Our recent Geographies of Football series piqued interest to such a degree that we received a message from David Field wondering if we would be interested in an application of the methodology we applied to Cornwall and Worcestershire to England’s southeasternmost shire. Here are the thought provoking results and we hope to revive the series on an occasional basis. What county is the biggest one club county; Norfolk? Suffolk? Berkshire? What about Sussex before Crawley’s elevation to the Football League? Nowhere near. The biggest captive county for a football league team is the Garden of England – Kent – with a…
Great Football League teams 34: Derby County 1986-7
Part 34 of our Great Teams series sees us welcome Jonathan Rodgers, a long time fan of Derby County. Here, he recalls one of the great Baseball Ground campaigns – always a fiendishly difficult place to visit as an away fan and a place that simply oozed character, history and tradition. Jonathan can be followed on Twitter at @popsider It’s started already. Ten months of undoubted, solid progress for Derby County has only recently finished (12th place and a number of talented Academy youngsters coming through) but Rams fans are already speculating about next season. Can we have a tilt at the…
No Oblivion for Wolves
We are delighted today to welcome back Ben Piggott, illustrator of the very fine images that adorn this site and a supporter of a club newly arrived in our midst, Wolverhampton Wanderers. Here, Ben conveys his mood as the Old Gold settle back among us. Ben previously authored an astute analysis of the Championship players who featured in last year’s UEFA European under-21 Championship for us and can be followed on Twitter at @Apt_Pseudonym. Now, this’ll sound like I’m only saying it to suck up to a lower-league football blog, but I’m quite looking forward to getting back into the Championship. There’s a…
The Monday Profile: Uwe Rösler
With Norwegian Ståle Solbakken having recently joined the managerial ranks of English football having cut his teeth in Germany; the similarly coiffeured Uwe Rösler has taken the opposite track as a German who conducted his training in Norway. Like Solbakken, Rösler spent some of his playing career in England although his spell on these shores was a much lengthier and more storied one. Manchester City fans still idolise him as the scorer of a half century of goals for the club and his barnstorming, all action style was perfectly suited to a unit that needed to scrap, a world way from the newly…
Geographies of Football: Economic Potential
Our series of posts this week has analysed the various impacts geography can have on the fortunes of soccer clubs. To round things off, we thought we would examine a cross section of eight cities, towns and city regions which can be said to be under performing in football terms and which may or may not have the potential to rise to Championship status or above. Back in 2010, we picked out Peterborough United, Swansea and Cardiff Cities, Notts County and Doncaster as having Premier League potential and while the inclusion of the Rovers now embarrasses us, we predicated our…
James: Are the wealthy middle classes really the ones to back a football team...
Lanterne Rouge: Garath McCleary on signing for Reading today:
"It's amazing to be a...
Lloyd: On the Oxford / Reading thing, Lanterne, you write that "there is no c...
Ben: Yes, it does loom a bit, doesn't it? Moxey's comments on the ground re...
