While the Premiership clubs can afford costly measures to keep hooliganism out of their stadiums, the price is being paid lower down the leagues and out of sight of the camera. Mark Rowe reports

Graham Hodgetts has the lives of an admittedly less than full Villa Park in his hands. In the control room under a stand roof he stands with his shirt sleeves rolled up, spectacles dangling from his right hand. As Villa’s safety officer – all league clubs have one – he looks calm, but then he was a police officer for 30 years, retiring as superintendent. Leeds are visiting on a January midweek night. There are about a dozen people in the control room, half of them uniformed officers, looking at a dozen CCTV monitors and taking most interest in the images of fans on their feet at the back of a stand, well guarded by police and stewards.

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The Football League's verdict on charges of financial irregularities against Chesterfield has thrown the Third Division into confusion. Hartlepool fan Ed Parkinson is among those left unimpressed

In a confusingly dishonest world full of spin, deceit and greed it is usually possible to gain some respite by indulging an obsession with lower division football, a reasonably plain-speaking sporting backwater still dominated by traditionalists and mercifully free of prawn sandwiches. The recent events involving Ches­ter­field would suggest that this rare pool of comparative sanity is in danger.

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Karl D Pridmore explains how the board at Nottingham Forest tried to change a football club into a public company in 1997

In April the financial future of Nottingham Forest was decided in the High Court, to almost complete indifference in the national press. It’s a complicated tale, but one with important implications for other clubs and, for Forest, a more or less happy ending.

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Controversial chairman Bernard Tapie is back at Olympique de Marseille. Patrick Mignon looks at the impact the returning chairman will have and whether he can banish the negativity that surrounded his previous tenure

Bernard Tapie, the most controversial chairman in French football history, has returned to run Olympique de Marseille, eight years after he was driven out after being found guilty of match-fixing.

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QPR aren't just coming to terms with the cost of relegation – there are stories behind the scenes too. Anthony Hobbs reveals all

The last time Queens Park Rangers were rel­egated, from the Premiership five years ago, things were very simple. We had a rich chairman with no real interest in football, who was completely unwilling to spend his own money, but content to realise the capital of our most liquid assets (ie sell our best players). In the five years leading up to our latest 40-point season, things have been bit a little less clear cut. This season in particular, it’s felt a little like being on a boat that hasn’t been properly tied up. We’ve just been gradually drifting away and nobody quite knows what to do about it.

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