While the media spotlight was firmly fixated on the September 11 attacks, Swansea City acted swiftly and promptly to replace manager John Hollins. Huw Richards reports on the smooth transiton amidst financial uncertainty

If Swansea City chairman Mike Lewis wanted to minimise publicity for the sacking of John Hollins and Alan Curtis he could hardly have timed it better. The rest of the world was, of course, preoccupied by the previous day’s events in New York when Hollins and Curtis were fired on Sep­tember 12.

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In the aftermath of the world trade centre attacks, Charles Armitage explains how social issues and football are very much interlinked

The recent atrocities in the US have thrown the spotlight on the changing way in which football is regarded as a public event. Football was once a diversion from “real life”. Now it seems to be taking on the role of representing real life. Society, the media and the game itself may even be on the way to according it a quasi-religious role.

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Players threaten to strike over money

It’s rare for newspapers to get the chance to report on an old fashioned trade union dispute these days. But the coverage of the PFA’s row over the share of revenue from the new TV contract has provided an opportunity to trot out some of the old stand-bys that were common currency in the strike-heavy Seventies.

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Dear WSC
Martin Cloake and Paul Kelso’s contributions to the Sol Campbell debate (WSC 175) highlight the head versus heart struggle most Tottenham fans have had to go through. I’m sure that every one of the 30,000 of us who gave him a standing ovation both on and off of the pitch at Old Trafford in the Cup semi-final were left feeling like mugs when we heard that he had finally signed for Arsenal. But to characterise Sol as a symbol of player disloyalty is ridiculous when there are a thousand other candidates who have made taking the money and running an art form: Collymore, Sutton, Anelka etc, etc, etc. The man was at the club for ten years and gave his all in every game he played. To expect more than that, or even half of that, is self-delusion on the part of fans. Fans are loyal, players aren’t. They can’t allow themselves to be. A change of manager, an injury, a loss of form can all see a player thrown out of a club in no time at all. No, what Sol was symbolic of – for Spurs fans anyway – was the idea that Spurs could recruit and keep top international players in their prime and not just those on their way up or down. This idea has taken a major knock now. On top of that, by going to Arsenal he is a symbol of how much they are in the ascendancy – as if we needed any reminding! – and how the board has mismanaged the club over the last ten years. Having said all that, if we’re honest, those of us who have watched Sol week in, week out since 1993 know that he’s not as good as the press would have everyone believe; his poor passing and lack of confidence going beyond the half-way line have been there for anyone to see. Would he get into the Italian national side? Perhaps he’s also a symbol of something else: the way players are hyped beyond recognition by the TV companies and press.
Patrick Brannigan, via email

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Anyone making rash predictions about the internet risks looking silly. So to avoid that possibility we asked four people invovled in football websites to do it for us

1. What has been good about football on the web so far?
AP: The original philosophy behind the internet was to open up a brave new world of communication. It’s fallen short of that, but in the case of football, there has at least been an extension of the supporter’s voice and the principle that first inspired fanzines.
PC: It has got the readers so much more involved than they have been before, outside fanzines – but web­sites reach far more people, far more often. We publish as much as 3,000 words of letters a day. You can look at the readership figures for different sec­tions, too, and assess what works and what doesn’t in an objective way rather than on a hunch. Statistics are a lot faster and more user friendly. Oh, and it’s great to buy match tickets, especially for games abroad.
UHL: The availability of information. Looking for simple but obscure things concerning foreign coun­tries was a major undertaking five years ago, but it often takes less than a minute today. And there really is such a thing as a, whisper the now-dreaded word, “community”. I have never been in touch with so many football fans from so many different places. And there really are communities that are not being spoon-fed and/or directed by the clubs.
BL: Fans can get news on teams they follow without needing to live in that country or learn another lan­guage; and those who travel to games can find out how to get tickets and where to stay. Football is global and the web allows the insularity of the main­stream Eng­lish media to be ignored.

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