Football Focus presenter Ray Stubbs explains to Andy Lyons how the BBC's flagship has coped with the loss of highlights rights, and how it dealt with the ITV Digital story

Some might say Football Focus has be­come more fan-oriented over time, but the prog­ramme is always evolving and you don’t particularly notice which way it’s going unless you sit back and look at the tapes of it season by season. Sometimes the BBC might set the agenda, ITV comes up with a response, then Sky, then that in turn might trigger a response from us. We all take the lead at different times. I’m not someone who will just say “the BBC leads the way”, but at the same time I am proud of what we do. I think our public ser­vice broadcast remit does enable us to go a little bit deeper in our coverage than some other broadcasters might feel they are able to.

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Portsmouth are one of several Football League clubs keen to keep ITV crews out of their ground, in spite of the proposed new deal. Steven Morgan reports

Money isn’t everything. The old cliche might sound even more trite than usual coming from a sup­porter of Ports­mouth, a club propped up by a billionaire chairman. However, it does seem to carry a ring of truth in the Fratton Park boardroom at present, at least where ITV are concerned.

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John Bourn looks back at ITV's neglected trump card, its regional coverage

When ITV’s outgoing director of programmes, Da­vid Liddiment, criticised the BBC in a newspaper interview on August 19, their response was cutting: Liddiment was accused of “having presided over the most disastrous period in ITV’s history”.

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Harry Pearson welcomes a new biography of the Charlton brothers that looks more sympathetically on Bobby's personality and flays his detractors

When it comes to the Charlton brothers, most peo­ple probably concur with the assessment Big Jack apparently delivered to Ron Atkinson: “Our kid was the better footballer, but I am the better bloke.”

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Should there be a winter break for the Premiership? Two writers air their conflicting views

Yes ~
In the past few years, English football has acquired some continental habits. The ability to pass the ball to someone wearing the same coloured shirt is now quite highly valued. The replacement of beer by pasta in the diet continues apace. Mainland European coaching is taking hold at the highest level. And now the momentum is at last building to­wards the implementation of a winter break. The Prem­iership should follow its counterparts in Italy, Ger­many and France and give the players three weeks off.

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