Search: 'Paul Ince'

Twenty years ago the home team were struggling to stay in the top flight – today they are struggling to get back into the Football League. But at least they have a nice new ground, complete in almost all respect. By Josh Widdicombe

Outside Oxford train station at one o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, no one has any idea what the ­Kassam Stadium is, let alone how to get there. A group of teenagers, who have found some steps to sit on and won’t be moving for anyone, look at me with confusion. A bus driver gives me a shake of the head, implying public transport is too much trouble by half. I settle for a taxi. We pull out of the car park and are overtaken by a bus, whose destination is “Football Ground”.

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Referees get official help. Steve Menary reports

The idea of clubs even at semi-professional level – let alone in the Premier League – having to find their own referee for a home game is hard to imagine. At parks level, however, many clubs do that every week, often prompting disputes about the officials’ impartiality. The reason that referees are in such short supply is because hundreds have drifted out of the game due to the poor behaviour of players and spectators. That is why the Football Association launched its initiative to improve respect for referees, which begins in earnest in January 2008.

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A German player refuses to play against Israel – because he was born in Iran. But Ashkan Dejagah, who has dual nationality, has picked up sympathy in some unexpected places, as Paul Joyce explains

Tattooed on the neck of VfL Wolfsburg midfielder Ashkan Dejagah is the motto “Never forget where you’re from”. On his right forearm is the word “Teheran”, the German spelling of the city where he was born in 1986; on his left “Berlin”, where he grew up and played for Hertha. Not that anyone will forget where he comes from after he withdrew from a Germany Under-21 game against Israel in Tel Aviv in October. “There are political reasons for this,” he told the paper Bild. “Everyone knows I’m a German-Iranian.”

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Northwich are hoping a takeover will save them, reports Michael Whalley

Neil Redfearn certainly knows how to pick a club in crisis. In the summer of 2006, he quit the manager’s chair at Scarborough as they lost their Conference place amid a host of financial woes. The former Barnsley and Bradford midfielder might have hoped for an easier ride when he pitched up at Northwich Victoria this summer. He didn’t get it. Nine Blue Square Premier matches brought eight defeats and a draw. So Redfearn packed his bags to find something less stressful to do.

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Brighton escape from the bottom division as Barnet drop out of the league. Peter Evans reports

The long-term significance
Fresh from an £11.5 million takeover by Sam Hammam, Cardiff City spent £1.9m – an unparalleled amount for the fourth tier. However, this season, when each Division Three club were guaranteed a healthy £150,000 in TV revenue, was the beginning of the end for such heavy investment in wages and transfers. The following year ITV Digital went under, leaving many clubs facing the prospect of financial meltdown. Carlton and Granada, the channel’s owners, had paid £315m for the Nationwide League TV rights in June 2000, but, when the company was declared bankrupt in March 2002, Third Division clubs lost roughly £400,000 in earnings.

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