“In architectural terms primary sporting allegiances are a bit like the single sweep of the modern football stadium, while second teams are more akin to the old Dell ground at Southampton. Just as you could reconstruct much of Southampton’s history from the joyously variegated collection of oddities crowding the touchlines, so secondary allegiances reflect changes in location, interests and influences.” thetwounfortunates, thetwounfortunates – My Second Team

“In June this year, Henry Winter will publish Fifty Years of Hurt , a volume that will use England’s 1966 World Cup victory as a springboard to examine the fortunes of the national XI over the subsequent half century. We’ll have to wait and see as to whether Winter can manage to get through the exercise without spinning a specific narrative – be it about Charles Hughes, too many league fixtures, penalties and the practising thereof, foreign players in English football or the antiquated nature of the FA – but suffice to say, it’s often easy to use vague patterns and trends to shoehorn an argument. As Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski displayed in Why England Lose, later rechristened Soccernomics , England actually punch at about the weight they should do given the raw materials they have to work with and Hartlepool United fans might argue with the use of the word ‘hurt’ to describe a period that has actually come with more than a few high points.” thetwounfortunates, amazon, Guardian – When football came home: England’s rapture against Holland at Euro 96

“When did being a football fan start to feel like such hard work? It’s not that there’s more football in the world than there used to be. What’s changed is the availability and exposure of it all. Anybody with the right sort of television package, mobile phone contract or internet connection should never go more than 24 hours without a game to watch. Live football dominates the sports channels’ schedules throughout the weekend, from Friday evening to Sunday night and into Monday. Then the Champions League and Europa League pick up the slack between Tuesday and Thursday along with cup ties, replays, and seemingly endless midweek rounds in the Championship.” thetwounfortunates

“‘Write a piece about something that is bugging you’ about the game. Blimey, where do you start? Footballs on plinths, rampant corruption, automatic bookings for taking your shirt off, the pointlessness of football phone-ins, York City in the mire of sub-mediocrity? The choice is endless and picking just one thing out is a thankless task. And yet… The notion that football and politics do not mix is absurd. Not just football, to be fair, but sport generally. And it’s a trope that comes around with alarming regularity. It needs to be stopped. There’s little in life that isn’t political, and football cannot escape.” thetwounfortunates

“When football writers talk about provincial footballing sides and cities a few familiar names crop up, such as Nottingham and Derby. These definitely fall into the category of ‘not London’ and smaller than the UK’s other major conurbations, but are still relatively large in size and success. When you start heading out to the geographical margins, however, life as a football club is a little less illustrious and more of a battle for interest and survival. As a modestly-sized city with a team that has only occasionally threatened the third tier of English football, Exeter is firmly in the latter camp. Where a football club takes root and grows can be due a number of factors.” thetwounfortunates, W – Exeter City F.C.

“The sixth part of our Football Cities series sees long time contributor Steve Wright analyse the footballing landscape in Nottingham. As a companion piece to Steve’s post, I’d like to direct you to a recent edition of the outstanding We Are Going Up podcast in which presenters David Cameron Walker and Mark Crossley took a trip to Meadow Lane and reflect on many of the issues discussed by Steve in written form below. … Nottingham is only a small provisional city but it manages to sustain two historically significant football clubs. Maybe it would be easier for one of them if the other did not exist and the city could focus its whole footballing attention on a single point, as they do in Leeds, Newcastle and Derby, but it is because both clubs have significant individual history that it is impossible that either could secede to the other or that they could merge.” thetwounfortunates

“Perched on a hill, visible from all directions as you head into Newcastle, towering into the air in the centre of town – St James’ Park couldn’t really be much more symbolic. Its location befits its status as an iconic focal point, right at the heart of the city metaphorically and spiritually as well as literally. A compact, soulless, identikit new-build stadium on the outskirts, encircled by acres of car park, big-box retail units and McDonald’s drive-thrus just wouldn’t be right. Writing about football and so-called ‘failing’ towns (as labelled by the Economist) on this site two years ago, I discussed an article that appeared in local paper the Chronicle in which fans expressed what Newcastle United mean to them, and to the city as a whole.” thetwounfortunates, W – Newcastle United F.C., W – History of Newcastle United F.C., W – Newcastle upon Tyne

“Okay, okay – when it comes to Coventry City, the financial situation is less an ‘underbelly’ than a gaping open wound that has festered for several seasons now. Here, Ian Palmer sums up his personal fatigue with the whole business. Ian can be followed on twitter at @iancpalmer. … Coventry City have been losing fans. In fact, I’d bet no club has lost as many fans over the last three years as the Sky Blues. Picture the scene: a breezy August afternoon, kicking off the first ‘home’ game of the season, 35 miles away from home. We’re bottom of the league table on -10 points, yet no team has played a single game.” thetwounfortunates

“A supplementary treat this morning. Regular contributor Phil Lloyd enjoyed our Promotion Tales series so much that he decided to come up with this own version charting Blackburn Rovers’ re-emergence as a force in English football over two decades ago now. Best wishes to all TTU readers for 2015. Once, it seemed that Blackburn Rovers existed mainly to exemplify the word “unfashionable”. As with the TV advert that featured the “Rovers FC” sign above the old Blackburn End turnstiles, it was an icon for a bygone age. By the start of the 1990s, my early recollections of watching football were becoming increasingly hazy, as if nine seasons of Division One football and blue-and-white memories of Bryan Douglas, Ronnie Clayton and Keith Newton were no more than childhood fantasies.” thetwounfortunates

“Continuing this series of posts on clubs promoted to the top-flight of English football after a considerable gap or, in some cases, the first time ever, Michael Wood turns the clock back to the year 2000. The location? Bradford.” thetwounfortunates

“Unless you’ve been hiding under a stone for the past month you’ll have noticed the media, and in particular the BBC, working itself into a frenzy over the 20^th anniversary of ‘Britpop’. To many this level of nostalgia for a musical movement which was, if anything, merely the collection of a handful of zeitgeist wresting retrograde magpies sticks in the craw. ‘Britpop’ wasn’t a cohesive genre, less still a cultural movement, it was a confection – a label for ideas at best, a marketing tool at worst. This is right, to a degree. Britpop was a label. As Alexis Petridis noted in the Guardian last week, there’s little to sonically link the titans of the era in the way that there was with grunge, its direct precept.” thetwounfortunates

“As we move into Day Three of our Football Ownership series, Gary Hartley tries in vain to make some sense of what, exactly, Massimo Cellino is up to at his beloved Leeds United. It’s not particularly new, this football clubs subsumed by rich men’s egos thing. It’s just that in the presumed halcyon days, the egos were more the Rotary Club, cigar on Sunday type of affair – vaguely but not entirely unapproachable, with no offspring on Twitter. Things are different now; we’ve supported or allowed the cult of moneyed personality, accepting that since it’s all ultimately a game, we can in turn allow our game to be gamed. Sigh. But hey, down at Elland Road, at least our rich man has a personality. Right? You with me? Right?” thetwounfortunates

“Following on from John McGee’s freeform assessment of League 1 yesterday, here is a somewhat more plodding assessment of the level above. That, however, is no reflection on the ins and outs of this season’s Championship – a competition where extortionate transfer fees, underqualified managers and frankly terrifying owners hold sway, where parachute payments warp the competition and everyone is indulging in the filthy scramble for Premier League riches – apart from Blackpool. If the written word isn’t enough, all three of our previewers can be heard expounding in person on the same issues on three special editions of the We Are Going Up! podcast this week. Anyway, without further ado…” thetwounfortunates

“In the first of four divisional previews we focus today on who’s who in League 2, which once again looks set to be tight. The bookies are backing Bury, Luton, Portsmouth and Shrewbury – we think that they’ll each do well, but suggest that they’ll have plenty of competition, not least from Southend and York.” TTU

“I in a fascinating article in the most recent issue of The Blizzard , one which largely debunks the idea that football has any real likeness to the game of chess, Scott Oliver bemoans ‘the obsessive measurement of atomised players’ individual contributions’ measured by way of ‘output’, suitable perhaps ‘for ‘the neoliberal market’ but not for ‘the socialist midfield’. Graham Westley, that lower league bogey man, might concur. In Westley’s world view, the individual is ruthlessly subjugated for the wider good of the team and while that seems to be no reflection at all of the man’s personal and political views – his Machiavellian ditching of Farnborough Town is evidence of that – on the pitch at least, all notions of creativity are suppressed in favour of the collective.” thetwounfortunates

“When I last wrote of Blackburn Rovers in the autumn, my verdict was overwhelmingly harsh. After all, the imposters who currently own the club are still in place, the wage bill is exalted and the consequences of year upon year of over spending and declining attendances are beginning to bite hard. If there is a club whom Blackburn resemble in their current trajectory, it’s Coventry City, a team that patented the concept of slow decline before their demise became a head on rush into oblivion these past 12 months.” thetwounfortunates

“These quiet mid-January weeks used to be devoted to anticipation while we waited between rounds 3 and 4 of the FA Cup and if many will have you believe that matters Premier League and transfer window are the only ones worth thinking about as Burns Night approaches, quite a few of us still hark back to the old days. Not least Rochdale, who along with thoughts of the world’s greatest knockout competition, are also relishing a promotion battle in League 2. Here, Stuart Howard-Cofield, curator of the Grumpy Old Fan website and contributor to The Football Pink, runs the rule over ‘Dale – you can follow Stuart on twitter here. A quiet revolution in the hills.” thetwounfortunates

“Self-propelled football writing on the internet has been up and running for some time now and while a number of sites have now established themselves as reliable go-to sources of articles, a recent phalanx of writers has emerged in their wake. Enter The Football Pink, stewarded by Mark Godfrey. The publication has attempted to tackle head on the issue of how to make money in a field assailed by the slings and arrows of open access by requiring its readers to stump up a modest amount of money for each of its issues – hence, each offering is available on Kindle for 99p and Joomag for $1.50. It’s an intriguing experiment and The Football Pink is already on to its second issue, with no shortage of promising writers queuing up to offer their thoughts on a range of subjects.” thetwounfortunates

“The Football Pink is a group of football obsessed writers and bloggers who bring their opinions, musings, observations and stories from all over the world to fans of ‘The Beautiful Game’. We also produce a quarterly e-magazine which can be downloaded to Kindle or Kindle apps.” The Fooball Pink

“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 Britain’) and such sentences as ‘In Hull, teenagers in baseball caps and tracksuits wander aimlessly’ betrayed a sneering, superior attitude encountered most frequently in the pages of the Daily Mail. A graph showing the unemployment figures was almost inevitably captioned ‘Grim up north, and in the Midlands’. Even more controversial, however, was the editorial leader that the article prompted. While the original piece at least maintained the pretence of being an objective description of a depressing reality, the leader – which added Burnley to the mix – was nakedly and unequivocally prescriptive. Its core message to policy makers?” thetwounfortunates

“The eminent economist Jonathan Portes, Director of the National Institute for Economic and Social Research, likes to cite two examples in attempting to convince audiences of the merits of free movement of labour. The first is his own field – economics – where collaboration between academics trained within country traditions has produced the field’s most innovative work, and seen real international powerhouses established in the UK, the USA and Canada. His second example is the world of post-Bosman professional football. This is, thinks Portes, an infinitely better place for the impact of that landmark, shackle-loosening judgement in the mid-90s. The cross-breeding of nationalities in European leagues has encouraged them to flourish, and seen a heightened competition both within and across borders and, crucially, an overall improvement in both the quality and saleability of the product.” thetwounfortunates

“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 with my brother after the game, it was apparent that he did not know what I was talking about, when I expressed some sympathy for McClaren’s failure to show a common touch (apparently unlike Louis Philippe who got deliberately wet when meeting his subjects on tour in France). Funnily enough, he had not been looking at the manager on the touchline. It was apparent that we had rather different experiences of that match: He watched the game; I watched the television.” thetwounfortunates

“We are delighted to welcome back Matthew Rudd for the latest post in our Great Football League Teams series; Matthew having previously penned a popular post on Hull City’s 1965-6 side. Now, he casts his mind back to the early eighties. … It’s amazing what being skint can do for a football club. In 1982, Hull City were certain to go out of business, probably before the season had actually finished. In 1983, not only were they solvent again, but playing some delightful, devastating football and achieving what still ranks as one of the truly great promotions in the club’s history.” thetwounfortunates

“After a 25-year absence, Newport County returned to the Football League in May with an extraordinary play-off final win over Wrexham. For a club who were wound up, reformed and exiled to Gloucestershire in the intervening years, it is a phenomenal and heart-warming achievement. What’s more, they actually look half-decent, and we certainly wouldn’t bet against them to carry last season’s winning form into League 2 and trouble the top 10.” thetwounfortunates

“Put simply, In Bed with Maradona has defined football blogging in recent years. Founded in 2010, the site isn’t the longest lived on the scene, but it rivals the Frick Collection itself in its sheer eclecticism. Acting as a welcoming platform to a host of impressive writers as well as the occasional mediocre one, the good humoured openness of Jeff Livingstone and his team has provided a rallying point for those interested in the less travelled byways of the game, while a thin layer of streetwise cool has prevented the site from sliding full scale into geekdom.” thetwounfortunates

Football vividly captured, illustrated and written in gold.
“In Bed With Maradona (IBWM), is certainly not your average football site, nor are they only obsessed about ‘El Pibe’ or the Brazilian midfield maestro Sócrates. They’re leaders in a growing direction of a football writing that transcends time, which we often like to call ‘philosofooty’. IBWM explores the cultural heart of the game, extracting stories that are unlikely to be found anywhere else.” A Football Report

The First Two Years Jeff Livingstone
“Growing up in North East England in the late 1970s and early ‘80s, football was a trip to St James’ Park to see my local team, Newcastle United. While it was cheap for my dad to take me, the standard of football in the old English Second Division wasn’t the greatest. Uninspiring? Maybe, but it didn’t matter.” Ockley Books

“Football is full of what ifs. What if Jonathan Howard’s “goal” for Chesterfield had been given against Middlesbrough in the 1997 FA Cup final? What if Fergie had decided Cantona was too much of a risk to sign? What if Spurs’s chef had opted for a vegetarian curry instead of a lasagne before that game? And what if Paul Tisdale had taken the Swansea job…” thetwounfortunates

“The serious lack of imagination shown by Football League chairmen continues to fuel the managerial carousel. Almost three years ago, we were bemused by Paul Hart’s arrival at Crystal Palace while the likes of Alan Irvine, Brian Laws and Darren Ferguson played musical chairs. Two and a half years on and it’s Dougie Freedman, Mick McCarthy and Dave Jones making sideways moves, as well as Laws again. The message is – don’t be out of a job for too long or you’ll be viewed as yesterday’s man.” thetwounfortunates

“Three new essays to feast on as the month draws to a close: The New Best or Best Forgotten? The Rise and Fall of Lee Sharpe, The 90s Football Party; Hunting in Pairs: Vialli and Mancini, Sampdoria, Regista; Real Oviedo – the remarkable story of a club the world united to save, The Guardian. thetwounfortunates

“Our Great Teams series of posts, soon to be augmented with its fortieth episode, has occasionally been joined by an occasional look back to those top flight seasons where it all came together in wondrous fashion for clubs more accustomed to life in less exalted company. In February, Adam Orton recalled Norwich City’s valiant heroes of the early nineties while just a couple of years before, Crystal Palace were the ones defying gravity. Here, we are delighted to welcome Terry Duffelen for his first post for us. many of you will know Terry as co-pundit on the always listenable Sound of Football podcast and he also devotes considerable time to analysis of the Bundesliga, both via the Bundesliga Show pod and the Bundesliga Lounge blog.” thetwounfortunates

“Politicians like to talk about the squeezed middle – a concept that focus groups tell them plays well to a hard-working and hard-pressed often middle class demographic who have done nothing wrong financially but find the costs of living creeping ever further up so, through no fault of their own, fall towards the poverty line. It may make for a catchy soundbite at party conferences but said squeeze is also an apt description for a very real growing issue of financing for lower league football clubs, specifically from the exact middle messrs Cameron, Clegg and Miliband are pitching for votes from.” thetwounfortunates

“The optimism with which the season began didn’t take long to evaporate. Perhaps they were just another dispiriting example of modern football’s culture of instant gratification, but the boos that greeted the half-time whistle in our opening match at home to Blackpool were loud and clear. In what some might refer to as a quirk of the fixture list, this opening match was a repeat of that which ended the previous campaign. The visitors went about both games in their usual way: urgent going forward, with the ever-present danger of meltdown at the back. There was, however, a world of difference between the two performances from the home side.” The Two Unfortunates

“On Saturday, I was fortunate enough to take in my first Major League Soccer encounter as Portland Timbers took on DC United – the first game I have seen outside the UK since my attendance at the 1993 Champions League Final in Munich. The Oregonians are very much darlings of the footballing blogosphere, having become the subject of a wonderful podcast, Mao’s Football Show, been the subject of a cracking piece from its deviser Michael Orr in Issue Zero of the Blizzard and been subject to much praise for its fan culture in a series of posts at the excellent Pitch Invasion blog – indeed, a clutch of these appeared in Tom Dunmore’s book which we reviewed in January. But what can British football – and in particular the Football League – learn from Major League soccer? On this evidence – a lot.” thetwounfortunates

“Feeling queasy at the increased commercialisation of football is an experience common to us all, but a definite ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em’ mood has prevailed in recent years. Indeed, sponsorship has become yet another facet of the game to get nostalgic about – a marvellous post at the Football Attic recently confirmed the fact that certain advertisers seem to ‘suit’ certain clubs. Hence, JVC will always be associated with Arsenal and a Liverpool shirt minus the legend ‘Crown Paints’ simply isn’t kosher.” thetwounfortunates

“(With pre-emptive apologies to Harry Pearson – it’s impossible to have read The Far Corner and write about non-league football (and non-league football in the North-East, especially) without succumbing to the temptation to imitate his style…) My home town Morpeth – securely and perhaps smugly middle-class – is located at something of a crossroads. Leave the self-styled ‘ancient market town’ and venture north or west in the direction of the Scottish border and you find yourself in the romantic ‘Northumbria’ of the postcards and tourist brochures: mile upon mile of unpopulated scenic countryside, picturesque castles and expansive, unspoilt, golden beaches.” thetwounfortunates

“So Football is officially dead then – beside images of sideburns, NHS celebrations, Kenneth Branagh in a top hat, a Somali-born hero, David Rudisha, the lightning bolt and the tranquil surrounds of ‘Eton Dorney’, the game has lost its sheen – embattled as it was when Freddie Flintoff inspired an Embrace song in 2005 and Jonny drop kicked that ball two years before. Well maybe – but we still feel there are reasons to celebrate the return of the round ball – and the Football League in particular. Hence, Lanterne Rouge (LR), Lloyd (LL) and John McGee (JM) have been called upon to provide 10 reasons why the resumption of hostilities is to be welcomed this blisteringly hot August Saturday.” thetwounfortunates

“… Any football fan naive enough to believe in the fairytale of the foreign-investor-as-knight-in-shining-armour need only look at the parlous state of Blackburn Rovers to be brought to their senses. John Williams, Tom Finn and Martin Goodman felt compelled to express their extreme concern just two months after Venky’s takeover, and events since – culminating in relegation to the Championship in May – have only gone to prove that if there’s an inverse of a panacea, then Venky’s are it.” thetwounfortunates

“Multiculturalism has become an inordinately loaded concept in recent years – like ‘health and safety’ and ‘political correctness’, it’s a marvel how a presumably once positive set of values has now been branded with negative connotations. As Stewart Lee once said, ‘you can’t even write racial abuse in excrement on someone’s car without the politically correct brigade jumping down your throat’. When in doubt, ‘blame the effing Muslims’.” thetwounfortunates

“Wycombe Wanderers may be but a nobbut middling sort of team supported by a load of middle-class scout leaders, but we do seem to attract a few names to our humble valley: men who have come from, or gone on to, much better things, whether that be the Premiership, Scottish championships, Europe, or international management. Here are the high and lowlights of our helmsmen since I’ve been a supporter…” thetwounfortunates

“In April, David Rawson caught the imagination of football’s online community with a striking post following the arrival of Steve Evans at Rotherham United. Here, with the Yorkshire club about to take up residency in a new stadium and with the new season a month away, David is in wistful mood…” thetwounfortunates

“… Dean Mansell’s website The Away End is based on a simple premise: fans meet online to swap and share their various experiences from following their clubs across the country. For his first book – also titled The Away End – Mansell has taken the very best of these stories and compiled them into a single volume. The author (a disingenuous title – Mansell has only contributed two articles to the book himself; the title ‘editor’ feels more appropriate) claims ‘the experience in a modern day away end is not quite like it used to be in the good old days of football’ and despite around half of the tales taking place in a contemporary setting, The Away End would appear to be his attempt to embrace and re-engage with ‘terrace culture’ from a bygone era. Mansell rejects the vapid commercialism and globalisation of the modern game, defiantly stating: ‘This was and still is a working man’s game.’ Needless to say, the words ‘prawn sandwiches’ appear more than once.” thetwounfortunates

“Reading’s extraordinary canter to the Championship title provokes inevitable comparison with the feat of their forebears of half a decade ago. The 106 points amassed by that vintage set a record and if we are yet to cover the 2005-6 Royals in our Great Football League Teams series, that’s not to ignore the best second tier XI of all time.” thetwounfortunates

“Late March, and if you listen carefully you can – in the parlance of a certain puce-cheeked knight of the realm – hear the sound of bums starting to squeak. So, time to cast an eye over the teams who this May are most likely to be swapping the preening pros, plastic fans and prawn sandwiches of the Premier League for the Bovril, goal celebration music and cheerleaders of the Championship. In descending order…” thetwounfortunates

“Ian Holloway’s introduction of three substitutes in the 64th minute of yesterday’s 3-1 defeat at Reading seemed like a strange tribute to Barry Fry, master of the ‘threeplacement’ in his heyday at Birmingham City. That said, it’s also a sign of one of Blackpool’s major problems this season; a campaign that has, nonetheless, been punctuated with lots of good things.” thetwounfortunates

Hubert Robert – Architectural Composition with the Pantheon
“I know what you’re already thinking. That I’m going to argue something entirely inarguable. That in between skimming the dressing room copies of Nuts and Zoo the average Premier League footballer is more likely to clutch a well thumbed copy of Ayn Rand’s hymn to self interest, ‘Atlas Shrugged’ than the collected writings of Tony Crosland. And you’d be right of course. Modern football is awash with greed – with car swerving prima-donna Ashley Cole its own John Galt – a rifle toting poster boy for the ‘we’ll do what we like’ generation.” thetwounfortunates

“Over recent months, we have called upon regular followers of non-league football in order to guess at which players might stand a chance of forging a career in the Football League, should they wish to take the opportunity. First up was Michael Hudson; the proprietor of The Accidental Groundhopper website running the rule over the Northern League. Then, Barry from The Cold End highlighted the Isthmian League’s potentialities. Now, regular TTU staffer Scarf analyzes those players operating in the most likely breeding ground of all, while sharing his forthright views following half a season’s Conference watching.” thetwounfortunates

“One of this website’s latest followers on Twitter, Simeon F. W. Pickup states his interests as ‘Reading FC, Atheism, Labour. In that order.’ Although Ed Miliband’s negligible impact on the polls may have something to do with his party being relegated behind Brian McDermott and Richard Dawkins in Simeon’s thinking, I did read this as tongue in cheek. Nonetheless, therein lies a message.” thetwounfortunates