Archives for September 2009

Southampton executive chairman Nicola Cortese does not like walking past the trophy cabinet at St Mary's Stadium.

"I saw a beautiful samurai sword in there and asked how we had won it," Cortese told me. "I was told it was to commemorate a game. I said we need real trophies."

Given the club's recent history of uncertainty and failure, when survival not silverware was the prime concern, Southampton's battered and bruised fans could be forgiven for wondering just what planet Cortese is from.

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It was another busy weekend of sport, but one of the highlights for me was watching Leeds Rhinos chief executive Gary Hetherington announce his team's opponents for next Friday's Super League play-off semi-final at Headingley Carnegie.

Giving a side the right to pick who they will face in the semis is a new concept from the ever innovative Rugby Football League, keen to increase the intrigue surrounding the re-jigged play-off system that now features eight teams.

Having finished top of the table after the regular season and won their opening play-off game against Hull KR, Leeds were able to select either Catalans Dragons or Wigan Warriors as their adversaries on 2 October.

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In the aftermath of Ipswich's 4-0 home defeat on Saturday a journalist started to ask manager Roy Keane a question about the importance of the forthcoming games against Sheffield United and Barnsley.

Keane cut him off with the line: "You're going to tell me something I don't know?"

Make no mistake, the Irishman is under no illusions about his current predicament.

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Accrington have a motto that reads 'The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. Save our Stanley.'

It is entirely appropriate given the predicament the homely Lancashire clubs finds itself in and yet also hints at a determination to look beyond their current crisis and towards happier times.

Stanley, in case you haven't heard, owe the taxman £308,000 and HMRC wants its money. Quite right too, given that their money is in reality our money.

The club's chief executive, Rob Heys, maintains that apart from general day-to-day running costs it is the only real debt the club has. There are no other significant individual creditors.

If that is the case then how did the League Two side get themselves into such a mess in the first place?

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Sheffield Wednesday chairman Lee Strafford wants an investor to put £20m into the Championship club - and he is relying on an American firm to make it happen.

You probably haven't heard of New York-based investment bank Inner Circle Sports but it represented Tom Hicks and George Gillett in their takeover at Liverpool and brokered the deal that saw Ellis Short assume control at Sunderland.

And it is currently using what key personnel at the bank describe as their extensive contacts to find Strafford the investment he needs to try to realise his ambitious plans for the Owls to take flight.

If you include Birmingham, where Hong Kong businessman Carson Yeung is poised to take control, half of the Premier League is now in the hands of foreign ownership.

And as the extraordinary example of League Two club Notts County illustrates, even the right type of Football League club can generate interest from abroad.

But how can we be sure that wealthy foreign owners, many of whom are largely unknown in the United Kingdom prior to their investment, have the right intentions for the clubs that they buy?

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In an age when football is a multi-million pound global business I often struggle to relate to the game and its protagonists, who have become remote celebrity figures with little in common with the people who pay handsomely to watch them.

But every now and again a story comes along that unlocks something emotional deep inside me, the sort that really makes me feel as though I can empathise with a footballer once more.

This is one of them.

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At The Valley

Walking down Floyd Road towards The Valley in Saturday lunchtime's late summer sunshine I heard a dad trying to convince his young son that Charlton had never lost a game in the history of football.

Optimistic, I thought, given the recent history of the south London club. The boy, no more than four or five, must remember virtually nothing of the steady years of Premier League achievement but might have seen plenty of the rapid decline that followed.

The young fella was having none of his dad's bluster and let his old man know it in no uncertain terms. Nonetheless, the nature of the wind-up hinted at a burgeoning sense of belief around SE7 after a start to the campaign that saw Charlton win their opening six League One fixtures to lead the table.

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As achievements go, Cheltenham Town's all-time Football League goalscoring record is a very modest affair.

It currently stands at 38 and is held by Martin Devaney - but it could soon be changing hands.

Julian Alsop's strike against Rochdale in a recent League Two match took the 36-year-old to within two of the record. It came 2,324 days after his previous goal for the club.

If the target man does eventually claim the record - and nothing can be taken for granted in this story - it will complete a remarkable second coming for a player who dropped out of the Football League almost five years ago.

Alsop is hardly a household name but he was a hard-working lower-division striker, an old-fashioned battering ram who won his headers and held up the ball.

Unfortunately for him, an incident in October 2004, allegedly involving a trainee and a banana, resulted in Alsop's dismissal from Oxford and a six-month ban from the game.

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This is a story of perseverance against the odds, of one man's desire to succeed and the lengths that a burning ambition will carry an individual.

In an era when many footballers are regarded as pampered and luxuriated individuals, nobody could accuse New Zealand striker Kris Bright of an easy ride.

He has played in Holland, Norway and Greece, had trials at Kilmarnock and Norwich and spent several months as a 16-year-old at Gillingham.

Still only 22, the Kiwi international finally fulfilled his long-held ambition to play in England after signing a two-year deal with League Two Shrewsbury in the summer.

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