“It’s the place where points are lost and never to be seen again, according to a popular social media meme. Draw a line from Brighton to Bournemouth to Brentford and back down to Brighton again and you will have formed the Premier League’s very own ‘Bermuda Triangle’. Those three clubs have developed a reputation for taking points off the traditional Big Six – Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham. Recent results have only fuelled the narrative and helped to push the tongue-in-cheek theory. …”
BBC

“When UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham embarked on his trip to the United Nations in New York, he might not have been expecting a question about football fans drinking alcohol in grounds. Burnham firmly believes the law that prevents supporters from having a beer at their seat during a match is outdated. It’s a position the Everton supporter has long held, and when asked was happy to reaffirm. … There is no suggestion this is about to become official government policy, and last year MPs rejected a Conservative amendment to the Football Governance Bill that would have forced ministers to launch a formal consultation on scrapping the rule. That was, of course, before Burnham returned to Downing Street. It is a complicated and divisive issue, about not just safety. But is it something that match-going supporters actually want? …”
BBC (Video)

“When Millwall hosted West Ham at the Den on Saturday, it was the 100th competitive meeting between the clubs, and the first in 14 years. The pair are separated and connected by the Thames. They were formed around the heavy industries of east London’s docklands in the late 19th century and were geographically much closer then – Millwall on the Isle of Dogs and Thames Ironworks, from which West Ham emerged, around Canning Town. Before Millwall relocated south of the Thames to New Cross in 1910, both were north of the river and only a little over two miles apart. Now the Lions, Millwall were known as the Dockers during their formative years. West Ham’s nickname, the Irons, refers to their origins among workers at the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company. Dock work was precarious and physically demanding. Men could turn up each morning with no guarantee of being chosen for work, and competition for a day’s labour could be fierce. That world fostered ideas of toughness, loyalty and hard work which still form part of how both clubs understand and present themselves. …”
Guardian
W – Millwall F.C.–West Ham United F.C. rivalry (Video)
West Ham and Millwall players shake hands before kick-off at The Den on 17 September 2011.

“The boos are what generate the headlines — ‘Tottenham Hotspur booed off after winless league start continues’, etc. — but what hits you harder is the silence. Football stadiums are meant to be cacophonous arenas of celebration, singing, unfiltered joy and, yes, of aggro and anger and despair and misery and questioning life decisions. But silence? Before a ball has even been kicked? There is something askew here. It’s midday, 30 minutes from kick-off and Aston Villa are in north London for one of English football’s oldest and grandest top-flight fixtures. The atmosphere, though, doesn’t feel at all like one of anticipation, despite more than 60,000 people all heading to the same venue. …”
NYT/ATH (Video)
NYT/ATH: Tottenham’s home form: The remarkable numbers behind a catastrophic run (Video)
Guardian: The last two seasons were grim for Spurs. This is as bad as it’s ever been – Jonathan Wilson
YouTube: Spurs 2-3 Aston Villa | Premier League Highlights

“Wrexham have bought The Turf pub that stands next to The Racecourse Ground. The deal for the iconic venue, arguably the most famous pub in football after featuring heavily in the Welcome to Wrexham documentary, has been struck between Wrexham Holdings, the club’s parent company, and Admiral Taverns. Wrexham’s purchase of The Turf, which continues to welcome hundreds of overseas fans every week, is seen as an important part of a development plan that has the new £69.1 million ($92.4m) Kop stand at its heart. …”
NYT/ATH

“… Julian Dicks is describing to The Athletic his memories of playing in a match between Millwall and West Ham United — one of the fiercest and most notorious derbies in English football. While he is able to laugh about it now, the sheer scale of the rivalry is clear. … Dicks adds that after the game, police officers had to shield his team off the field and that the windows of the team bus were smashed when they returned, but this was ‘fairly normal back then’. Nearly 30 years on, times have changed, but the antipathy remains, despite the two London sides not having met since 2012, when West Ham won 2-1 at their former Upton Park ground, and an 18-year-old Harry Kane was brought on as a substitute for Millwall. …”
NYT/ATH

“WHEN Leicester City won the Premier League in 2016, it was something of a modern fairy-tale. The club was not what anyone would have classified as small, but Leicester were not accustomed to silverware and they were largely in the shadows of bigger, more-resourced rivals. The successful squad of 2016 was built on a budget, but a hard-working, committed team deservedly finished as champions. It was a triumph for honest endeavour and a core unit that included a decent goalkeeper, solid defenders, one or two outstanding midfielders and a difficult-to-handle striker in the form of his career. The hub of the squad cost no more than £ 40 million, a small percentage of the money spent by the usual title contenders. It seemed too good to be true. …”
Game of the People

“Five o’clock Saturday, the Riverside Stadium and Middlesbrough head coach Kim Hellberg is fist-pumping a half-bewildered but fully enthused home crowd. A helter-skelter 4-3 win against Norwich City has been secured in added time. In the directors’ box, owner-chairman Steve Gibson blows out his cheeks while a euphoric stadium falls over itself with happiness and relief. This really mattered. Hellberg’s personal animation continues into his post-match media commitments, where he swears joyously in one and calls himself ‘radge’ in another. Radge is a north-east term encapsulating wildness of emotion and behaviour. Hellberg is an outsider, a Swede who has lived on Teesside less than a year. But he talks about having been a fan himself and, therefore, understanding all the more what a football club can come to mean. This has not been an easy fortnight for Middlesbrough and the wider Teesside area. …”
NYT/ATH

“Newcastle United tying Lewis Hall down to a new long-term contract through until 2031 and without a release clause is among the most important moves the club has made recently, certainly in terms of perception. That may feel like a curious, almost hyperbolic statement, given up to £300million ($406.2m) has been committed to eight signings, including the exciting pair of Nico Gonzalez and Matias Fernandez-Pardo, and around €10m (£8.6m, $11.6m) was spent to extract Matthias Jaissle from Al Ahli and secure who Newcastle believe to be the ideal successor to Eddie Howe. …”
NYT/ATH