The Week That Was

It was your fairly typical week in the world of football, which means that we’re going to have to plough through a load of off-the-field stories before we get anywhere near any actual match action this week. For fans of Farsley Celtic and Chester City Wednesday March 10th will mark the date that their clubs ceased to exist, although with spring in the air and a positive outlook, we prefer look at the situation as one of re-birth.

Many Chester fans that we’ve been in touch with this week were thankful that the club had finally been put out of its misery, and that they could now get on with the important job of re-forming their club as a properly managed, supporter owned entity. Farsley fans are hoping for something similar, and yet despite the numerous times in recent years that clubs have gone out of business and re-formed, the authorities seem content to sit there and do nothing. Does every side have to go bust and re-form for us to get some properly run football clubs?

Chester and Farsley weren’t the only fixtures in the High Court this week – both Southend United and Cardiff City had matches with the taxman, although in each case they came out with a creditable draw; HMRC agreeing to allow both clubs more time to pay disputed amounts of money.

At the top of the Pyramid, news of ‘the Red Knights’ has been all over the media, as Manchester United fans press on with their attempts at getting control of their club. The Green and Gold campaign goes from strength to strength, and now has a new poster boy. We’re not sure we believe Mr Beckham’s protestations that he didn’t know the significance of the scarf he picked up after AC Milan’s heavy defeat at Old Trafford – one of the most image conscious men on the planet surely must’ve known what he was doing?

A week couldn’t go by without Portsmouth making the headlines, and we can take our pick this week – their 2-0 success against Birmingham means that they’ll return to Wembley to contest an FA Cup semi-final, despite the fact that they’re having to seek reassurance from the FA that they’ll be paid their prize money. We also learned that if they are successful, they won’t be able to compete in next season’s Europa League anyway, as they haven’t applied for a UEFA licence for next year.

HMRC have dropped their objections to the appointment of the club’s administrator, and if that wasn’t enough, the club have laid off 85 staff in a bid to cut costs. There’s never a dull day on the south coast.

A quick big-up to FSF favourite David Conn, who won the prestigious news reporter of the year award from the Sports Journalists Association. Thoroughly deserved, we’re sure you’ll agree!

Also an exclusive fom us (well, from the Daily Mirror, but we’ve been asked for our opinion on the matter) is the news that ITV are looking at rescheduling the kick-off time of the FA Cup Final to 5:30pm from next season to maximise advertising revenues. Now we’re not traditionalists for the sake of tradition, but surely a 3pm kick-off for the Cup Final isn’t too much to ask?

We’ve already taken up enough of your time, but before we go there’s just time to mention Real Madrid getting dumped out of the Champions League by Lyon, Liverpool and Fulham getting turned over in the first legs of their Europa League ties, and the shock of the week as Nicklas Bendtner finally located the rear end of a cow and struck it repeatedly with his banjo.

Lastly and by no means leastly, it was heartening to see the return to action of referee Mark Halsey this week, who has missed the whole season to date as he has been overcoming throat cancer. It’s good to see him back.

That’s all from us, have a great weekend!