Search: 'Leyton Orient'

Before it's too late, Tom Davies records the relaxed conviviality of chatting in the quietest part of a quietish ground, pausing only for the odd barbed reference to the game in the background

Those who have campaigned for the retention or return of terracing at football have aimed their fire too narrowly. In highlighting the mystique of a terrace as a throbbing, heaving mass of partisan passion, they’ve missed what makes an awful lot of terraces – particularly a lot of those that still exist – special: their quiet, easy-going affability.

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Friday 1 Tony Pulis, out of work since leaving Portsmouth two years ago, takes over at Stoke. Steve McLaren resigns as Sven’s assistant, saying: “It was never intended to be long-term and it has dragged on.”

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The Football League play-offs present altering patterns in hooliganism, writes Tom Davies

If there’s a World Cup in the offing, one thing you can always rely on in the preceding weeks is the “spotlight” falling on “fears of hooliganism”. With it comes the obligatory bout of documentaries on “the problem that never went away”, as a seemingly endless stream of ageing young men queue up to tell us about where and why it’s kicking off. Proclaiming yourself to be a former football hooligan must surely be the easiest way to achieve TV fame these days – such people make the contestants on Pop Idol look like dues-paying footsloggers by comparison.

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Tom Davies meets up with Leyton Orient defender and PFA representative Dean Smith to gain an insight into the players' perspective of the crisis hitting lower-league clubs

Have players in the lower divisions become more insecure about their jobs in recent years?
I think so, yes. Squads are getting smaller again and it does seem to have been getting harder and harder in recent years for players being released at the end of the season to find another club, whereas in seasons before it was quite easy. Players are having to look lower down, and more are going into non-League football. Which means many have got to come to terms with part-time football and finding another job. As a result, the Con­ference teams are getting stronger – there are a lot of players in the Conference who could be playing in the Football League.

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Friday 1 Portsmouth chairman Milan Mandaric threatens to withhold the wages of his players and coaching staff: “They expect to go through the motions and then to receive a huge wage packet. It’s extortion.” The PFA’s Gordon Taylor is unimpressed: “It’s quite naive really, it’s going back to the Dark Ages.”

Saturday 2 “You are blessed to to witness something like that,” says Arsène as Dennis Bergkamp scores another spectacular goal in a 2-0 win at Newcastle that keeps his team second. Frank Sinclair nearly matches that with a 30-yard lob at Middlesbrough, but it’s past his own keeper for the only goal of the game. Liverpool go third after winning 2-0 at Fulham. Andy Cole’s dismissal for a foul on Mike Whitlow during Blackburn’s 1-1 draw at Bolton prompts a right old rumpus, with a scuffle between players and a home steward, and both managers exchanging unpleasantries. Stan Ternent rounds on Burnley fans who boo their team after a home draw with Norwich keeps them fifth in the First: “They have champagne tastes on beer money.” Halifax are ten points adrift at the bottom of the Third after losing 3-1 at Leyton Orient.

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