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 Northampton
The Monday Profile: Ben Marshall
Flash back to the 31st of January 2010 – shot shy Carlisle United are desperate for an experienced front man to come in to help out the earnest pairing of Scott Dobie and Joe Anyinsah, the then still errant, gangling giraffe Gary Madine and the bunged-up blunderbuss Richard Offiong. By mid-morning the signing of a striker had been announced, in the form of 18 year old Stoke City man Ben Marshall, a youngster who’d had earlier spells with a pair of League Two Towns – Northampton and Cheltenham. To say the Cumbrian faithful were unimpressed would be to understate it….
Disarray at the Sixfields Crossroads
Firstly, we’d like to apologise to the author of this piece, Danny Brothers, for furthering his torment on Saturday. Not only did he have to sit through a ponging performance from Northampton, he had to write about it afterwards following an opportunistic request prior to the game from yours truly. Fair play for following up with this, Danny. We owe you one… I was asked, on Saturday, by my friends at The Two Unfortunates, if I could write a report on the current state of Northampton Town and the differences between the Gary Johnson era and the start of a…
Book Review: Where’s your Caravan?
Where’s your Caravan? By Chris Hargreaves, Published by The Friday Project, August 2011, £8.99, ISBN: 9780007364145 What next for a lower league footballer upon retirement? A simple enough premise, but too few biographies have tackled the theme with any distinction, so Chris Hargreaves’ recent release, which engages throughout with the realities and emotions of signing off from one’s playing days, is a welcome addition. An unravelling set of new challenges, the ennui and the odd bout of despair rub shoulders with feelings of regret and nostalgia here, and Hargreaves does well to convey all of this with relative precision. As one might expect…
Conversations with Danny Brothers (Northampton Town)
Our latest conversation is with Danny Brothers, author of a number of posts for us including a look back at Northampton Town’s 1996-7 play-off winning side. Danny runs his own blog and this has the obligatory moniker, A Load of Cobblers, although he spreads his net beyond the watershed of the River Nene to League 2 as a whole, joining forces with our last interviewee Ben Mayhew and Maxi Hobbs for an enjoyable previewof the season back in August. Here, Danny gives us his views on Gary Johnson, Adebayo Akinfenwa, the challenge of the oval ball game and the club’s current…
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...
