Irving Scholar was just one of the strange heroes of The Men Who Changed Football. The BBC documentary gave only a partial account of the past two decades, says Nick Varley

I was one of the men who changed football. Well, actually, I was one of those in The Men Who Changed Football, BBC2’s three-part documentary on how the game was transformed from “national disgrace to big business”. Granted, it was a fleeting appearance, lurk­ing behind Tony Banks and David Mellor, the Laurel and Hardy of west London, after they completed an ill-advised football-playing photocall before the launch of the Task Force. The press conference which followed the slapstick routine was, you won’t be surprised to hear, a lot less entertaining.

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The trial of Lee Bowyer, Jonathan Woodgate and Michael Duberry has thrown an unflattering light on the values of Leeds' young players. John Williams argues the club should bear some of the responsibility

In one sense, of course, the coverage of the trial of Jonathan Woodgate, Lee Bowyer et al in Hull has been faintly ridiculous. Since when did a post-nightclub brawl, of a kind which takes place pretty much everywhere in this country every week­end, become the stuff of front page tabloid stories, day after day? Even with the suggestion of racial overtones – unfortunately by no means unusual either – this hardly stands up as a big spread. Except, of course, that these young guys are already B-list celebrities, actual or prospective England international footballers. Well, here’s more than a start: in a celebrity-fixated, reality-TV culture, this already offers enough for the full media treatment.

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Italian football, beset by corruption and cynicism, is now suffering from a frightening new wave of hooliganism. Richard Mason reports

Few people paid much attention to the 1-1 draw between Atalanta and Pistoiese in their Italian Cup match played on August 20. In fact, for Italian football, it was the start of an annus horribilis. Two days after the game there were reports of strange betting patterns involving relatives of some of those playing, and seven months later six players, four of them from Atalanta, were suspended for up to a year.

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The sanitised Premiership fan experience is increasingly an exception around Europe. Uli Hesse-Lichtenberger  expalins why German clubs have insisted on keeping terraces open

He looked like somebody out of an American movie about college nerds: the thick spectacles, the greasy hair, the slight speech defect and the frail body. Still, he was a pretty good long-distance runner, and that’s how my brother had come to know him. He was always standing right behind us at games, next to that bunch of bikers who called themselves The Ghostriders.

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Shrewdness is the key to success

Bear with us, this month’s issue isn’t entirely about Tottenham. But the current state of the club does raise some intriguing questions about where English football has come from and where it’s going to. When WSC started in 1986, the three men in charge at White Hart Lane were Irving Scholar (chairman), David Pleat (manager) and Glenn Hoddle (lead artiste). Strange, then, to see them all together again, even if it was at Highbury in an atmosphere that was both sombre because of David Rocastle’s death and frosty because of the long-standing differences between Pleat and Hoddle.

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