Adam Bushby and Rob MacDonald discuss Manchester City’s proposed new youth facility
Manchester City’s application for a new youth academy and training facility, covering 80 acres and set to cost £100 million, will be considered by the city council on December 22. It is perhaps the most audacious of the various methods by which clubs have sought to emulate Barcelona’s La Masia academy. While the latter has evolved – it moved to a new location on June 30 as Masia-Centre de Formació Oriol Tort – and facilities all over the world have been refurbished and updated piecemeal, City are the only club attempting to drop an entire state-of-the-art complex on top of an already successful academy.
Read more…
Wednesday, December 21st, 2011 - The Archive
Ronnie Esplin relfects on an encouraging Euro 2012 campaign for Craig Levein’s Scotland
Craig Levein sat defiantly in the basement of the Estadio José Rico Pérez in Alicante on October 11, following Scotland’s Euro 2012 qualifier defeat by Spain, and told the media the future of the national team was bright. The manager bullishly claimed his side had “improved enormously in the last year” and looked forward to building on that for the 2014 World Cup qualification campaign.
Read more…
Wednesday, December 21st, 2011 - The Archive
The Hillsborough Justice Campaign has taken another step towards closure, but certain attitudes remain, writes Rob Hughes
Monday October 17 was an historic day for the families of the Hillsborough victims. An emotional debate in the House of Commons resulted in Home Secretary Theresa May declaring that all government papers will finally be handed over to an independent panel led by the Bishop of Liverpool. It was a victory of sorts, albeit a bittersweet one, for the relatives of the 96 people who died.
Read more…
Wednesday, December 21st, 2011 - The Archive
Cameron Carter bemoans shallow and immature football programmes
Some day, all programmes will be made this way. 20 Football Transfers That Shocked The World (ITV4, October 18) was a list programme that raised several questions. Was Manchester City’s acquisition of Steve Daley the worst business of the 1970s? How did Brazil’s World Cup-winning captain Socrates come to play for Garforth Town? Has Fabio Capello nothing better to do than add his comments on a list programme? Surely if he were at a loose end between qualifiers, the FA could give him an experimental side project, such as trying to kill white mice simply by scowling at them from a technical area.
Read more…
Wednesday, December 21st, 2011 - The Archive
Ed Wilson explains Coventry City fans’ growing discontent with Sisu Capital’s ownership of the Sky Blues
Bournemouth chairman Eddie Mitchell has already won this season’s award for elevating supporter-owner friction to the level of hilarious and harrowing performance art. But on the same day that he took to the Dean Court pitch to confront unhappy supporters, the relationship between Coventry City fans and the club’s owners, Sisu Capital, was also bottoming out. City’s 2-0 home win over Derby took place against a backdrop of antagonism towards the hedge fund, with the confiscation of a banner bearing an anti-Sisu message leading to a scuffle between supporters and stewards.
Read more…
Monday, November 21st, 2011 - Book reviews