Where once television offered genuine debate about the laws, today it sheds heat and not light, believes Philip Cornwall, as he assesses how the official's job has changed
One thing in football never changes: we always want the impossible from referees. What has changed is the weight of criticism referees face for failing to achieve perfection.
England may have lost twice to the United States but have inflicted frequent and often quite heavy revenge, beginning, as Gavin Willacy relates, with Tom Finney in 1953
Three years after their humiliation by the United States in Belo Horizonte, Alf Ramsey, Billy Wright, Jimmy Dickinson and Tom Finney were given the chance to gain some sort of revenge on those pesky Americans when the FA sent England on their regular tour of the Americas.
The United States’ most famous victory, perhaps England’s most famous defeat, is being made into a film and, as Dave Hannigan reports, a rock star plays Stan Mortenson
Discovering Gavin Rossdale, lead singer of Bush, husband of No Doubt’s Gwen Stefani, will play Stan Mortensen in a forthcoming movie about America’s 1-0 victory over England at Belo Horizonte in the 1950 World Cup was initially worrying. So soon after Bend It Like Beckham grossed over $25 million (£16m) in 18 weeks at the US box office, this sounded perilously like the beginning of some horrendous Hollywood attempt to cash-in on the game’s perceived current trendiness.
The ever-promising Chris Plummer has gone down and down and is now out of Queens Park Rangers, but Anthony Hobbs and his fellow Rs have a soft spot for the fellow
Centre-half Chris Plummer could justly claim to be the very-nearly man of QPR over the last ten years. His final appearance for Rangers – at Layer Road, Colchester at the end of last season – completed a series of just over 50 first-team appearances, spread over an eight-season period that started with Rangers in the Premiership and finished with us in Division Two.
Once, twice and once more (as a coach) an Evertonian, Alan Harper had a host of nicknames and collected several medals for Mark Tallentire to count
Alan Harper joined his team-mates in picking up the 1984 FA Cup while clad in an uncomfortably tight tracksuit top. It was almost as if he was underlining his bit-part status – Everton’s utility player had spent the final against Watford waiting patiently for the call which never came.