David Murphy looks at the problems facing Africa's most successful World Cup performer as it tries to build on the achievement of the national team

Beating their former colonial masters, France, on the way to the quarter-finals at their first World Cup produced a wave of public euphoria in Senegal that has still not fully died down. Football has a major ally in the country’s president Abdoulaye Wade, who was el­ected in March 2000, bringing an end to 40 years of Soc­ialist party rule. A wily 76-year-old with a populist touch, Wade associates himself with the success of the team on every possible occasion, having made a big show of funding their trip to the World Cup and guar­anteeing win bonuses.

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Colin Peel searches in vain for a long history of exciting derbies in the Second City, as Aston Villa and Birmingham City prepare to resume hostilities

Blues v Villa is the derby that football forgot. No other big city rivalry has had to wait as long for its protagonists to renew the duel for league supremacy. December 12, 1987, was the date of the last clash, in the Second Division, which saw Villa triumph 2-1 in front of 28,000 at St Andrews. Both Villa and their man­­ager that day, an enterprising chap called Graham Taylor, were bound for promotion. For Blues, things got much worse before the current owners began the transformation which has the put the club where it is today.

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Tony Butcher pays tribute to one of the east coast's scariest spots

Now what is the professional footballer’s favourite phrase to describe the joy of playing in the Premiership? “No disrespect to the likes of Grimsby but…” It isn’t just the name, it’s the ground, the small, cold, but above all old Blundell Park, the home of the Mariners since 1899.

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With several new and reformed clubs in the English and Scottish Leagues, Ian Plenderleith finds their sites offering goat sacrifices, laughable claims of sportsmanship and matrimony on the cheap

Scottish League newcomer FC Gretna’s web presence is minimal, but any parsimonious, football-minded elopers may be excited by the chance of holding their wedding reception in the club’s salubrious bar for free. “Make your Wedding Day both special and different,” the club’s official site promises. “We also offer the use of our facilities to pre­pare your own food.” It is too modest to men­tion the incentive of a free glance out the win­dow at Gretna v Albion Rovers while doing the conga.

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Why have England's two biggest clubs linked up with struggling Belgian outfits? To get easy access to the African market, of course. Dan Brennan reports

A country that consistently manages to field a team of 30-something geriatrics in the World Cup wouldn’t seem like the first place to go looking for young talent. On the face of it, in fact, the idea of a Belgian nursery club seems like a bit of a contradiction in terms. Odd then, perhaps, that England’s top two clubs, Manchester United and Arsenal, with the world seemingly at their fingertips, should have got into bed with a pair of cash-strapped Flemish strugglers, Royal Antwerp and Beveren.

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