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John Sugden & Alan Tomlinson put forward their view of the transition from Havelange to Blatter, who became FIFA president in 1998

At FIFA’s 51st Congress in Paris, on the eve of the World Cup finals, Sepp Blatter – the man most responsible for outlawing the tackle from behind – felled Lennart Johansson with a late challenge that Tommy Smith would have been proud of. After a secret ballot, Blatter swept to the FIFA presidency by 111 votes to 80. The result stunned Johansson’s supporters. Only days before they had been confidently predicting a comfortable victory for the man who for the past four years had been tirelessly promoting a campaign to reform FIFA based on principles of democracy and transparency.

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Tuesday 2 Sir John Hall resigns from the board of Newcastle Utd and its parent company. Two directors of the plc stepped down last week, apparently in protest at the impending return to the club board of Freddie Shepherd and Douglas Hall. Stan Ternent leaves Bury to become manager of Burnley. Romario is out of Brazil's World Cup squad having not recovered from injury. "We had a similar situation with Gary McAllister so things have evened out," says Craig Brown.

Wednesday 3 Terry Venables criticizes Glenn Hoddle's decision to drop Paul Gascoigne: "I think I would have been a little more patient."

Saturday 6 Hoddle summons Teddy Sheringham for a chat after the tabloids find him drinking in a nightclub in Portugal. "If people read that I was out until 6am I admit that it sounds disgraceful," says Teddy. Slough Town are thrown out of the Conference for failing to upgrade their ground. Telford, who finished in the third relegation spot, are reinstated.

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Stoke's season began with optimism but ended with relegation, as Penny Davies explains

On Saturday August 30th 1997, 23,859 people sat down in Stoke City’s new home, the Britannia Stadium, to watch the first League match there. Earlier, Sir Stanley Matthews had officially opened the ground. The idea was that he would roll back the years by scoring in front of admiring fans. This didn’t go to plan. The 82-year-old couldn’t get enough power behind his shot and the ball stopped well short of the goal. The more prescient among the crowd knew that this cock-up was a taste of the season ahead.

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Three blood-curdling stories, one from the present day, two from the past, of the players who fell foul of their own supporters. Jonathan Barnes, Phil Ball and Al Needham explain

James Scowcroft, Ipswich Town
As Ipswich Town took the lead in their home fixture with bottom-of-the-table Reading in March, the celebrations of a certain section of the 19,000 Portman Road crowd were, to say the least, half-hearted. The displeasure of the fans is at the identity of the scorer – the man in the No 10 shirt. Rarely has a player been able to divide a set of fans as drastically as James Scowcroft.

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An overview of the prevailing standards in the Football League, with Reading fan Roger Titford describing what he saw from the wrong end of the First Division

By general consensus it has been a bad year for the First Division. Its lack of quality has been characterised by “the widening of the gap”. At the time of writing it looks quite likely that all last year’s promoted teams will come back down and the three relegated teams will return to the Premiership. If it happens it will probably be a fluke never to be repeated but it comes at a very bad time for the image of the Football League.

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