Latest Articles
-
The Enduring Appeal of Football’s TV Intro Music
Matchdays: nothing beats them. For home fans, that familiar walk down streets to your club’s stadium ready for Saturday at 3pm. For away fans, early morning wake-ups, lunch boxes packed with sandwiches, hot flasks, boarding a supporters’ coach and pre-match drinks and songs in a pub with hundreds of your fellow fans. Win, draw or…
-
CM/FM Legends: Tom Youngs
Not many (rugby players) can claim to have shared a dressing room with Trevor Benjamin. Fewer still can claim to have outranked him in terms of fame and notoriety. Tom Youngs is different; not your typical footballer. “Even though I was 18 and had only played about 15 games, mostly as a sub in League…
-
Debate: January Transfer Window
Since the January transfer window came in for the 2001/02 season, which January transfer stands out for you as the best? Richard Pike: Both Patrice Evra and Nemanja Vidić proved to be excellent winter transfer window additions for Manchester United. However, the January transfer that stands out most for me is Luis Suárez’s move from…
-
Matchdays: Montreal Loves Soccer
The Bucket List. It is an interesting concept. You flick through the pages of your imagination, you list all the things you want to see, the places you want to go, the experiences you want to witness, and you put all these musings down on paper as a way of making them less of a…
-
Debate – The modern game
1. Fan Cams have exploded into the mainstream conscience in recent years; are they a parasite exploiting the clickbait culture, or a genuine voice of the fans? Richard Pike: Whilst some fans on the programmes do make some decent observations and I understand why they exist, Im not a huge fan of the Fan TV…
-
Debate – VAR
1. Did football need to move with the times and improve decision making by using technology in the first place? Simon Toye: I think VAR was always going to be the next logical (debatable) step. In some form or other it has a position in other sports – rugby, tennis etc. So it was always…
-
The tragedy of Luciano Re Cecconi
Picture the scene. It’s a rainy Lancashire afternoon at Bacup & Rawtenstall Grammar School. The main building is reminiscent of HMP Wandsworth and is located at the top of a small mill town in Rossendale, known for literally nothing and, excitingly, having nothing to do. In fact, Sky recently chose it as the ideal place…
-
Interview – Tuesday Night Football Eastbourne
When all’s said and done, football is just a game. Two teams kicking a ball about is as rudimentary a past-time as it gets, however loudly the Champions League anthem may blare out. However much one tries to distill it to its simplest form though, there are powerful effects of playing the game that stretch…
-
CM/FM Legends: Bjørn Heidenstrøm
During the late 1990s, in what some would call the golden age of Championship Manager, there were some players of such unerring quality that transcended all levels of the game. Lower-league bargains that could seamlessly step into top-flight squads were worth their weight in gold. None offered more value for money than Bjørn Heidenstrøm. Able…
-
Interview – Steven Scragg, author of Frozen in Time: The Wonderful Randomness of the Cup Winners’ Cup
There was a time when Aberdeen could stand toe to toe with Real Madrid and come out on top, when Dinamo Tblisi held a famous reputation, and when Magdeburg beat AC Milan in a final. Now it sounds fanciful at best, but the Cup Winners’ Cup was a magical, mystical world that threw up some…
Heart of Football 