Ian Cusack relives Newcastle United's nightmare 1991-92 season

It must seem hard to credit for neutrals, and heartrending to recall for the devoted Magpies fan, but not even four years ago Newcastle United were a flu­ent, attractive side. I’ll never enjoy football as much again. Sadly, Kevin Keegan’s departure and a failure of nerve after a promising start under Kenny Dalglish have consigned the team to a regular berth amid the dross of lower mid-table Premiership mediocrity. We are now Everton II; the nagging worry is that we will become Man City II.

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To kick-off a new series about trophies that are no longer with us Peter Collins recalls the distinctly lukewarm appeal of the Full Members Cup

Football chairmen abhor a vacuum. So when Eng­lish clubs were thrown out of European competition for an indefinite period after the Heysel disaster in 1985, it didn’t take long for someone to come up with the idea of a domestic cup competition that would make up for the lost glory and, most importantly, the lost revenue from all those European nights.

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What more is there to say about Stan Collymore? David Wangerin takes up the challenge and comes to the conclusion that he simply ended up in the wrong job

Should have, would have, could have. Dalian At­kinson springs to mind. All the tools you could want: strong, quick, good in the air, a nose for goal and al­ways capable of the extraordinary. Should have been an England regular, could have guided Aston Villa to a championship or two, would have been one of the top strikers the club has ever seen. Drag out the video of his wonder-goal at Selhurst Park in 1992, the one where he runs through the entire Wimbledon team and plants the ball in the net with such graceful nonchalance. Even the strains of Clive Tyldesley’s post facto commentary can’t re­move the lustre of such genius.

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David Rocastle died of cancer on March 30, aged 33. Sean Hanson looks back on the life and career, both all too brief, of the Arsenal and Engalnd star

It was on the fields of Beckenham Place Park in south-east London, playing schools and park foot­ball, that the young David Rocastle began to shine, and any­one watching knew he was going to be some­thing special. A few years later, he was signing school­boy forms at Arsenal, a contemporary of Tony Adams, Martin Keown, Michael Thomas and Gus Caesar.

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Is George Graham's departure a victory for Tottenham tradition? No, says Paul Kelso, he paid the pricce for not winning football matches

Since George Graham was turfed out to make way for the Second Coming at White Hart Lane there has been so much talk of The Spurs Way that the uninitiated would be excused for thinking Haringey Council were renaming the Tottenham High Road. Of course many clubs have a distinct self-image, an un­written statement of principle based in equal parts on tradition and nostalgia – West Ham’s academy, Ever­ton’s school of science or Wimbledon’s school of hard knocks – but at Spurs the blend is particularly potent.

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