Should international friendlies be cast on to the football scrapheap?

The new England shirts, launched at the end of March, have “anatomically eng­ineered moisture management pan­elling”, which is another way of saying lots of small holes, ideal no doubt for play­ing in hot weather. Whether England will need to use them in a certain international tournament next summer is, of course, far from certain. However, a qual­i­fication failure by England wouldn’t dis­please the clubs employing three of the four players, Michael Owen, David Beck­ham and Rio Ferdinand, who mod­elled the new strip.

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Saturday 1 Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink thumps in a header at St James’ Park, but it’s for Newcastle who go on to win 2-1 and move into joint second place. Debutant Jonathan Woodgate chances a prediction: “Yes, I think we can win the title.” Juninho marks his Middlesbrough comeback with the equaliser in a 1-1 draw against Everton, who move up into the fourth Champions League spot, though David Moyes is taking it steady: “Our next target is a top-half finish.” “This match was about the players who spilt blood,” says Glenn Roeder as a Di Canio-less West Ham draw level with Bolton after beating Spurs 2-0. Hope is receding for the other two in the relegation area, though Howard talks of a “near top-drawer performance” as Sunderland slide to a late and unlucky defeat, their sixth in a row in the league, 1-0 at Fulham. West Brom lose by the same score at Southampton. Portsmouth fans, banned from visiting the New Den, miss seeing their team thrash Millwall 5-0 . Wigan go 15 points clear in the Second with 3-1 win over Chesterfield. In the Third, Hartlepool’s stately progress  is slowed slightly by a 2-2 draw with local rivals Darlington. At the bottom end, Exeter stem a run of four defeats with a home point against the equally desperate Bristol Rovers.

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Saturday 1 “We will make sure it is exciting until the end of the title race,” says Arsène, as Arsenal scrape a 2-1 win over Fulham with a Robert Pires goal in the last minute. Man Utd are six points behind in second after winning 2-0 at Southampton. “We are capable of getting out of our mess,” says Gary Megson as West Brom move off the bottom after a 2-1 win at Man City. Sunderland score three goals in eight first-half minutes, but all are for Charlton, who win 3-1. “I have never been in or watched a game like it,” sighs Howard, whose team now prop up the table. Bolton put a four-point gap between themselves and the bottom three after beating Birmingham 4-2. Peter Ridsdale is barracked by Leeds fans during their 2-0 defeat at Everton but there are cheers for El Tel, who doesn’t know whether he is staying or going: “I don’t see my position clearly at the moment.” In the First, Sheffield Utd’s chances of catching Portsmouth and Leicester subside with a 1-0 defeat at Millwall, while their rivals both win. Brighton, with 43-year-old debutant Dave Beasant in goal, stay bottom with a 1-0 defeat at Walsall. Wigan are held to a goalless draw at home by bottom-place Cheltenham but still lead the Second by eight points. Boston slip back into the drop zone in the Third after conceding two goals in injury time to lose 2-1 at Bournemouth.

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Tom Bower's new book looks into the financial irregularities and running of football. Here he tells WSC why these issues will sooner or later shatter the game

The publishers make play of the fact that you are the first non-sports journalist to write on this subject. Do you consider that football journalists are too reliant on clubs as sources for stories to be adequately dispassionate on business matters?
I don’t criticise them for that. I think football journalists write brilliantly. I came to this as an outsider who didn’t read the football pages before. Their problem is they need access to the players and so it’s very difficult for them to do what I’ve done; it just comes with the turf. Where the failure has been is with the business sections of the newspapers. It’s regarded as just sport whereas in fact it’s a huge industry.

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Steve Ragg talks Latics

What have been your best and worst moments as an Oldham fan?
Seeing the team walk out at Wembley for the Littlewoods Cup final in 1990, then clinching the old Second Division title with a last-minute penalty in the final game the following year, represent a two-year spell that it is hard to see being beaten for a Latics fan. The worst: two last-minute goals, one against Leeds in the 1987 play-offs, the other, just too painful to mention.

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