Despite vocal opposition at the time, the merger in Inverness seems to have worked, says Mark Palmer

Fish and chips. Richard and Judy. Both perfect bedfellows. But try combining two football clubs with years of history and a mutual dislike on a similarly grand scale, and the path to true love is never likely to run smoothly. Such was the scenario for Caledonian and Inverness Thistle, two of the three clubs in Inverness until the early Nineties, who did the unthinkable in football circles – not only sleeping with the enemy, but going full steam ahead to marry them as well.

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Rushden & Diamonds are the first recently merged club to join the League since Torquay in 1927. But, as Mark Pacan explains, that hasn't pleased everybody in Irthlingborough 

Unlikely as it may seem, Northampton Town have benefited from the rise of the region’s new League club by picking up former fans of Irthlingborough Diam­onds, unhappy at the absorption of their club by Rush­den. I am one of those people.

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Ernst Bouwes looks at the largely positive expereince of black players in Holland, where the descendants of migrants from Surinam have become a powerful force in the national team

It is a well known fact that Peter Minuit bought Manhattan from the native Americans for the equivalent of about 30 dollars in 1626, but more obscurity surrounds the exchange of the same property for Surinam with the British some 40 years later. Among historians this is widely regarded as the worst real-estate deal of all time. One thing is certain though: not one person from the New York area ever made it into the England squad, while Surinam has produced dozens of talented footballers who have radically changed the look of the Dutch national team in the past 20 years.

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September 2001 marked the 20th anniversary of John Barnes's debut for Watford. We asked five other black players of the same generation to recall their problems with racism in the early part of their career and reflect on how things have changed since

Alex Williams
Debut for Man City: November 1979
Now: Football Community manager, Man City

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Dave Hill's book Out Of His Skin analysed the racial tension surrounding the arrival of John Barnes at Liverpool in 1987. In an extract from the introduction to a new edition, Dave Hill reflects on the reaction to his book

Ever since the watershed of the Taylor Report, an anti-racist climate has undoubtedly been fostered in British football. Vocal racist elements within football grounds find it harder to proceed as if they have a divine right to define and dominate the mood, to chant, threaten and generally get away with things that would not be tolerated in any other public place. A wide-ranging campaign has been mobilised against racism in a way that would have been impossible as recently as the mid-Eighties. Such is the optimistic reading of the story of racism in English football since Out Of His Skin was written. It has substance and deserves ap­plause. But any suggestion that racism has ceased to have a disfiguring impact on our football would be dangerously naive.

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