All posts tagged Middlesbrough

Football and High Speed Rail 2: The Pros and Cons

One of the more emotive of political causes in recent times has been the plan to build a new high speed rail line between London, the North of England and the Midlands; the now notorious High Speed 2 project – often abbreviated to plain HS2.

With construction due to begin in 2017, the plan is for the line to extend north westwards from Euston station in the capital to …

We Are Going Up! Interview: Podcasting the Football League

Having made a number of appearances on podcasts in recent years including Two Footed Tackle and The Tilehurst End, our founder writers Lloyd and Lanterne Rouge are perhaps inclined to go in the corner and hide, such are the demands of stationing oneself behind the microphone. Hence, we are in admiration of anyone who has stuck at it, let alone done it really well indeed.

The recent FSF …

Decline and Fall?: Football and “Failing” Towns

Last month The Economist hit the headlines for publishing a distinctly unflattering portrait of several British towns including Wolverhampton, Hull, Hartlepool and Middlesbrough. As the stats - for unemployment in particular, but also educational standards, welfare cuts and numbers of empty retail units - made clear, the towns and cities in question are undeniably enduring tough times. But the emotive choice of title for the article (“Rustbelt

Championship Finances: Five Key Takeaways

On August 1, the peerless blog The Swiss Ramble published an invaluable presentation of the profit and loss accounts for Championship clubs in the 2011-12 season.

Of course much has happened since including the arrival in the competition of Queen’s Park Rangers; a club the financial wealth of which will be decidedly byzantine and worthy of a week-long series of articles. Accounts for Wigan Athletic would also make …

Book Review: Hatters, Railwaymen and Knitters

Hatters, Railwaymen and Knitters by Daniel Gray
Published by Bloomsbury
2013, £12.99

At times reading Daniel Gray’s Hatters, Railwaymen and Knitters is, despite the ugliness of the title, a joyous experience; an author who clearly enjoys using language talking with warmth and wit about football, people and social history. It’s the literary equivalent of an exhibition of Stuart Roy Clarke photos, and in celebrating community spirit and social …