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 Simon Inglis mourns the loss of traditional floodlights from the horizon due to the changing trends in stadium construction

We’ve all been there. Driving to a game, negotiating the ring-roads and roundabouts of Awaysville, then growing hotter and more bothered as you realise the back streets in which you’re mired are nowhere near the ground. What’s worse is you’ve never had to look at a map before. All you’ve ever done was take more or less the right turn-off from the motorway and then drive blithely toward that distant set of floodlights on the horizon, like a moth homing in on a night light.

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As Iraq gets used to life after Saddam, Hassanin Mubarak recounts what his rule meant for football – and hopes all Iraqis can now enjoy the game in peace

When Saddam Hussein took over as president in 1979, Iraq had one of the most successful nat­ional teams in Asia and some of the continent’s strong­est clubs. The regime quickly asserted its authority over the nation’s favourite sport, appointing Saddam’s personal body­guard, Sabah Mirza Mahmoud, as head of the Iraq Football Association (IFA). His predecessor, Faleh Akram, was later executed on charges of opposing the regime.

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 Dave Espley describes how quirks of geography and fluctuating fortunes on the field have left Stockport fans struggling to find a long-lasting rivalry of note

Oh, to have a natural rival. You followers of teams which share their town or city with another club don’t know you’re born. Despite a population approaching 300,000, the Stockport public can hardly find it in themselves to support one team, let alone two, with the result that County fans, over the years, have had a number of rivalries, based on various esoteric reasons.

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Goalkeeping fans, budding writers and followers of non-league football in Sussex all have their concerns addressed in  Ian Plenderleith's website round-up

The cyber-slimming of the past few years has seen the crash of numerous financially and conceptually flimsy foot­ball internet ventures, but late­ly some interesting in­de­pen- dent websites have em­erged from the digital carnage. While highly financed schemes have been bounced into the Deleted Items box, a trend for small-scale, hobbyist home­pages has slowly returned and yielded a few pleasant surprises.

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Portsmouth’s erratic Japanese keeper can’t get near the first team but, reports Justin McCurry, he’s happy plying his trade on English training grounds

Just before last year’s World Cup, a football writer in Japan drew attention to a phobia Yoshikatsu Kawa­guchi shares with Transylvania’s most feared resident. Aside from being a poor joke, it turned out to be a pre­scient commentary on the fortunes of Japan’s erst­while No 1. Less than two years after his £1.7 million move to Portsmouth, Kawaguchi’s fear of crosses has come to symbolise a promising career that is in danger of slipping from his grasp.

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