Simon Edwards explains how promotion from and relegation to the Conference is not an improvement for the Football League
The prevailing view of relegation to the Conference from the Nationwide League is that it provides an opportunity for a struggling club to rebuild both on and off the field, and eventually return to the fold in rude health. This has always been bunkum. The overall benefits have been negligible.
Dear WSC
I’ve heard some daft excuses for losing matches but Trevor Francis has surpassed even Manchester United’s grey shirts fiasco at Southampton with his moaning over Birmingham’s play-off penalty shoot-out at Preston. Perhaps the poor dear would like to consider the following points. At any ground other than Deepdale there would have been spectators behind both goals, and if the penalties hadn’t been at the Preston end they would have been at the Birmingham end. Therefore, by his logic, that would be unfair on the Preston players. If Birmingham were a better team than Preston they would have finished above them in the league table, therefore the second leg of their play-off and the penalty shoot-out would have taken place at their own ground. They only finished fifth over 46 league games so they were lucky to have any chance of promotion in the first place. If his players are unnerved by taking penalties in front of opposition fans what chance would they stand of surviving in the Premiership? In a ground filled with paying spectators it makes sense for the deciding moments to take place at the end where most of them will have the best view. Who cares whether the referee or police changed their mind about which end the penalties should be taken? The notion that the whole match should be replayed because of that is absolutely ludicrous. If I was a Birmingham fan I would be embarrassed that the manager could come out with such a lame excuse for defeat instead of accepting that his team was simply not good enough.
Richard Watts, Sydenham
The play-offs have now completed 15 turbulent seasons of drama and, some would say, injustice. Csaba Abrahall, however, is a devotee. He looks back on the ups and downs of their history
You may not know the name Martin Lange, but the chances are he will have given you reason to shed tears of joy or despair at some point since the late Eighties. For Lange was the man behind the introduction of the Football League play-offs, the end-of-season extravaganza that has just completed a 15th successful season.
Continuing our series about extinct competitions, Jim Heath glances wistfully back at the Texaco Cup, which briefly gripped parts of Scotland and the west midlands
The Texaco Cup will always hold a special place in the hearts of Wolves fans whose team were its first winners, exactly 30 years ago. It marked the beginning of a very successful and eventful era for the club, one which only lasted a couple of years but was loads more fun than supporting them now.
Gary Johnson was sacked as Latvia coach after a draw with San Marino. Daunis Auers explains what he was doing there in the first place
Gerijs Dzonsons (or Gary Johnson as the English spelling would have it) bounced into Latvian football at the tail end of yet another doomed campaign for the national side, a respectable but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to qualify for Euro 2000. Johnson offered a colourful contrast to the grey, dour Soviet negativity of Revaz Dzodzashvilli, his Georgian predecessor, with his bubbly, upbeat, chirpy cockney (I could go on, but I think you know what I’m driving at) demeanour that had never been seen in Latvian football, or, come to that, anywhere in Latvia.