Search: ' midlands'

The West Midlands has a rich heritage of football but, as Steve Field finds out, the desperation to beat the local rivals has sometimes been substituted for success

When Aston Villa’s opponents failed to show up one Saturday in the 1880s, Joe Tillotson (so legend has it) threw down the bloater he was frying in his Summer Lane coffee shop and went next door to the draper’s owned by fellow director William MacGregor. Both men were indignant and declared angrily that some­thing should be done to ensure fixtures were hon­oured. It was a first faltering step towards modern professionalism and it was to lead to the creation of a Football League for the most prosperous and am­b­itious clubs in the north and midlands.

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Jamie Rainbow tells us about Teletext on the internet, the two main teams in the East Midlands and advice you need to invest in football

Combine the immediacy of Teletext with the scope of the internet and you’ve got the perfect medium for keeping abreast of all the latest football news. Or so you might think. The reality is something of a letdown. Although the Teletext site provides links to ­specially written club columns and is available for longer than the televised version, that’s about all it has to offer. 

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Dear WSC
So Adam Powley thinks Chelsea have “obscene ticket prices” (WSC 151). He’s right, obviously, but having paid £29 to watch Tottenham play Chelsea from a seat situated behind the police control room at White Hart Lane last season, I hardly think Spurs fans are in a position to take the moral high ground. As for Chelsea’s “contrived glamour image”, I can only wonder at how he sees the image of his own club. “Real” glamour perhaps?
Colin Maitland, Ascot

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John Williams comes off his line smartly to grab a chunk of goalkeeping history

I’m not sure how it is with you, but when I think back to childhood footballing days, things seem decidedly hazy. Detailed accounts of the hours we spent playing and watching are pretty much beyond me now.

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Padraig McKenna gives his assessment of chairman and lifelong Forest fan Eric Barnes

Distinguishing features A new face to those of us who do not consort with the business elite of the east midlands,our only exposure to Eric so far has been through the media. The image that springs to mind most readily is a rather severe look­ing, balding man with big glasses standing uneasily in a deserted City Ground, presumably trying to exclude the thought that this could be a foretaste of our future.

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