Armed gratefully with your votes, Ian Plenderleith picks out some of the very best sites, many of which have featured in this column over the past five years, though they appear in no particular order
Stadiums
Pyramid Passion Sister site to the excellent Nomad Online (covering Sussex non-League football), both run by David Bauckham, PP boasts great pictures and text about English non-League stadiums, plus galleries of dug-outs, floodlights, ground signs and even “rollers and mowers”.
Milan Mandaric has taken Pompey to a crossroads – and while the club head in one direction, Harry Redknapp chooses another after this straggly defeat. David Stubbs reports
The first time I saw Portsmouth play was in the first game I ever attended – September 1971 at Hull City’s Boothferry Park, a post-holiday birthday treat en route back home from a drizzly week at the Golden Sands Chalet Park in Withernsea. Hull City won 3-1, I vividly recall, except that they didn’t – a check on Soccerbase has confirmed that my lifelong belief to that effect is erroneous. In fact, it was Pompey who won by the same score. Still, what has stuck is the allure of what was doubtless a dismal occasion for the regulars. The combined stench of drifting cigarette smoke and fried onions acts like one of Proust’s cakes on me even now. I remember the bloke two rows down shouting “You Portsmouth pigs!” – the height of terrace invective to me. Mostly it was the floodlights that im- pressed me: tall, imposing and HG Wellsian, they were like giant cyber-sentries from another world.
A flop at Bradford, a controversial figure at Middlesbrough – this former England skipper is seeking managerial redemption at West Brom. Matt Rickard reports
It seems perverse that Bryan Robson should find himself managing again in the Premiership so soon after an ignominious seven months in charge of Bradford City. Wasn’t this the man who couldn’t buy a job after his time at Middlesbrough that ended shortly after a chastening call to Terry Venables? And this despite a desperate flurry of CV writing, only matched by the deadening thud of rejection letters.
Photography is at the heart of football culture and Ian Plenderleith is happy to tour the best sites on which you can admire the snappers' art.
The Franco-Mauritanian artist and sage Malcolm de Chazal once said: “When indifferent, the eye takes still photographs; when interested, movies.” His aphorism applies to football photos, too.
Philip Cornwall isn't sure exactly why England's players refused to speak to the media in Poland, but after reading the papers he can find plenty of good reasons
Stood in the corner towards which Jermain Defoe ran to celebrate his first England goal, it was obvious the team wished to thank their fans for their support in Chorzow. It had been a fraught few days, a cold night and an at times awkward 90 minutes, during which, for the most part, we had kept the faith. The previous Saturday, David James had received a post-match reception that could scarcely be called mixed. But the whole team, following the example set by David Beckham when he was substituted, came over to thank us again. And we thanked them.