Once upon a time, the PFA Awards were the undisputed measure of a season’s most valuable players. Voted for by the Professionals themselves, the response to their announcement was one of awed hush and consent – how could mere onlookers presume to know better than those involved in the rough and tumble of the actual sport? But the saccharin, sentimental and simply silly award of the 2009 Players’ Player award to Ryan Giggs changed all that. In one fell swoop, footballers were shown to be as susceptible to a bit of old fashioned press lobbying as the rest of us….
All posts tagged Barnet
Once, Twice, Three Times Martin Allen
This week, Barnet Football Club turned once again to an old hand. Here, Tim Fletcher provides his reaction: Who did you say we’ve appointed? It is perhaps typical of the lot of a Barnet supporter that the moment you go on holiday and beyond reach of a mobile phone, let alone the internet, that once again we have an end of season change of manager. For a club that used to have a reputation of never sacking the boss, this is getting habit forming, but sadly, so is our annual dalliance with falling out of the league and into the…
From League of Ireland to Football League
It’s hard to guess what level League of Ireland players would be capable of playing at elsewhere, at least I have always found it so. When Kevin Doyle was signed by Reading from my own club Cork City I remember wondering why on earth they overlooked his more prolific strike partner John O’Flynn. Although O’Flynn has since found success at Barnet and Exeter, there are clearly factors for consideration above and beyond strike rates, or their status as local stars. English league clubs, those higher up the echelons at least, tend to look for strong athletic young players from the…
Unemployment and Football
At the beginning of every summer, a list of free agents is circulated amongst British clubs and managers. Here, Dan Mobbs of the excellent Three Match Ban speaks to a player who unwittingly found himself on last year’s register. Unemployment and the anxious search for work are simply not things associated with top flight football, as being a free agent from a Premier League club is ostensibly a financially profitable position to be in; attracting a bumper signing-on fee and an increased wage packet in the absence of a financial transfer lump. The wages in top flight football across Europe…
The Monday Profile: Grant Basey
A lot of column centimetres have been devoted to Huddersfield Town striker Jordan Rhodes in recent weeks and to have kept his head while others around him have been placing it upon the financial guillotine has been admirable – yes, that’s you David Gold. Three excellent articles in The Seventy Two have explored the appeal of the man while our own blogger Ben profiled him in these pages as 2012 drew to its conclusion. Rhodes had already provided enough for all of us to chew on in the game of the football league season so far at Hillsborough in December…
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...
