Mike Newell’s outburst against a female assistant referee attracted more publicity, but Neil Rose and other Luton supporters were more interested by what the manager said about the club’s chairman
While Luton fans may be ambivalent about joining a campaign to ban female officials from men’s football, they would as one take to the streets for a campaign to ban Andy D’Urso.
Torquay's chairman challenges cheats. Nick House reports
The hint had been made in his programme notes. For the first time since primary school, Torquay’s new chairman Chris Roberts turned off Match of the Day rather than watch “the antics of these overpaid, scruple-less prima donnas”. What had begun as a “trickle of reprehensible incidents” had now turned into “a torrent driven by around a dozen Premier League players”.
Wednesday 1 “You cannot coach a player to score from five yards,” says Arsène as Arsenal squander a sackload of chances in a 0‑0 draw with CSKA Moscow. Man Utd lose to a late Marcus Allback goal in Copenhagen. Celtic crash 3‑0 at Benfica. Former Portsmouth owner Milan Mandaric makes a bid for Leicester City.
Being dismissed by Brian Clough did as much harm to Harlow Town as it had done to Jan Tomaszewski. Jon Spurling recalls the Essex club's FA Cup heyday – and decline
With its modish housing estates, flourishing light industries, new-fangled dry‑ski slope, award-winning Henry Moore sculpture on the walk into the town centre and upwardly mobile football club, a 1980 government white paper cited Harlow as “one of the main successes of the New Town programme”. Twenty-three years on, the “chronically underfunded” town with its “shabby” housing estates was in serious trouble. Local youths had removed the head from one of the figures in the Moore sculpture and the ski slope was dismantled. Harlow Town FC had also fallen into serious decline; their Sportcentre ground was ramshackle and decent players were prised away by rival clubs. Rarely had the fortunes of a town and its football club been so tightly entwined.
There's only one manager Fergie hasn't seen the back of, even if he got the better of him in the League Cup in October. Charles Morris looks at the remarkable Dario Gradi of Crewe
This autumn has witnessed a celebration of that rare phenomenon in English football – longevity among managers. The press went misty-eyed over Arsène Wenger’s ten years at Arsenal and the Carling Cup tie between Crewe Alexandra and Manchester United provided an opportunity to wax lyrical about their respective 65-year-old managers, Dario Gradi and Sir Alex Ferguson. The game preceded Ferguson’s 20th anniversary at Old Trafford, while Gradi, with 23 years at Gresty Road, is the Scot’s only counterpart in the English professional game to have been in situ at one club for longer.