Jon Lymer looks at the deal that, to all but Darlington's publicity staff, looked doomed from the start
In the run up to the closing of the new transfer window, Darlington came within a whisker of clinching one of the most unexpected moves of recent years. In the event, however, the club and its erratic chairman, George Reynolds, simply continued along their romp to the heart of insanity.
As Roy Keane reflects on an eventful career, Joyce Woolridge questions the representation of United's skipper and the influence of the ghost writer
“Journalists and players have an uneasy relationship… Journalists tend to try and make the player say the things they want him to say. And it is all too easy for them to do this… This shows particularly when they are on the ‘discontented player’ story.”
Eamon Dunphy, Only A Game?
A ghost stalks the pages of Roy Keane’s autobiography: the unquiet spirit of professional Irish malcontent, Eamon Dunphy. The ghostwriter who transcribes the tapes and knocks the pieces into shape usually leaves some sort of footprint on the text of a footballer’s life, whether a flowery metaphor or a stock phrase.
Any new football books out? Yes. Any good? No
Good news for tree-lovers. Stung by all the bad publicity generated by Roy Keane’s score settling, Manchester United are to ban their players from producing books that don’t have the official stamp of approval. The millions keenly anticipating David Beckham’s planned autobiography needn’t fret as it seems set to escape the cull, contracts having been signed some time ago, but we may be deprived of the raw insights of Paul Scholes (working title: Ginger!) and Nicky Butt (Kicking Butt).
Sunday 1 Business as usual at Stamford Bridge as Chelsea’s 1-1 draw with Arsenal sees Patrick Vieira sent off and a David Seaman blunder. Bolton move off the bottom with a 1-0 win over non-scoring Aston Villa, thanks to a goal from Birmingham-born Michael Ricketts and a disallowed goal from Juan Pablo Angel. “In this country we have got good referees who are being let down by assistants who are not so good,” says Graham Taylor. Lloyd Owusu’s goal with his first touch for the club puts Wednesday on their way to a 2-0 win in the Sheffield derby.
Ian Plenderleith dissects a biographical account of Lars Leese's career to discover that, unlike his wife, the German never quite felt at home in South Yorkshire
When German goalkeeper Lars Leese signed for Barnsley at the start of their Premiership season in 1997, he was one of six foreign players at the club that year. As the journalist Ronald Reng describes it in his excellent biography of Leese, published in Germany earlier this year, Barnsley boss Danny Wilson was “like a kid in a toyshop who was finally allowed to buy international stars – or rather, players who were international and were taken for stars in Barnsley”.