A relaunched domestic league has done little to divert the attention of a jaded Chinese public from Europe, writes Gary Bowerman, but sights are set high for the future

Footballing frustration hangs heavily over China. With a population of 1.3 billion, an economy fast outgrowing all others and an ingrained passion for football, the Chinese constantly berate their national team for their lowly 64th place in FIFA’s rankings. To compound the fans’ frustration, China’s recent tour of Europe yielded a scoreless draw with Andorra, a 1-0 win over Algeria and a thumping 6-0 defeat by Bar­celona, while the Under-23 team failed to qualify for the Athens Olympics.

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Dear WSC
In his article Mind the Gap (WSC 209), which celebrated a rise in attendances in what used to be Division Two, Ed Park­inson did confess that as a fan of promoted Hartlepool he might be viewing the league with rose-tinted spectacles. Having read the article, I feel he must have gone the whole hog and had a full rose-tinted laser eye operation. Having witnessed many games in this division last season and having seen all the teams play at least once, I can honestly say that the standard of football nev­er exceeded mediocre. Plymouth were the only good footballing side and they didn’t look anywhere near as good once Paul Sturrock swapped addresses on the south coast. As well as attributing the rise in attendances to what he considered to be “fine football”, Ed also noted that the struggles of “a few self-styled big clubs” such as Sheffield Wednesday provided pleasure for many. However, average attendances in Division Two were only up 6.5 per cent on the previous year and, with an average home attendance of 22,000 (almost twice that of any other team in the Div­ision and four times more than Hart­lepool), is it not more likely that it was  the presence of “self-styled big club” Sheffield Wednesday that caused the upsurge in attendances rather than the alleged quality of the football?
Stuart Thorpe, via email 

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He was trumpeted as a star at ten, but is now drifting around the Ryman League at 20. Gavin Willacy traces the career of a player for whom it all happened way, way too soon

On a fans’ internet forum last November, someone calling themself Spankyplugs posed the ques­tion: “Sonny Pike – anyone remember him? Some little kid with an afro; they would periodically have him on Blue Peter or the Big Breakfast and yap on about how he will play for England, just because he was in the Ajax youth team. He must be old enough now, so where is he?”

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The arrivals of Jose Mourinho and Rafael Benítez in England demonstrate that now it is managers, rather than players, who are the focus of the Premiership's hype machine, writes Jon Spurling

Bill Shankly’s prophecy – “One day, football man­agers will be as famous and as well paid as their players” – appears to be coming true. Thirty years after the Scot retired from the Liverpool job, the profiles of several Premiership managers, not to mention their wage demands, have never been higher. Players’ wage increases, according to a recent Deloitte & Touche report, are slowing considerably, increasing by an average of only eight per cent last season, as opposed to 25 per cent over each of the last three years. A select band of coaches seem set to close the financial gap on their young stars. Rafael Benítez will earn around £25,000 a week at Liverpool. Jose Mourinho is to be paid four times that amount at Chelsea.

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A fantasy football site which rewards ineptitude leads off Ian Plenderleith's guide to low quality web-browsing. And ideas don't get much worse than on a site offering pet coats for sale in club colours

There are few football fans who haven’t attempted to manage fantasy teams at some point over the past ten years, because we all harbour an illusion that we could do a better job than the men who are paid millions just to mostly mess up. Then we discover that the players we picked did not perform to expectations. This has not led to a noticeable rise in understanding of the trials and setbacks suffered by those in charge of a real team, but at least most of us now realise, after finishing in position 124,971 of whichever league we entered, that we are just as clueless as the men we routinely scorn and heckle from the safety of the stands.

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