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.

Dowie bites the dust again. But this time I'm not happy about it!

So, after 12 games into the season, the money men at QPR have already become unsatisfied with their first manager, Iain Dowie.

The misfit manager was sacked hours before his team were due to face Reading, as he left his fifth club in six years.

The puzzling thing about his exit, though, is that QPR were one point away from the playoffs as they were in a comfortable ninth position at the time of his departure.

When Formula One tycoon, Flavio Briartore led the Italian revolution at Loftus Road last summer, eyebrows were raised at the appointment of Dowie, renowned as being a ‘graft’ manager, not one for Italian flair.

Rumours quickly mounted that the manager had been put in place purely to push QPR out of the Championship, as he had previously been successful with my team, Crystal Palace. Once they had conquered this tricky league, there was a clause in his contract which allowed the club to give him a pay off and send him on his way, ready for a higher profile boss to come in and take the reigns.

Obviously, as a Palace fan I was fairly unhappy about Iain Dowie’s deceitful move to rivals Charlton, and, it has to be said, delighted at his subsequent departure.

But this is another example of the money men emerging from oversees and having a negative effect on the British game. Young managers and players are never going to get a chance whilst foreign imports are brought in with a blank cheque book.

Until today I had never been against the flood of oversees personnel in the game, as it has arguably made English football the most exciting and impressive in the world.

However, whatever your opinion on Iain Dowie, he is a young manager, and has had his reputation tarnished by a group of foreign investors, with whom he could never have done enough so stop the axe.

From a fans perspective, going up under Dowie, grafting away with Championship level players, would be a great achievement and one heck of a roller coaster ride.

Seeing your enthusiastic manager with a (probably) international level gaffer, who is likely to provide a wooden season sitting at the top of the league, is less likely to inspire.

Of course, no one will turn down a swift return to the Premiership, you’d need your head examining if you did.

But, as someone who was at the Millennium Stadium to witness a dramatic play off final win against our London rivals, West Ham, I can tell you for free that there’s no more intense a feeling than knowing your minutes away from having it all taken away from you, or reaching footballing heaven.

For now, I’m happy with having Neil Warnock at the helm of the good ship Crystal Palace.

But if we encounter a similar fate to that of QPR, I’ll be off to sip Bovril on the terraces of Aldershot Town.

Cons making comebacks

Two weeks ago, former Plymouth Argyle goal keeper, Luke McCormick was sentenced to seven years and four months in prison, following charges of death by dangerous driving and driving under the influence of alcohol.

The 25 year old was convicted following the death of two children involved in the car crash, and will face his parole review in 3 years.

Without intending to explore the moral implications of what McCormick did, or his personal character as a man, I’ll focus on the future of his career.

Although the stopper is still very early in his goalkeeping career, could he really return to the football league after 3-7 years out of the professional game? Should he keep up his fitness levels and get in between the sticks for the bullish prison team, or hit the books and fall back on education to find a new job?

Step forward ex-convict and prolific football league goal scorer, Lee Hughes.

The 32 year old striker make 360 appearances and netted 156 goals before he was adjudged to have been guilty of death by dangerous driving in 2004.
A sentence of six years imprisonment seemed to rule Hughes out of any further involvement in football.

However, three years later, upon his release from prison, he tied up a two year contract with League One outfit, Oldham Athletic.

25 games and 12 goals later, Hughes is still finding his feet in a bid to reignite his former prowess as an first-rate English striker.

6 goals in 8 games from the forward this term have fired Athletic to third in the table, Hughes is obviously hoping to revisit some of his former stomping grounds in the Championship next season.

Whether or not someone has made a mistake is irrelevant in this issue, as Hughes was granted the right to carry on playing, and he has worked remarkably hard to do so.

Luke McCormick will have a tough decision to face as to if pursuing his football career is worth the strain. He has to rely on hard work, mental toughness, and a club willing to take a chance on him.

Window still shut as managers need breathing space

After 10 games in the football league, some teams will be wondering what went wrong. From injuries flooding the physio’s room, to the summer signings who haven’t impressed as much as everyone thought, teams in the bottom half of the table will be looking for answers.

Thanks to the transfer window, though, there are none.

Since 2004 when the summer and January windows were introduced, clubs have been limited to ‘emergency loans’ throughout the playing season.

Whilst being good opportunities for players to go out and get experience, and for their feeder club to gain an exciting young addition to the team, there is no long term benefit.

Prospects such as Scott Sinclair, who circulate the football league in a bid to chalk up some matches, usually make a big impact at their loan club. Unfortunately, this lasts all of 5 matches and then they are off again.

The problem is that loans do not provide stability, and they do not provide sustainability.

The long term prospects of a team are not benefited by players coming and going, and the bridge between the gap of the top flight and lower leagues will always get bigger whilst this continues.

So, what are the advantages of the transfer window? Well, as far as I can see, not many.
It upholds the main functions of English football in the 21st century, which is to keep the rich at the top and the smaller teams at the foot of the table.

The transfer window system has boosted press speculation and wild transfer rumours, which has increased an already extortionate British transfer market tenfold.

Larger teams can charge ridiculous amounts for average players, with managers forced into panic buys at the end of a busy window in an attempt to appease the board and the fans.

The FA wants to address the amount of foreign players in the English football.

The best option is to wipe transfer windows from the record, watch the value of British players plummet to a reasonable rate, and then reap the rewards of home grown players plying their trade up and down the country.

Punished teams burst out of the traps in a bid to avoid the drop

I feel as though this blog may start to become a bit of a broken record, but I am about to discuss the ineptitude of the FA again this week.

Since Sky Sports began to pump money into football, and namely, the Premiership, the gap between those dizzy heights and the football league has stretched every year. With little money being circulated in those lower divisions, it is no surprise that the odd team has gone into Administration.

And what better way to celebrate a team’s bankruptcy than to fine them a certain amount of points, just to make sure no one buys them and they plummet down the table all at the same time.

This year, League Two was rocked by Luton being hit with 30 point fine and Bournemouth and Rotherham both receiving minus 17.

Of course there was no compromise, no change of legislation to accommodate this extraordinary punishment, just another day at the office for the FA.

So far this season, Rotherham have racked up 15 points, which leaves them on -2. If the deduction hadn’t taken place, they would be nestling in the playoff places.

Bournemouth have claimed 9 points, which would bring them up to a respectable 13th position. And Lastly, Luton, whose morale must be lower than anyone else’s, have chalked up 11 points, which would have taken them to the heart of mid table at 12th.

If that’s the way it worked out, those impressive starts would have almost certainly meant that the clubs took pride in their position, and began to iron things out in the club. Prospective buyers would have snapped up the chance to buy a team full of heart, and the players would be less inclined to leave in the January transfer window.

I for one will be keeping a beady on eye on those teams this year and hope they manage to compete in the league before the season is up.

I have no affiliation to these teams, nor do I think that they have any divine right to be in League Two.

But the FA needs to understand that all they are doing with point deductions is making a league, which already has dwindling attendances, less competitive, which affects everyone involved in English football.

Justice almost served for United as Football Association do sweet FA

The voice of the little guy is something that has never been taken too seriously in the world of English football. If it doesn’t make money, the idea it has are probably not right for the FA’s balanced and open minded ethos..

Last week, after we had all forgotten about West Ham acquiring Argentinian duo Carlos Teves and Javier Mascherano in an indecent manner, the saga continued.

Sheffield United rightly pursued the case and are now crossing their fingers that the £30-38 million in compensation promised to them will be upheld by the arbitration court.

Vasts sums of money could have been saved, plunged into grass roots football, or donated to charity, if the FA had listened to the wise words of Neil Warnock and Sheffield United. Back in 2006 the Yorkshire club were calling out for West Ham to be slapped with a point deduction, thus relegating them from the Premiership at the expensive of The Blades.

"We were appalled by the original verdict," Warnock said. "It was scandalous. It changed one or two lives and it shouldn't have happened. The club itself is geared up for the top level and it knocked us back no end. I think we would be doing very well [in the Premier League]. It [relegation] is on my CV, which it shouldn't be."

So why, after two years did the FA actually pull its finger out. Well, it didn’t.

United went to an independent arbitrator for the case, and the FA admitted: ‘For clarity, the FA did not sit in judgement on this case, did not have any influence on the decision and did not appoint any of the tribunal members’

It is obvious for us to see that the FA would never support the relegation of a rich, glamourous club like West Ham. They would rather fund their outlandish lifestyle by fining a club that has more than its share of money, and make a little profit from an awkward situation.

Clearly money talks, and that’s why this will probably happen again. Let’s just hope Neil Warnock’s not involved next time or we won’t make it out the other side.