In a game between fellow Championship strugglers, Simon Hart watches the away side continue their poor travelling form, while a debut for the home manager and a hard-fought win sees optimism bloom in Yorkshire
“Normally you’d get 18 to 19,000 here for a Peterborough game but we’re expecting 24 today – a couple of wins on the bounce, a new manager, there’s a feelgood effect.”
Jamie Redknapp's face seems to get everywhere these days. Simon Tyers tunes in to watch his latest role in Football's Next Star, Sky One's follow up to Football Icon
Jamie Redknapp is exactly the sort of screen presence Sky Sports had in mind when the Premier League started. Bearer of a boyish smile, conventionally handsome looks, artfully constant two-day beard growth, wardrobe’s worth of designer suits and familial connections with just the sort of people the image thrives on, his role seems as much advertorial as analyst.
Rob Bradley recently made an alarming discovery – he no longer hates referees and even admires one in particular
Life is all about change. You go to school, then you work, you have kids, you get old. You have different hair styles and then you go bald. As the years go by you lose enthusiasm for things that you used to enjoy. Like Frank Skinner or keeping fit. But some things never ever change. At least you think they don’t. I’ve always hated referees. When I played Sunday League football I got sent off by them. I even got sent off for ranting at one and I was running the line. You hate them when you go to watch the club you support. It’s traditional.
For two clubs in north-east Italy relegation from Serie A was just the start of the problems. Gavin Willacy saw the trouble unfold
If Sheffield Wednesday, Reading or Ipswich get relegated from the Championship in May, their fans would be safe in assuming that the beleaguered club will kick off next season in League One. And if Southampton stay in the third division, you can at least expect them to be on the starting line again come August.
by Archie Macpherson
Black & White, £17.99
Reviewed by Archie MacGregor
From WSC 278 April 2010
As unlikely alliances go, learning that Archie Macpherson was once good pals with Jeremy Paxman during their days on breakfast TV in the late 1980s must rank right up there as one of the most bizarre double acts in the history of television. There's no suggestion that they've remained close buddies ever since, rather the rapport was a fleeting mutual support mechanism designed to help both of them deal with the mind-numbing ordeal of early morning broadcasting. Look what it did to Frank Bough after all.