In the first of a series on aspects of how the game is played today, Philip Cornwall considers how the improvement in defensive coaching has taken away much of the sting from corners – unless you're lucky enough to be playing West Ham

My earliest knowledge of the hazards of corners came playing for Maids Moreton C of E, back in the 1976-77 season. After a sound spanking by Pad­bury, Mrs Benson told her primary school charges that rather than pass across the face of our own goal, it would be better to put the ball out for a corner.

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Belgium's 2002 World Cup captain has unusual plans for his post-football career: he will be in parliament by the summer, as Paul Knott explains

Of all the top players who left the international stage after the 2002 World Cup, none has been as missed in his own corner of planet football as much as the ex-captain of Belgium and national record holder for farm­ing-related nicknames, Marc Wilmots.

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Every Saturday three men decide the results of postponed matches. If you don't want to find out why and how, look away now, because Al Needham met them

Whenever I have an argument with anyone about the innate superiority of British football over any oth­er sporting entity in the world, I always keep one killer argument in reserve: the fact that we have a Pools Pan­el. It gives off the impression to foreigners that our game is so important that when matches can’t be play­ed, we actually have a platoon of experts who decide the result for us. Of course, they could counter this fact by pointing out that if every team in the country had the kind of facilities that they should have in the 21st century, there would be no need for a Pools Panel, but I counter that by stating that, even if there was a nuclear holocaust, the Pools Panel are probably on standby to decide entire seasons until civilisation recovered. That shuts them up a treat.

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David Lee was good enough to play 150 league games for Chelsea in the 1980s and 1990s – but was only worth one game for Matt Nation's Sunday league side

It was unclear what exactly Bob Lee said or did to his kid brother in the car park before the match, but it certainly did the trick. After a couple of minutes of Chinese burns, dead legs and threats to tell Mum ex­actly what was in those magazines on top of the ward­robe, little David came back and agreed that, al­though he’d only come along to watch and even though he’d just broken into the Chelsea first team, he would deign to make up the numbers for his brother’s Sunday league team after all.

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One of Britain's best-ever goalkeepers is now a striker for a pub side. Mark Winter relates the latest unlikely chapter in the Neville Southall story

If a pin could make a noise when it drops on mud, you would have heard it. Even the pied wagtail that was hopping up and down the touchline seemed to stop to watch the pen­alty being taken. The score was 1-1 mid­way through the second half and the outcome of the Se­cond Division championship race could have de­pended on a successful conversion.

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