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…
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Great Football League Teams 33: Walsall, 2000-1
The thirty third installment in our Great Teams series sees us remain in the midlands. Nathan Briant has recently blogged on the appointment of Roy Hodgson as England manager but here, he casts his mind back to an entertaining Walsall side from just over a decade ago, one whom one member of the TTU staff remembers with much anguish after an unhappy visit to the Millennium stadium. Nathan can be followed on Twitter at @nathanbriant. There was a time, briefly, when Walsall were able to challenge for the top few places of what was Division Two. Ray Graydon, despite never…
Great Football League Teams 32: Aston Villa, 1987-88
Poor Graham Taylor. Forever criticized for his bewilderment at people not being able to ‘knock it’ and taking on the impossible job, his career trajectory more than stands scrutiny but, even when winning, the praise he is damned with is feinter than feint – ‘a dull long ball merchant, out of his depth in more rarefied climes and the personification of English football’s problems’. Take the Aston Villa for whom he assumed control back in May 1987. Relegated after a sole season of Billy McNeill’s stewardship, the second citiers had somehow slid into Division 2 but half a decade after…
Great Football League Teams 31: Liverpool 1961-2
I grew up during a period of near total domination for Liverpool Football Club but one thing I shall always remember is a notebook my Dad had stored away in which he had kept a record of all the FA Cup results for several seasons in the early 1950s. Poring through this, I recall my shock at reading the score line, ‘Gateshead 1-0 Liverpool’ – to such an extent that I suspected my father had been engaging in some earlier fantasy game – a homespun forerunner of Football Manager. But that was the result on January 10, 1953 – a…
Great Football League Teams 30: Wimbledon, 1982-3
The nine year rise of Wimbledon Football Club from Division 4 to the English game’s summit is a story of such remarkableness that it’s often forgotten just how much of a yo-yo club the Dons were in the years immediately following their ascension to the Football League in 1977. Indeed, the club’s first two spells in the third tier lasted a single season each – they were relegated under Dario Gradi in 1979-80 and then suffered the same fate in Dave Bassett’s first season in charge in 1981-2. The denouement to that underwhelming campaign had been a tragic one, with…
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...
