Ian Plenderleith shows us websites from the top of the football hierachy, to the bottom.
There is no end of general football sites saturated from the top down with Premier this and that, but one website with the courage to eschew the tedium of big boy coverage is League Matters, which describes itself as the independent and dedicated guide to league football. And by that it means the Football League.
Cris Freddi recalls a narrow escape against Austria in 1932, when the 'man of paper' exposed the shakiness of England's supposed dominance over the Continental teams
The last time England had played a foreign country, almost exactly a year earlier, they’d thrashed Spain 7-1. Now the selectors decided it was no more Mr Nice Guy. Putting it another way, they were bricking it. With just cause, too. While Spain were a perfectly respectable side (the great Ricardo Zamora simply had a shocker in goal), Austria were something else. In a run of 13 unbeaten games, they’d hammered Scotland 5-0, Germany 6-0 and 5-0, Switzerland 8-1 and Hungary 8-2.
The production of footballers, like everything else in the Republic, is taking off. Dave Hannigan reports
When the Republic of Ireland began their World Cup qualifying campaign last autumn with highly creditable draws away to Holland and Portugal, their efforts were bulwarked by the then out of favour Internazionale striker Robbie Keane, the then Everton substitute centre-half Richard Dunne and Blackburn Rovers winger Damien Duff. Despite all three battling difficult periods in their nascent club careers, they had no problems turning it on at a higher level. From three veterans of international youth football, the Irish fans would have expected nothing less.
The hounding of Neil Lennon brought the issue of sectarianism back into the spotlight. As Davy Millar writes, recent initiatives to revive the Irish League will fail unless this underlying problem is addressed.
Its not been a bad season for the Irish League so far. Our clubs still suffer from a shortage of fans, a lack of money, administrative cock-ups and an all-pervading sense of despair but we’re used to all that sort of thing by now. The good news is that everybody agrees we’re in a mess and they’ve all promised to think really hard about how to get out of it. Out of the mess, that is; Glentoran’s Rory Hamill misunderstood that bit and promptly failed his UEFA Cup drug test.
When Hereford went down to the Conference, Richard Butler was among their fans who despaired. But now he's starting to enjoy it
An air of cautious optimism prevailed among Hereford United fans prior to our first match in the Football Conference after 25 years of League football. We felt devastated by the events of May 3, 1997, when a 1-1 draw with Brighton on the final day of the season condemned us to the drop.