Search: ' Port Vale'

  Ian Plenderleith is intrigued by a tale of orchard murder in the Scottish Borders and other football badges in this month’s internet review, but is a touch less impressed by academic obsessions

Just when you’re ready to give up and log off for good to go and do something worthwhile with your life, like recycling old cereal boxes for homeless hamsters, along comes a site that makes you remember why the internet has all been worthwhile. Press ‘Forward’ to July’s site of the month, Footballcrests.com.

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Ever heard of a player ageing four years overnight? Paul Virgo reports on the remarkable tale of Chievo’s Brazilian star who admitted to faking his own identity

Luciano Siqueira de Oliveira is not the man he used to be. The man he used to be was Eriberto Silva da Conceição, a classy 23-year-old Brazilian midfielder who played for Chievo of Verona in Serie A. The man he is now is also a skilful footballer, but is four years older and doesn’t fill his pants every time a police car passes by.

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Tom Davies explores the role supporters are playing in saving their clubs

The supporters’ group that has assumed con­trol at Exeter City is facing a sizeable battle to keep the club alive over the summer. Their relegation from the Football League on the last day of the season was swiftly followed by the arrest of chairman John Russell and vice-chair­man Mike Lewis over allegations of fi­nancial irregularities. The pair, who were bail­ed to return to police in September, prompt­ly stepped down, leaving the club’s reported debts at more than £2 million with creditors closing in.

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Dear WSC
The letter from Joe Newman (WSC 195) claimed that only those managers who have sold their shares in the ProActive agency stand to financially benefit from transfers involving the players on the agency’s books: “You don’t make money from shares simply by holding on to them – the only way to benefit financially is by selling them.”
Sadly, it is this sort of view from a fan that concerns me about the level of ignorance of the financial state of football today. Clearly, if these managers have sold their shares in the business, they stand to make no further money from that business. But Joe is ignorant of the fact that shareholders also get paid dividends on their shareholdings. Surely exactly the point that the Football Confidential book was trying to get across?
Alfie Dunn-Lowes, via email

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New Age health expert Cameron Carter has cast away his CD of rainforest sounds and is here to promote a new route to inner wellness: televised football

We have heard people complaining about football on television. Occasionally I agree with them. Yes, it is true that Ray Stubbs and Mark Lawrenson act out a school play about two men arguing every Saturday lunchtime. I too feel discomfort at the spectacle of Garth Crooks constantly reaching for some higher meaning that poor, simple football and its participants cannot give him.

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