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Photographer Tony Davis was commissioned to take pictures of all 92 League grounds for the new national football museum in Preston. On his travels he found squalor, splendour and some terrific shopping

I’m at Deepdale, home of the national football museum, trying to arrange a trip to Blackpool to photograph Bloomfield Road. But they don’t want me. Could I come back when the ground has been knocked down and redeveloped? With only a few weeks in which to finish the project, I tell them it has to be today. A series of phone calls later, I’m on the road to Blackpool. 

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Hull City are likely to be saved from extinction… again. But this is an all to common experience for the club, writes Craig Ellyard

There is little doubt that by the time you read this article Hull City will, once again, have been saved. A “my­s­­t­ery consortium” have asked the club’s creditors to accept 30p in the pound on their out­­­­­standing liabilities. If, as expected, agreement is reached, the consortium, hav­ing already lodged a ­substantial bond, will take over the running of the club. So, all’s well that ends well?

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Do England really need a new national stadium? And more specifically, does it have to be London?

The past month has seen two games which gave a tantalising hint of how things might have been if football had not got into such a mind-boggling mess over the reconstruction of Wembley.

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Saturday 3 Man Utd don’t manage a shot on target at home to Everton but still win with a deflected goal. Robbie Fowler’s revival continues with two in a 3-0 win over West Ham to take Liverpool up to third behind Arsenal, who win 1-0 at Coventry. Derby’s surprise 1-0 win over Sunderland takes them four points clear of the relegation zone, though they have three players booked in five minutes for disputing offside calls. Man City’s improved form continues with a 1-1 draw at the Riverside, though Joe Royle is furious that a Danny Tiatto goal is disallowed for offside: “The TV replay should embarrass the ref for the rest of his career.” Spurs’ goalless draw with Charlton is their fourth in a row: “We’ll just have to keep grinding our results until we get our strikers fit,” says George Graham with something approaching relish. In the First, Sheff Wed get another turn at the bottom after losing to Watford. “We have it all to do,” predicts Paul Jewell. Joe Kinnear moves one place up the Second Division table by becoming an “adviser” to second-bottom Luton.

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Dear WSC
After hearing for the umpteenth time that 2001 is Tottenham’s year for the Cup (based on the well known logic that they always net the trophy when the year ends in “one”), it occurred to me that it is now ten years since Nottingham Forest let Brian Clough down royally in an inept Cup final display. If Tottenham fans think they’ve had a rough time in the ten years since, they should spare a thought for the eternally depressed Forest faithful who have seen their team slump from being a regular top-ten inhabitant in the top division, to being a penniless First Division club with nothing to look forward to apart from the semi-realistic possibility of Derby County joining us in the First. Sadly, the Nottingham public have no great passion for football and one can’t help wondering if the current situation would be different if we had the kind of committed support that the likes of Newcastle, Sunderland and Manchester City can claim.
Marcus Hesketh, via email

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