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I’ve been reading about and listening to all the “good judges’”- pundits, players and even some managers – who have recently been talking up England’s chances of leaving South Africa with the golden trophy.
In the 1930s, when the British were trying to hold on to India and defeat Gandhi’s attempt to get rid of them, the province that gave the most trouble was Bengal. The British could not understand that.
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By David Owen
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
No sooner does England’s accident-prone World Cup bid appear to be getting its act together and heading for calmer seas then the water turns choppy again.
So London is to bid for the 2015 World Athletics Championships. That’s the good news. The not-so-good news is that this has “ramifications” for the future of the Olympic Stadium, which would be used to host the Championships.
What are the chances that the present debt crisis in football will lead to a regulator being appointed to administer the game?
A walk down memory lane is not always a game for the old. But it can be very useful for the football fan.
It is this thought that makes me ask: will the Red Knights plan to buy Manchester United go the way of Project Merlin?
By Andrew Warshaw
It will go down as the day football’s lawmakers decided they knew better than fans, players, managers and referees alike. And you had to be there to believe it.
Just hours before Sir Alex Ferguson won yet another trophy, when Manchester United lifted the Carling Cup beating Aston Villa, there was a very interesting programme on ESPN Classic.
By David Owen
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”
By David Owen
Passion. Colour. Excitement. And, of course, cash.
The World Cup will bring all of these to South Africa next June, but will it change the lives of people like Cynthia in any meaningful way?
The child outstripping the father in any sphere of life is always news.
Olympic Games always bring up this comparison for, after all, it was the success of the 1924 Olympic football tournament that prompted the French to organise a football World Cup for professional players.
There is a story going round the many lawyers, accountants and other professionals who advise football clubs. The story goes as follows. Some years ago, when Leicester City were in financial trouble and being hounded by the Revenue for non payment of taxes, Keith Vaz, the local MP, rang Gordon Brown then Chancellor of the Exchequer.
History is not always a good precedent for judging the present. But, in the case of Manchester United, history of its ownership and the fans reaction to different owners, tell us a great deal of why the club is once again in turmoil.
Anytime you have the kind of turmoil which has come from the revelations concerning John Terry and Wayne Bridge it, without a shadow of doubt, causes massive disruption within a squad.
There have been many cases of similar disgusting wrong-doings over the years which have led to training ground punch ups and eventual player transfers in an effort to keep the camaraderie alive in a sport that depends hugely on team spirit.
The story of footballers, their wives and girlfriends and what they get up to is always news and can have dramatic impact, as the following story illustrates. It is the night before a crucial England World Cup match. An England player has been told stories of his wife’s antics and he is quite frantic to know whether these stories are true.