Wednesday 1 Leicester's Tony Cottee and Andrew Impey are charged with misconduct by the FA after an investigation into how tickets for the 1999 Worthington Cup final ended up on the black market. A further 25 players and officials at Leicester have been charged with failing to assist the inquiry. "It's an absolute farce," says Neil Lennon. "We were given forms and asked to write out who we gave our tickets to but no deadline was given." The average age of the creaking Middlesbrough midfield will be lowered significantly with the return of Juninho, back on loan from Atletico Madrid until the end of the season. The Rep of Ireland beat Yugoslavia 2-1 in a Euro 2000 qualifier.
Search: ' Conference North'
Stories
Twenty years after the start of the Alliance Premier League, or Conference, Simon Bell asks if it was all a good idea
Good idea at the time: in a certain light it still does. When the “cream” of the English non-League game were brought together 20 years ago as the Alliance Premier League, the agenda was clear enough and the will firm. The annual farce of election and re-election had to end, giving way to meritocratic promotion from a single, national, non-League division comprising the best and best-run clubs outside the full-time game. At the same time the lower rungs of the non-League game set about a grand overhaul to form a “pyramid” with the Alliance (subsequently the Gola League and then the Conference) at its pinnacle. It was the way forward.
Keiran Robson explains how the FA have moved the goalposts after the newly formed Barrow AFC (1999) were refused permission to take over the status of the existing Barow AFC (1901) from next season after their exclusion from the Nationwide Conference
On Saturday June 5th, Barrow were excluded from the Nationwide Conference for next season. The club has 14 days to appeal but, if that fails, the best they can hope for is to be playing in the North West Trains League – three levels below the Conference – next season. There is a chance, however, that the club may go out of existence altogether. The new board say they will not be able to afford to maintain the club’s current ground, Holker Street, on the income generated in the North West Trains League, whose clubs are allowed to charge a maximum entrance fee of only £2.
Rupert Murdoch may have been rejected but Manchester United fans are expecting another takeover bid, as Michael Crick explains
When Stephen Byers’s announcement came, it didn’t actually surprise us. It had been clear since late January, when six members of Shareholders United Against Murdoch (SUAM) attended a hearing with the Monopolies and Mergers Commission (MMC), that they were taking the competition arguments against BSkyB much more seriously than we’d realised.
Rangers goalkeeper Andy Goram – from cult hero to alleged terrorist and extremist. Alex Anderson looks for reason and logic
For Rangers fans who would like their club to ditch its sectarian image, the second last weekend in February contained an extreme high followed by extreme low. Saturday: a Scottish Catholic helps us annihilate Dundee and the fact is only reported on the back pages, in purely football terms. Sunday: an ex-Ranger cannot face Celtic because of front-page headlines associating him with organised murderers.