Saturday 1 Leeds are bottom of the Premiership after a 4-1 home defeat by Arsenal. Mark Viduka is left out of the squad after missing a players’ meeting and arriving late for training. “If I started looking over my shoulder with all this speculation, I wouldn’t be able to look forward,” quips Peter Reid. Chelsea beat Everton 1-0 at Goodison Park, but defeat fails to stop Wayne Rooney dressing up as Oliver Hardy for his 18th birthday party, where guests include Atomic Kitten, Robbie Williams and “more than 200 friends”. Man Utd beat Portsmouth 3-0 at Old Trafford, Cristiano Ronaldo pausing long enough between performances of the hokey-cokey to score his first goal for the club, while at White Hart Lane Jay-Jay Okocha inspires Bolton to a 1-0 win over Spurs. Manchester City beat Southampton 2-0 at St Mary’s amid rumours that Nicolas Anelka’s absence from the City side is a consequence of his failure to attend a clay pigeon-shooting trip. “Mills is just a fucking idiot,” observes the usually unflappable Paul Ince after Danny Mills’s altercation with Lee Naylor creates confusion from which Gaizka Mendieta scores Boro’s first goal in a 2-0 victory over Wolves – a surly afternoon ends with police quelling a full-time mêlée in the tunnel. First Division leaders Wigan beat Crystal Palace 5-0, Andy Liddell’s two goals making him the club’s all-time highest goalscorer. Wimbledon win their first game at Milton Keynes, 2-1 against Bradford, but stay bottom. West Brom’s Darren Williams faces a police investigation for kicking a spare ball off the pitch and injuring a woman in the crowd during the goalless draw with Sunderland. QPR are the only club in the top nine of the Second Division to win, beating Stockport 2-1 at Edgeley Park and moving up to third place. Leaders Plymouth draw 2-2 with Oldham, while Brighton also draw 2-2 against Peterborough in Mark McGhee’s first match in charge. In Division Three, leaders Hull are held 2-2 at home by Macclesfield, allowing Doncaster and Oxford to edge closer as both win.
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Ian Plenderleith looks at Football Fans Census, a site that attempts to regularly examine the attitudes of supporters to a range of issues and to thereby influence the game’s authorities to take concerns seriously
The advent of the internet has done wonders for fan democracy. It takes very little effort to fire off an angry email to your club complaining that the ageing defence, the fumbling goalie, the clueless coach and the thick, sweet tobacco from the pipe of the old boy sitting in front of you all combined to increase your blood pressure to dangerous levels the previous Saturday and you’d like a refund NOW.
Footballers’ autographs are big business these days. Al Needham went to an exhibition at the NEC to snub Jimmy Greaves and see what an old Tony Woodcock would be worth
The first autograph I ever got was a signed photo of Tony Woodcock kneeling behind the League Cup, in exchange for my Dad moving house for him. I would dig it out now, but I chucked it away when he was transferred to Cologne. I filled up assorted notebooks with autographs purloined at the Nottingham Forest training ground and outside dressing rooms after matches. Brian Clough always wrote “Be good” after his name, Martin O’Neill always had a face like a smacked arse when he did his and John Robertson always said: “Jesus, not you again.”
Latvia may be the least expected qualifiers for any major tournament, but Daunis Auers believes they travel with a realistic aim: to overcome indifference to football at home
In November, Latvia, a tiny nation of 2.4 million wedged at the northern end of the Baltic, trampled all over World Cup semi-finalists Turkey, home and away, to win a lucrative place (worth eight million Swiss francs, apparently, £3.6m or 3.4m Latvian lati) at Euro 2004. This is all too much for the small band of long-suffering Latvian football fans, accustomed to years of tediously predictable underachievement. Success has usually been measured by the odd victory over neighbours Estonia. Just a few years ago there were a half-dozen Latvians plying their trade on the substitute benches and reserve teams of English professional football. Now only Marians Pahars (in the cosy Southampton treatment room) and Andrejs Stolcers (Fulham reserves) remain. Yet Latvia have suddenly started playing well, winning and attracting sell-out crowds.
Wales’s journey from outsiders to group favourites to narrow play-off failures leaves Paul Ashley-Jones unsure whether to despair at another defeat or celebrate progress
It’s the Euro 2004 draw and, despite my shutting myself in the other room, my wife insists on shouting out who’s in which group. I’ve not quite reached the fingers-in-ears stage but it’s getting pretty close.