Having got used to relegation from the top flight, Huw Richards writes on how Rayo Vallecano are having an unexpected prolonged stay at the top
El Rayo Vallecano está de moda (Rayo Vallecano are in fashion). One can think of more unlikely headlines – “Manchester United back profit-sharing” or “Swansea sign midfield playmaker” come to mind. But few others.
Most football fans look back at 1981 as the year Ipswich lost the title, and deserved to take it back to Suffolk. David Wangerin disagrees
In the dim and increasingly distant days before the Premiership, live football on TV and the Champions League, it was a widely held assertion that small, settled squads were a desirable thing, and that a collection of a dozen or so talented, motivated and well-organised players stood as good a chance as any of winning the championship – as long as they kept their limbs and ligaments intact and their noses clean.
Despite interference from NATO among others, Yugoslavia made it to Euro 2000. Dragomir Pop-Mitic looks back at an extraordinary campaign
“All games for the coming weekend are postponed.”
The Euro 2000 play-off draw has pitted the two oldest foes in Football against each other, but does anyone outside of Britain care?
“I would not be Kevin Keegan if I did not get excited about this,” said the England manager in a blinding flash of self-awareness on hearing the Euro 2000 play-off draw. Unfortunately, he is Kevin Keegan, and his face was splashed all over the papers after England and Scotland came out of the hat together (or what passes for a hat at UEFA headquarters these days).
The various clubs to be affected by Reg Brealey and Steve Morgan
Sheffield United fans will be only too familiar with the reputation of Reg Brealey, the chairman of their club in the 1980s. The one-time jute magnate is now officially bankrupt and has 20,000 luckless shareholders from a previous company failure on his conscience, but he has been far from idle since leaving Bramall Lane. In conjunction with sidekick Steve Morgon he has recently embarked on an unlikely groundhopping tour, sowing further confusion, debt and dissatisfaction wherever he goes.