They may be worth £1 million or so to David Beckham, but not every player picks up a cheque for wearing a brand of boots. Not even, as Chris Britcher writes, every England player

February 1977, Wembley. Stan Bowles, the QPR striker who helped push Liverpool to the wire in the championship, is about to pull on his boots for his fifth England cap. But Stan has a dilemma. Stan has been offered, in the run-up to the match, £200 to play in Gola boots. But on the day of the game, Adidas puts £300 in front of him. Does he upset Gola, with whom he has a deal? Or does he run with the higher bid?

Read more…

A striker dropping through the divisions suddenly found a reverse gear at Cambridge United, to the surprise of John Morgan who followed his career to a fairy-tale climax

Comically poor strikers experience a type of humiliation reserved only for them. They are considered so hilarious that the mere mention of their names can raise giggles. Shipped out to teams in lower divisions, their confidence is shattered and can never be regained. Cam­bridge United fans have witnessed a rare example of a full recovery from this affliction.

Read more…

One part of football still believes the game is about fun, not finance. Gavin Willacy celebrates the volunteers whose predecessors created the schools' FA 100 years ago

Despite the major upheavals in both professional football and the education system in this country over the past decade, the English Schools’ Football Association has survived to celebrate its centenary this season. In November 1904, encouraged by the National Union of Teachers, a group of local association secretaries met in Birmingham to form the ESFA. The founder members included the major football metropolises of London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Sheffield, Bolton, Bradford and Derby, along with Northampton, Herts and Luton, St Albans, Wordsley, Hickley and Aston Manor.

Read more…

With Euro 2004 and the G-14 slumping in the Champions League, it's time to send European football for a medical. To assess the game in their own countries and across the continent, Andy Lyons talked to Spanish journalist Guillem Balagué, Holland's Ernst Bouwes and France's Xavier Rivoire

This season’s Champions League last four contains only one G-14 club, Porto. Would they still consider a league of their own if their members were to fail regularly?
GB The new format is a compromise. It protects the big clubs, gives them second chances, while keeping the number of matches down. But the G-14 are not united. Real Madrid want to take one direction, Man Utd and Bayern want to do something slightly different. There is a new middle class coming in – Lyon, Valencia – who may decide differently. Bayern also wanted to stop Depor getting in to the G-14 because they fell out over the transfer of Roy Makaay. The Depor president, Augusto César Lendoiro, was one of the first to say clubs should be paid when players go on international duty. He will try to make it an enclosed league – and that sort of thing has been stalled.

Read more…

Do you ever see a picture of a player and come up confidently with half a dozen names for him? Matt Nation knows the feeling, especially with one former Arsenal man

A recent article on European Union expansion  highlighted the problems Slovenia faces in trying to convince people that it is who it says it is. People who try to point it out on a map usually end up putting their finger on Serbia & Montenegro. The flag gets confused with the Russian one. Even George W is convinced Slovenia is half of what used to be Czechoslovakia.

Read more…