Search: ' Christmas'

Dermot Corrigan looks at how foreigners bearing gifts are being viewed with increasing suspicion by struggling clubs in La Liga

The fantastically wealthy foreign club owner was until recently unknown in Spain, where clubs have generally either been member-owned, dominated by local businessmen or, most commonly, a mixture of both. Then, last June, Qatar’s Sheikh Abdullah Bin Nasser Al-Thani bought Málaga, promised to sign at least five new players immediately, announced plans for a new 65,000-seat stadium and predicted Champions League glory within a few seasons.

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Ian Plenderleith gets the feeling all the best goals have already been scored and all the best songs have already been written

When you hit middle age, it’s almost impossible not to fall into the trap of yearning for the days when things were different. Not necessarily better, just different. When nearly every house had just one telephone and one TV. When you played football in the same field every day with the other kids in the village using cowpats for goalposts (really). When a new album by the Jam was not just a new album by the Jam, but a significant event in your life that you looked forward to for weeks in advance. When a live football match on television was something very special that happened no more than a handful of times per year.

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Darlington’s white elephant has turned into a cautionary tale. Owen Amos explains plans to return to something more modest

When lower-league clubs discuss moving grounds, there’s one thing they know: whenever they go and wherever they go, they don’t want to “do a Darlington”. This means moving to a new ground, then barely filling one tenth of it. A quick Google search shows fans of Gillingham, Hartlepool and Rotherham, among others, have used it. But soon, the phrase might – just might – lose its meaning.

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Graham Forshaw decribes the season which saw champions Fulham accumulate 101 points

The long-term significance
The three promoted clubs all stayed up the following season – the only time this has happened since the Premier League started. Indeed, none of the three has been relegated since. Fulham’s Jean Tigana was the only black manager in the League at the time and the first foreigner to take a team up to the top level – Ossie Ardiles had won promotion through the play-offs with Swindon Town ten years earlier but they were then demoted for financial irregularities.

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Bohemians are the latest League of Ireland club facing struggles to stay afloat. Aaron Rogan reports from Dublin

Prolonged contract negotiations between players and clubs often end in ignominy, but recent events at League of Ireland club Bohemians had a lot more at stake than loss of face. Days before Christmas the club was served with a winding-up order by two players who, along with eight others, had been negotiating severance packages after Bohemians revealed they could not honour their contracts for next season and that they hoped to provide a budget in line with the FAI’s licensing criteria.

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