Search: ' grounds'

Ian Plenderleith goes looking for the best in English-language coverage of European football on the web and shares the anguish of the Portuguese public over the latest career move for Phil Collins

Although most of the major web­sites now pay lip service to the burgeoning interest in European football with scores from, and columnists in, a variety of foreign countries, there are a number of English-language on­line locations that devote themselves to one country alone. Two of the best cover the Iber­ian peninsula.

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Roger Mitchell has left the Scottish Premier League, his departure mourned by just about nobody. Paul Hutton rushes to join the chorus of disapproval

It must be open season on football administrators. Just a couple of weeks after Adam Crozier took his leave from the FA, Roger Mitchell, chief executive of the Scottish Premier League, is handing in the keys to the company car.

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Tranmere Rovers may be on the verge of a possible takeover, but as Tony Morris discovers, it is not want the fans were hoping for

On Halloween, frightening rumours began circulating among Tranmere fans that Chester City’s owner Stephen Vaughan was about to buy Rovers, leading to a groundshare at City’s Deva Stadium and a merger of the two clubs. The next day’s papers reinforced fans’ fears. One claimed Tranmere would be forced to sell its Prenton Park ground to pay the £5.3 million the club owes to its owner Peter Johnson. Another confirmed Vaughan’s interest in pur­ch­asing Rovers, claiming a deal could be struck in days.

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Yeovil, perhaps the most famous non-League side, are edging towards the Third Division. Adam Mornement weighs up the pros and cons of a possible promotion

On January 6, 1949 Yeovil Town beat Sunderland to reach the fifth round of the FA Cup. Subsequent generations of Glovers – handwear is still a thriving local industry – have been brought up to believe that achieving League status is Yeovil’s birth­right. But nearly 54 years on, the club’s destiny remains unfulfilled.

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Despite the shocking racial discrimination experienced in Bratislava, the FA do not have the right to start pointing fingers when it comes to the issue of racism

Imagine you’re a Football Association official. In the space of a couple of weeks you will have experienced two very different attitudes towards race prejudice. In Bratislava for England’s Euro 2004 qual­ifier with Slovakia, you will have seen and heard a large section of the crowd, the mid­dle-aged people with their children in the expensive seats as well as the skin­head nationalists, join in abusive chants aimed at black England players. The fol­lowing week, you might have attended a “Kick Racism Out of Football” event at an English League ground where you will have seen the crowd applaud the anti-ra-cism banners carried around the pitch by teams of schoolchildren.

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