Tom Davies examines the day to day struggle for survival of three clubs in the lower leagues

The wheels have well and truly come off at Barry Town. Mounting debts have caught up with the seven-times League of Wales champions, forcing the club into administration and the team to the bottom of the Welsh Premier table. The crisis came to a head shortly after shy and retiring John Fashanu quit in August. As reported in WSC 192, Fashanu took over at the end of last year with talk of using the club as a gateway to European foot­ball for African players for whom he acted as agent. But none of this came to pass and fans now see his tenure as just a publicity stunt.

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Paul Pomonis examines the bribery allegations that have tainted football in Greece

On September 7, Greece beat Armenia 1-0 in Yerevan in a Euro 2004 qualifier. A few hours later, Suren Baghdassarian, press officer with the Football Federation of Armenia, alleged that the Hellenic Football Federation (HFF) had unsuccessfully attemp­ted to buy the game. According to Baghdassarian, in the days leading up to the game, former Armenia international Yervard Sukassyan had repeatedly phoned the national man­ager and the chairman of the federation, offering $1 million (£600,000) on behalf of the HFF chairman Vassilis Gagatsis in order to secure victory. The Armenian officials had taped the incriminating phone calls and, prior to the match, notified UEFA’s match delegate, who decided to give the match the go-ahead and look at the case afterwards. Based on the evidence col­lected since, UEFA have appointed a disciplinary in­spector, Austrian Gerhard Kapl, who is ex­pected to report back ahead of the final series of qualifying matches on October 11.

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Monday 1 On transfer deadline day, Chelsea finally snap up Claude Makelele from Real Madrid for, ooh, £80 million or so. Everton fans might be pleased by the arrival of James McFadden from Motherwell, but possibly less excited by that of Kevin Kilbane and the return on loan of Franny Jeffers. Among other loan deals, Marcus Bent leaves impoverished Ipswich for Leicester and Portsmouth take Jason Roberts from West Brom.

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Doug Stenhouse sheds some light on the colourful history of Berwick Rangers

How would you assess the playing standard in Scottish Division Two?
The standard is certainly better in Division One, with some full-time squads. However, clubs such as Clyde have done well with part-timers. It’s possible most Second Division boards are happy to stay where they are, knowing all too well that higher standards mean higher salaries they can ill afford.

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Jon Matthias on the Shrews

Kevin Ratcliffe carried the can for last season’s relegation – was this unfair?
No. It was his team, his tactics and his persistence with players who were blatantly unfit and were not getting any fitter that saw us relegated. Our defence, his apparent field of expertise, was appalling. I think the board and many fans were afraid of being too negative so nothing was said until it was too late. In March, chief executive Keith Sayfritz commented that this season was “not as bad” as the Great Escape season of 2000. That sort of misplaced optimism is why it ended up so much worse.

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