Search: 'UEFA'

Csaba Abrahall  looks back on a bench-warmer in the days before three subs, a loyal servant who rarely got to serve – Ipswich Town’s Mr Reserve Team, Tommy Parkin

So successful was Ipswich’s youth policy in the 1970s that anyone learning his trade at Portman Road could reasonably expect to have to consider storage arrangements for international caps sooner or later. Eric Gates, George Burley and John Wark were among many who made the transition from Ipswich junior to full international. Tommy Parkin, a member of the club’s FA Youth Cup-winning team in 1973, was not, yet his rather prosaic contribution is remembered al­most as fondly as those of his illustrious peers.

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Heralded as an indicator of football’s rise when launched 12 years ago, it’s the best guide to the game’s health. Roger Titford looks at this year's Deloitte & Touche report

Deloitte & Touche’s annual review of football finances is now in its 12th year. The series will offer the foot­ball historian of the future a far more accurate and detailed source for the football boom-and-near-bust years than the usual run of football/business books.

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Friday 1 Manchester United are fined £1.6 million by the Office of Fair Trading for price-fixing replica shirts. One of the other ten businesses to be charged are… the FA who will have to pay £158,000 for selling overpriced England shirts on the internet in 2000-01. Tangled web-weaver John Fashanu says he has resigned as chairman of Barry Town, though there is some doubt whether he ever really held such a position. Jody Craddock leaves Sunderland for Wolves, who are also to sign Senegalese striker Henri Camara and Spurs’ Steffen Iversen.

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David Wylie tells us about Glentoran

What was your best moment as a Glentoran fan?
Nothing can beat the euphoria of Sean Arm­strong’s goal against Linfield in the 2000 Irish Cup semi. Sean, nephew of Northern Ireland le­gend Gerry, scored the 96th-minute winner in front of the Windsor Park Kop after Linfield had equalised a couple of min­utes earlier. The Glens went on to win the cup, but memories of the victory over Portadown will always be overshadowed by those of thousands of bluemen rushing back to their seats just in time to see Armstrong head in Hamill’s cross.

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Snubbed again. Months after FIFA granted Oceania an automatic place in the World Cup, they have reversed the decision. Matthew Hall writes from a very angry continent

After FIFA’s Oceania World Cup backflip, neither Sepp Blatter nor UEFA’s Lennart Johansson should consider taking holidays in the South Pacific for the next few years. The two Europeans would normally receive excellent hospitality from south­ern hemisphere hosts, but, as figurehead and architect of FIFA’s turnaround on Oceania’s direct entry to World Cup finals, those days are gone.

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