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Everton and the BNP recently clashed over the timing of a party campaign. Mark O'Brien looks at how the police deal with disruptons to the matchday routine

From the England team’s Nazi salute in 1938 to the T-shirts worn by Robbie Fowler and Steve McManaman in support of striking dockers, politics has frequently exerted an influence on football. That convergence caused quite some concern on Merseyside when the British National Party announced recently that they planned to conduct a leafleting campaign in Liverpool city centre on the afternoon of Saturday March 14, the same afternoon as Everton were scheduled to play host to Stoke City in the Premier League.Tranmere were at home to Huddersfield on the same afternoon, while Liverpool supporters would also be returning from their early game at Old Trafford, and according to Chief Superintendent Steve Watson of Liverpool North: “If they had all taken place at the same time it would have placed extraordinary pressures on demand and would have affected the ability to police those events effectively.”

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In May, St Andrew’s and the Madejski were cloaked in relegation doom. Now the hope of automatic promotion – with the play-off anxiety that accompanies that prospect – suffuses the meeting between the teams second and third in the Championship. Are they about to swap places? Roger Titford was there

Only an idiot or a football manager would say this was just another game, just another three points.  It stands like a giant sign post, the opening game of the second half of the Championship season, a potential turning point.  Birmingham City have occupied one of the automatic promotion spots from the off but they are beginning to splutter, trailing Wolves by six points. Reading are now only one behind the Blues. Both clubs were relegated from the Premier League last season and both are desperate to get back up before the parachute money runs out and they fall to parsimonious ignominy with a dull thud. It is second versus third in a three-horse race where only the first two get decent prizes and it is being run at an exceptional pace. We’re all off to witness and feel “momentum shift”. If I just wanted to see what happens I’d be better off at home watching it on Sky with my cough. But I’m making a rare away trip, despite Sky, because Reading will need every voice and body we can get in the stadium.

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England's premier cup competition is starting to suffer in popularity as ITV and Setanta take the rights

On successive days in December, the sports pages carried several pictures of excited young fans reaching out to touch players. Firstly Japanese children in Ronaldo replica shirts greeted Manchester United when they arrived in Tokyo for the Club World Cup. The following day Blyth Spartans fans ­celebrated the FA Cup second-round defeat of Bournemouth; it’s unlikely that their green-and-white shirts are available anywhere other than the club shop and a couple of stores in Blyth town centre.

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When Danny Brady found out his sister's boyfriend was an ex-pro he feared the worst. This is what happened when they met…

When I first discovered that my big sister had started going out with a retired footballer, two thoughts bubbled up into my mind: “Ooh, I hope he’s minted and still gets tickets”; and “Please God, don’t let it be Frank Worthington”. Because in the mind of the general public, it’s either/or when it comes to retired footballers. They either spend their time sitting on a throne made out of bricks of £50 notes, or they’re scowling at the world behind a paper-shop counter or run-down bar, gazing wistfully at faded cuttings from The Pink ’Un on the wall.

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What’s it like to have not seen your team play for 15 years?Matt Nation makes an unsentimental return to Ashton Gate

The point behind school reunions, find-your-mates websites and other sewers of nostalgia has always seemed rather moot. There are reasons why people haven’t seen each other for half a lifetime. The hugs may be cloying, the air-kisses sloppy and the compliments gushing, but they do not alter one crucial fact. If they had wanted to stay in touch, they would have.

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