From being a park footballer to making his international debut in a few months, Luton's new terrace hero has enjoyed an amazing rise, as Neil Rose writes
There are few park footballers under the age of 40 who do not secretly harbour the schoolboy dream of being spotted by a canny scout and thrust into a starring role at a League club, before graduating within months to the national team.
The football hasn't always been dramatic but, as Mark Douglas explains, there's been quite a song and dance this summer just to keep Valley Parade open
For supporters of most clubs, the worst thing that can happen in the summer break is the odd player scandal, a dodgy new away kit or the possibility that you might sign Brian Deane. Not so Bradford City. Just four years ago, Valley Parade basked in the glory of Premiership survival. Now, the dwindling Bantams support are just happy to have survived the summer months with a club at all.
As the divisions change names again, Tom Davies listened to those championing the Championship and came away unimpressed
S o goodbye Nationwide League Divisions One, Two and Three, hello Coca-Cola Championship and Leagues One and Two. The Football League’s name changes have attracted so much ridicule that to deride them already feels too much like indulging in a fish-in-a-barrel shooting contest.
As Everton desperately search for investment, they have ended up pinning their hopes on someone with no real interest in or like for football. Richard Knights looks at their desperate situation
If Evertonians thought the nadir had been reached in the final match of last season with that 5-1 drubbing by Manchester City, they hadn’t reckoned with the close-season implosion and an unseemly all-out civil war between directors Bill Kenwright and Paul Gregg.
Thursday 1 Ottmar Hitzfeld turns down the job of German national coach. Bradford survive: their administrators are in talks with “interested parties”. MK Dons, meanwhile, prepare for their headlong dive through, uh, League One by coming out of administration. James Milner is set to join Newcastle while his ex-team-mate Mark Viduka completes a medical at Boro (peevishness may not show up in the tests).