Search: 'Paul Ince'

A ticketing fiasco leads to hundreds of empty seats at a supposedly showpiece game. Bruce Wilkinson reports

Watching the FA Cup semi-final between Blackburn and Chelsea, you may have been surprised to see quite so many empty seats. The distance Chelsea supporters had to travel and the number of big games they have coming up were contributory factors, while Blackburn have had well publicised problems filling Ewood Park in the past couple of seasons. Ticket prices, however, also had a significant effect on the attendance.

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Sunday 1 “As the beaten team, you think all kinds of sinister motives,” says Steve Coppell, one step away from blaming the CIA for Robbie Keane’s disputed penalty as Spurs move up to sixth with a 1-0 home win against Reading. DJ Campbell scores twice as Birmingham defeat Coventry 3-0 to go back into second in the Championship. Hearts beat Hibs 1-0 at Easter Road.

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Neil Wallace on the year Bolton hit a ton, Man City managers came and went, and the players' union threatened a strike

The long-term significance
Expanding revenues from television became a source of conflict, with footballers pushed towards industrial action for the first time since the abolition of the maximum wage. In the summer of 1996, the Football League sought to reduce the share of the new TV deal that would go to the PFA. With over 90 per cent of the union’s members voting for a strike in October, the League finally agreed to their demand for five per cent of the income; the Premier League came to a similar agreement a year later. In 2001, however, strike action was threatened again before the PFA succeeded in holding on to five per cent of the next, hugely increased, Sky deal. And with the figures becoming ever greater, the strike threat of 1996 could recur again and again.X

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Dear WSC
Why does Andy Gray keep saying “pick the bones out of that”? It’s an expression he’s come to use in every post-match analysis he does on Sky, usually in relation to a slow-motion replay of a goalmouth incident. But it’s become so frequent that it’s almost a verbal tic, as though he doesn’t realise he’s saying it. This suggests a deep-seated trauma. Could it be that he is haunted by an incident when he failed to pick the bones out of a fish, say, and consequently nearly choked while in a packed restaurant? Either that or he’s replying a vivid and unsettling dream. But it could be worse. Imagine the look of alarm on Richard Keys’ face as Andy stares into the middle distance and mutters: “The defence was as exposed as someone standing naked in front of everybody they went to school with, plus their mother and other female members of the family.”
James Potter, via email

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Tom Davies on clubs in crisis

The supporters’ campaign to force Mansfield Town owner Keith Haslam to relinquish control of the club has been ratcheted up in recent months, with demonstrations, boycotts and even a plane fly-past display at the away game at Notts County. Haslam announced that the club was for sale on March 19, but there is widespread scepticism about the substance of this offer: the owner has form for frustrating previous expressions of interest by not ­providing enough information to bidders.

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