Today, we welcome back Sheffield Wednesday fan John Leigh, co-author of The Football Lexicon and author of Voltaire’s Sense of History. Here, John reacts to the rumours that are linking Paolo Di Canio with a return to Hillsborough. … My brother was at THAT infamous England vs Croatia game at Wembley. Remember the one: the Euro qualifier, the one we lost 3-2, the game in which Scott Carson blundered. But it would be easier simply to commemorate it as the game at which Steve McClaren stood under the umbrella and mutated into ‘the wally with the brolly’. When I spoke…
All posts tagged Sky
TTU Go Predicting: Likely Crimes Against Football
Wholly unsurprisingly, events at one Midlands club dominated the thinking of our band of correspondents when assessing those most likely to have a pernicious impact on the Football League throughout 2013-14. As regular TTU contributor and Coventry fan, Tom Furnival-Adams points out that there is unfortunately one clear winner here – Tim Fisher, Joy Seppala, and everyone else involved in Sisu/Otium’s mission to move the club away from its home city. It is looking increasingly likely that the Sky Blues’ first ‘home’ game of the season on August 11th will take place at Northampton Town’s Sixfields Stadium, 35 miles away….
A Football League SWOT Analysis: The Threats
The stethoscope we have applied to the Football League over the past week has revealed a not altogether satisfactory heartbeat and the fact that the weaknesses section of our study has been easily the most read does indicate that there is concern for the competition’s health among supporters. Which leads us to the threats section, the most portentous of the four categories, and one which can often appear indistinguishable from the weaknesses discussed on Wednesday. Indeed, it’s when such shortcomings escalate that weaknesses become threats. In the world of business (and I’ll go on record here by stating that I…
A Football League SWOT Analysis: The Opportunities
As organisations with unconventional governance structures and aims and crucially, minus shareholders, sports leagues don’t really conform to the model of a typical company, so a SWOT analysis, while a useful exercise, is relevant in a slightly more limited way when it comes to the opportunities section. For instance, your average firm looking to grow and develop would generally obsess with increased revenues and profitability and a prime way of achieving this might be to enter into mergers with or acquisitions of other companies as well as engagement with emerging markets. Purchasing a stake in – say - the Norwegian Tippeligaen, especially…
A Football League SWOT Analysis: The Weaknesses
Of course by its very definition the Football League is weak – comparatively. While it’s true that West Ham and Southampton skilfully negotiated the step up to the Premier League this past year, both enjoyed wage structures and transfer budgets way beyond the scope of second tier clubs. Yesterday’s opening post on this four day SWOT analysis salvo perhaps painted too rosy a picture of the League’s attributes. Today’s comes up with a decidedly different portrait. It’s clear that many of the competition’s strengths have their exact obverse on the weaknesses front and indeed, many of these issues are perilously close to the threats…
Ben: How quickly things change. The prospects for Palace and Hull both look...
Lanterne Rouge: I think managerial changes will have a huge bearing. As things stand, ...
Paul Nicholson: A good read, which I did with the hope of pulling some tips to assist ...
Alex Quayle: I thank you for your endearing, but misplaced, faith in City this seas...
Damian: Great read as ever, Ben. It's tough to predict the clubs at the bottom...
