Farewell Darren Anderton

I couldn’t be writing a football blog this week and not mention the (almost) legendary career of Darren Anderton.

This weekend Darren sealed his final ever professional football game with a goal and a 1-0 win for Bournemouth over Chester.

It was the perfect end to a career with its highs and lows.

He played 478 times in his career, netting 65 goals.

Some of his highs included playing, and scoring for England, and a long and successful spell at Tottenham, where he played his best football.

Unfortunately, his later years have been a bit more stop-start. His terms at Birmingham City and Wolves led to his nickname, ‘sicknote’, as he faced long spells on the sideline with recurring injuries.
Playing on fairly high wages, it was no so surprise that he wasn’t plying his trade in the Championship for too long.

However, he has been re-born at Bournemouth and made 52 appearances for the South coast club.

Anderton is a true pro and battled back from injuries and dips in form to leave the game with a long and successful career. He has proved that he wasn’t too big for the sport and seemed humble and honest in his interviews right until the end.

So here’s to Darren Anderton, who will hopefully return for a managerial career.

Tip your caps to wage cuts

Teams like Reading may need to lower their large wage bill


Another recession related blog this week, as the Football League is now discussing wage caps for footballers.

The proposal, which again has been mentioned for many years now, has sprung back into light following dwindling finances and amounting debt amongst clubs.

One of the main problems that I can establish, and one that will never diminish, is the fact that Football League clubs are frantically spending money in a bid to reach the next league. Moreover, they are trying to lessen the gap in quality between themselves and those above.

Following a spate of clubs going into administration this year, coupled with the latest tax scandal I talked about 2 weeks ago, there is growing pressure on the FA to bring smaller clubs back into the black.

Crystal Palace Manager, and personal hero, friend and father figure to myself, Neil Warnock, is adamant that the wage cap won’t come to light.

He’s seen several proposals such as this fall by the way side before, and said: “A wage cap will never happen – there will always be good players who will demand top money. And those players will always get that money one way or another.”

Meanwhile, Adam Pearson, the Derby County Chairman, has taken the opposite view. Pearson has seen the ugly side of financial trouble before, with accounts showing a £12.5million loss in 2007.

He warned: "The game is close to meltdown at all levels. Boards are under pressure to gain success and that leads to them paying ridiculous wages.

It cannot carry on or it will end in disaster. There is a growing feeling now that some sort of wage cap has to come in."

It is not completely clear how a wage cap would last, or who would support it. Since the 2003/04 season, a cap has operated in League Two, stating that clubs cannot spend more than 60% of their turnover on wages. However, this scheme only lasted one season in League One, as clubs began to refuse to comply over time.

The main problem for the Football League of course, is forcing clubs to employ the wage cap. A team who has just come in to a lot of money, such as QPR, or a newly relegated team with a high wage bill, would find it difficult to keep players happy and remain at the club.

As far as I can tell, imposing a wage cap upon the Football League, and not the Premier League, will help inflate the gap in quality between the two even more.

The original problem of wages spiraling out of control in the lower leagues stemmed from smaller teams desperately trying to improve their squads in the same way in which a top flight club would do.

A Championship club may receive around £1million in TV rights every year, along with perhaps £100-400k in sponsorship deals. It is estimated that getting promoted to the Premiership nets a club about £40-50million pounds for a year.

So why is it that the smaller clubs should cap wages and lose out on good players when the Premiership continues to run riot with irresponsible spending and rising debts?

Baffling. But that’s the way it goes for clubs and fans in the lower leagues. So we can hope for two things.
1. A sensible system that evens up the playing field from League Two, all of the way up to the Premiership.
Or…
2. That Crystal Palace finally establish themselves as top flight team before the wage cap is introduced!

Home Grown Rule set for 2009

A piece of news this week that slipped through the net fairly quietly was one that could cause a fair amount of uproar if it comes to fruition.

The Football League has announced that they are to hold talks on introducing a ‘home grown’ players rule, starting from 2009. Okay, so they’ve probably had a lot of these talks before, but it is still an exciting time.

The new idea to be discussed involves each Football League club being required to have at least four of the match-day 16 ‘to have been registered domestically, for a minimum of three seasons, prior to their 21st birthday’.

That means, then, that each team will have to involve four English players in their squad each week.

At first, this may sound quite surprising, and a big change. However, this is not applying to the Premier League, and will only be brought in to Football League clubs, who rarely have more than 5 or 6 foreign players to begin with.

Football League Chairman Lord Mawhinney said, "The aim is to establish this principle by setting a threshold that our clubs can accommodate and then to consider raising that level over time.

"It is important we demonstrate that, as a body of clubs, our commitment to youth development is total.”

The meeting will take place on December 18th at Derby County’s Pride Park, with league officials and club representatives in attendance.

The plans come after Sepp Blatter’s controversial ‘six plus five’ system fell by the wayside. The concept involved having six English players in each team, but there were fears that this would breach certain EU laws regarding rights of players in terms of equality.

It seems quite unlikely that this will be implemented by the 2009 season as planned, or even that it will come into place altogether, but it is another positive step.

There are some fantastic academies throughout the football League, such as Crystal Palace’s or Crewe Alexandra’s, but these cannot fund themselves forever if English youngsters are preferred to foreign players.

This initiative is the first (and quite small) step to bringing more English lads through the system, and hopefully rewarding the academies which lose money producing England’s next talent.

After all, 14 of the 23 players who beat Germany in Berlin last week came through Football League Academies.
That speaks volumes, so lets keep the academies open and keep the local players in our teams.

Tax man comes knocking

It’s been another bad week for finances in the Football League. It has been found that more than £28 million pounds of tax money owed by football clubs has been written off by the Government.
18 clubs who have been into administration have been found to have unpaid tax bills.

The rules for Football League sides mean that they are allowed to pay Salaries and costs first, and then fix their tax bill. As much as I love football, this is another case of it being one rule for businesses or the public, and a totally new rule for a sport.

The highest debt fell to Leicester City, who paid off just 10% of their £7million tax.
Another club, Leeds United (predictable, perhaps) had a deficit of £6.1m after only paying off £680k of their bill.

Of the 18 teams that were examined, there was a total debt of £31.7m, with only £.35million paid back by the clubs.
Obviously, that means that the taxpayer must foot the bill, which, as previously mentioned, reached £28 million.

Understandably HM Revenues and Customs want to change the rules, and why not, as it is just getting ridiculous now.

Football will never change if rules like this aren’t imposed. The elitism that runs from the top down is the main issue from my point of view, and penalising those who breach the rules is the best way to sort it out.

At the moment, football clubs know they can get in debt without too many consequences, which in turn is why clubs are buying expensive players that they cannot afford.

Phil Willis, the MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough and a strong critic of the Leeds deal, says clubs should not be allowed to write off such huge tax debts.
He said: "It is quite ludicrous that the taxpayer has to pick up the tab for what are often poor business dealings.
"We should get rid of the football creditors rule and all creditors should get an equal share of the money, as happens when other businesses go into administration."

Hopefully new rules will be implemented to crack down on unpaid debt, and one day, everyone can get back to a level playing field.

Merged rivals - can it work?

Hayes and Yeading United currently sit in third place of the Blue Square Conference South, with their sights firmly set on the Premier Conference above them.

For those without prior football league knowledge, they are just another team plugging away in a bid to reach the nirvana of the Football League.

So it might come as a bit of a shock, then, to reveal that 18 months ago Hayes and Yeading were two entirely different teams!

It has been documented previously on this blog that smaller clubs can no longer survival the current financial climate, and the complexity of a merger is a sign of the desperation some clubs are facing.


Hayes & Yeading United Football Club was created in May 2007 when the two clubs respective Chairmen, Derek Goodall and Phillip Spurden agreed that the only way either club could continue in the long term.

Former Hayes FC Chairman Derek Goodall said at the time: “It is well known that for years our clubs have struggled to attract the big gates needed to survive at this level.
By combining efforts, know-how and strategy we can secure the future of high-level football in the area and provide facilities that the local community need and desire”

Counterpart Phillip Spurden, former Chairman of Yeading FC added: "On the field both sides have been punching far above their weight for many years.

"But to build on that and take the next step we need to match that off the field as a business, in the stadium, surroundings and amenities."

So are the clubs better off now that the merger has taken place?

Before the merge took place, Yeading finished the 06/07 season in a mediocre 16th Place, whilst Hayes narrowly missed relegation with a 20th spot finish.

In the first year of their existence, Hayes and Yeading United finished 13th in the Blue Square South. Not a bad feat, I’ll think you will agree. Finding that sort of stability after such a comprehensive reshuffle is nothing short of outstanding.

And as mentioned above, United are now comfortable nestled in third place, currently heading for a play off spot.

Combining two of the biggest semi-professional teams in Middlesex has seen a huge degree of success, and now boasts one of the highest attendance averages in the division at 1,500 a game.

So is this the future for smaller clubs? Of course, not everyone is as local to each other to merge with a realistic hope of bringing both sets of fans with them. And the ones who are that local, may not wish to switch to a rival side.

If Palace were to merge with Brighton, I’d rather go and support one of my second teams, such as Bromley, who coincidentally also ply their trade in the Conference South.

The current success of Hayes and Yeading FC is a great thing, and very positive for those thinking of merging with a local club.
Let that not detract from the fact that it is very sad to see clubs having to do this in the first place.

Each club has lost its biggest rival, and a long line of heritage with it. Yes, they are now sustained for the future, but with a bit more funding from the FA, this sort of thing would never need to happen.

David vs Goliath, round one

The FA Cup first round bounced back this weekend with the usual amount of drama, passion, and spirit.

These games might not have received the mass media attention of a latter round, but let that take nothing away from the matches that did take place.

The main giant killing headlines were handed to unknown side, Curzon Ashton, who managed to knock out Kidderminster Town.

Histon Town also moved through to the second round with their 1-0 against League One outfit, Swindon Town, whilst Blyth Spartans saw off League Two opponents Shrewsbury.

The second round has since been drawn and the next ties will be played on the 29th and 30th of November, with higher level League One clubs being thrown into the mix.

As for who I’m supporting, Sutton United were the last Surrey team outside of the Football League to be eliminated from the FA Cup this year.

All that leaves is my side, Crystal Palace, who enter in round three!

And the Premierleague thought their referees were bad

Post match interviews these days usually kick off with some sort of criticism for the officials. The Premierleague frequently scrutinises referees, and the large coverage that the division sees means that it is always in the public eye.

What they don't seem to realise is that the officials get worse as you go down the football pyramid.

If a referee (Rob Styles, anyone?) has a bad game whilst overseeing a Premiership match, he will be dropped to the Championship or lower as he earns his call up to the top tier once more.

There were some fairly crazy decisions this week. The penalty awarded against West Brom in their tie with Blackburn, which saw a small tug on McCarthy's shirt, which did not lead to him losing the ball, leading to a spot kick, which the former happily converted.

There was uproar on Match of the Day, and in the subsequent newspaper coverage feature in the Sunday papers.

But the most mind boggling decision(s) of the weekend were saved for Derby's match against Nottingham Forest.
Forest couldn't believe their luck when 25 year old referee, Stuart Attwell, awarded Derby a penalty after they had scored, with hero goal keeper Lee Camp saving Nacer Barazites shot.

Although Atwell was at fault for Reading's 'mystery' goal against Watford in September, he has been nominated to the Fifa list by the FA.

After watching football every week since I can remember, I can honestly say only one or two refereeing performances I have ever seen have been worthy of any merit. The fact is, there are too many contradictions in refereeing laws and they simply do not know what they're doing.


Any criticism from managers or players will be swiftly met with a fine from the FA, which is likely to head into Fabio Capello's wage fund. Good times.