Ron Hamilton tells the story of the player that never was

A summer without football is a long, drawn-out affair for everyone. For Leeds, true to form, it’s been more than a little depressing. With the legacy of Publicity Pete’s gross financial mis­management still hanging over the club, fans have had to come to terms with a new era of parsimony at Elland Road. Thus denied the usual pre-season fun of transfer speculation (discounting the “who’s Harry’s boyhood club this week?” affair) there has precious little to do, save for the ceremonial burning of Bernie Mandic wickermen on the Headrow every sec­ond Wednesday.

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Dianne Millen explores the most suitable means of preventing  incursions on to the pitch by fans

When is a pitch invasion not a pitch invasion? When there’s only one person involved, of course, as happened twice in the second week­­­­end of the new Scottish Premier League cam­paign. Amid the debate among the condemn­atory, per­ma­tanned pundits about whether a single fan constituted an “invasion”, however, were serious safety questions.

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Phil Town explains why Bolton should be wary of the arrival of a talented Brazilian

Bolton fans will be hoping that new signing Mário Jardel can repeat the goalscoring feats that made him a star in the Port­uguese league but with­out the attendant problems off the pitch.

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Steve Westby examines the financial difficulties that have surrounded Notts County in recent years

Notts County have had a record 14 relegations in their history and have now set another bench­­mark. On August 12 the club had been in administration for an unprecedented 421 days, surpassing the record previously held by QPR. Meanwhile they are still under threat of expulsion from the League.

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Who knows what lies in store for Chelsea as fun time with Roman beckons

By now we will all be agreed that any newspaper which describes to the occupants of Stamford Bridge as “Chel­ski” should be referred to the Press Complaints Commission and sternly censured with, at least, a swingeing fine. Short custodial sentences and history lessons, meanwhile, ought to be the norm for anyone using the term “Red Roman” for a man described on his takeover of the club as “the real financial genius of Russia’s bandit-capitalism epoch” – Ken Bates is more leftwing.

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