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.
John Chapman recounts the year Wigan Athletic won promotion via the ballot box
The long-term significance
Before 2004-05, this was the last time Wigan Athletic finished second in their league. Like last season they went up, but on this occasion the champions didn’t. Despite winning their fourth title in six years, Boston United’s ground was failed by the Football League inspectors, just four years after it had hosted Derby County and 11,000 spectators. So Wigan, 12 months after their worst ever season but on the back of a good FA Cup run, got put forward for election to the League. After tying 26 votes all with Southport in the first ballot, they won the second 29-20. They were to be the last side promoted to the league in this way.