaped attention.
Winning the European Cup twice is all very well, but just makes it worse when you slip to your country’s third division, as Al Needham testifies
It’s great when you support a heritage team such as Forest, usually. You can always win arguments with fans from London clubs by merely saying “So how many European Cups have you won again?” You can travel anywhere in the world and get a response from the most undereducated cabbies by mentioning Archie Gemmill’s goal in the 1978 World Cup (note to Irvine Welsh; that was a Forest goal, not a Scottish one, so shut up about it). And even if they do nothing of worth ever again, everyone knows about them.
Believe it or not, but the Italians are going for an English job when it comes to stadium security, writes Matt Barker
For most of this year the Italian press, spearheaded by a campaign in La Gazzetta dello Sport, have been calling for the introduction of a stewarding system all’inglese and the removal of perimeter fencing in the nation’s stadiums.
The Italian authorities have reacted hard to recent embarrassments, but are also groping their way towards a more positive ‘English solution’, writes Paul Virgo
The shower of flares that halted Internazionale’s Champions League derby with AC Milan triggered some tough talking from the Italian authorities. Police have been instructed to call off matches at the first sign of trouble, inside or outside the stadium. Likewise, the Italian federation (FIGC) has given referees instructions to suspend matches if fans hurl flares or other missiles. Turnstile checks have been beefed up to make it more difficult to smuggle flares or offensive banners into the grounds. Teams whose fans are responsible for trouble causing a match to be abandoned will automatically lose the game 3‑0. If the trouble involves both sets of fans, both teams lose 3‑0.