Tuesday 2 “Pride, sadness, injustice – they are all rolled in there,” says Gordon as Celtic beat Artmedia 4‑0 in the second leg of their Champions League tie. Liverpool complete a 5‑1 aggregate victory over Kaunas. Joey Barton makes a public appeal to his missing stepbrother, whom police want to question regarding the murder of black teenager Michael Walker in Liverpool. Milan Baros won’t be moving to Schalke, whose general manager says: “We could only justify the move if we were guaranteed to play in the Champions League for the next three seasons.” Andy Johnson won’t be moving anywhere, for a few months at least, after signing a five-year deal with Palace, with no help from his agent, who has been banned from the club. Michael Owen concedes that his advisors have been in contact with several Premiership clubs, but adds: “I am confident that Real Madrid will have my best interests at heart whatever happens.”
Search: ' Conference North'
Stories
Cedric Anselin played with Zinedine Zidane in a UEFA Cup final. So how did he come to paint doors at a caravan site near Lowestoft? Jon Welch investigates
To say Cedric Anselin’s career has been a bit up and down would be a masterpiece of understatement. Aged 18, he played in the same Bordeaux side as Christophe Dugarry, Bixente Lizarazu and Zinedine Zidane, collecting a 1995-96 UEFA Cup runners-up medal.
The marketing prospects Japanese players offer are causing people to overlook what a fine player Bolton have signed in Hidetoshi Nakata, believes Justin McCurry
There was a certain inevitability about the cynicism that greeted the arrival of Hidetoshi Nakata at the Reebok Stadium. In persuading the unsettled Japan midfielder to move to Bolton from Fiorentina, Sam Allardyce had, so the received wisdom goes, ensured the club a steady income from replica-shirt sales, television coverage in the Far East and household corporate names on pitch-side sponsorship hoardings. After all, other Japanese players to have signed for Premiership clubs – remember Akinori Nishizawa and Kazuyuki Toda? – have done little to dispel the notion that they are anything more than cash cows in football boots.
The supporter-led takeover was a start for Rushden & Diamonds, but for Graham Dunbar there's still a long way to go yet
For a brief few days at the end of last season, Rushden was near the centre of our sporting universe. Homegrown local players showing off their abundant natural talent in a theatre of dreams, watched by a live television audience numbered in millions. Of course, they were doing it in waistcoats while brandishing a stick of wood at the Crucible.
Ashley Shaw assesses the challenges ahead for FC United of Manchester, freed from the clutches of Malcolm Glazer and now starting out at the botom of the pyramid
A new season, a new club and an entirely fresh set of problems for Manchester United’s disaffected supporters. Having seen their club narrowly fail to lift the FA Cup last May, following a season where failure meant third place in the Premiership and defeat to AC Milan in the San Siro, Reds disgruntled to the point of anarchy with the Glazer takeover have turned their backs on their life-long devotion to form a new club, FC United of Manchester (FCUM) at the foot of the football pyramid.