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Non-League football in the north-east was once a rich source of playing talent for the professional game, but many of its clubs are in crisis now. Harry Pearson reports

Shotton Colliery Recreation Ground on a damp Saturday in January. Shotton Comrades are taking on Ferryhill Athletic. Beyond the perimeter fence on one side of the pitch is a small airfield. Every fifteen minutes or so light planes take off to drop sky divers. During dull moments of play you can watch the parachutists spiralling slowly earthward.

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John Perlman got a glimpse into the future when he went to see the Highbury screening of Arsenal's match at Newcastle – and it left him worried

Idiot. Cheat. Bastard. We are screaming at referee Graham Barber, who has just sent Tony Adams off. And all because he just happened to be in the neighbourhood when Alan Shearer decided to launch himself on another dive towards the penalty area. We have quite a bit to say to Shearer too.

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Patrick Harverson of the Financial Times explains why football clubs are suddenly eager to become listed on the Stock Exchange

Six years ago, Newcastle United tried to sell shares, but the club couldn’t give them away such was the lack of interest among fans and financial investors. In the next few months Newcastle will try it again. Only this time things will be a little bit different. The queue to buy shares in NUFC plc will stretch from St James’ Park, across the Tyne Bridge and down the M1 to London where pension funds, insurance companies and other blue-chip City institutions will be lining up around the block for a piece of the Toon pie.

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Julie Pritchard considers the likely outcome of the power struggle at Nottingham Forest

There’s an old Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times”, and 1996 was never boring for Forest fans. We’ve gone from the hope, and humiliation, of the UEFA Cup Quarter-Final v Bayern Munich, to being everyone’s favourites for relegation, pausing only to challenge Manchester City for the title of Joke Team of British Football.

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Looking at aspects of maleness and football, Joyce Woolridge explains why the New Lads beloved of the media have little in common with the lads who actually go to watch matches

A few weeks ago at 6am I began a solo train journey from Bristol to Manchester to watch Manchester United lose to Chelsea. I’ve never been to a match alone before, but it happened that this time I was the only one with a ticket. As a solo traveller, I thoroughly expected to observe at first hand some spectacular displays of laddish boorishness, given that football is where the ‘new lads’ are most at home; where they gather to worship the cult of curry, boozing and birds whilst rejecting all standards of decent behaviour. 

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