Well, it only ended up taking three matches of the Football League season, but Coventry City
became the first club to decide that enough was enough with their manager and, following Saturdays
home league draw against Bury at The Ricoh Arena, Andy Thorn will now be twiddling his thumbs on
Saturday afternoons until another offer comes along.
We continue our series of historical videos of the clubs of the Football League Championship
League One and League Two are to follow this afternoon with Burnley FC, and six videos spanning the
years from 1960 to 1994. The greatest period in the history of this club was largely hidden from
the view of television cameras autocratic owner Bob Lord didn't allow Match Of The Day cameras into
Turf Moor until 1968 but we do kick off with a short film made for the BBC on the subject of their
league title-winning side of 1960, before skipping forward twelve years to follow the Clarets to
Craven Cottage for an away league match against Fulham from the start of the 1972/73 season
By the middle of the 1980s, the decline of English football was more than apparent.
From SHEFFIELD UNITED, I said, not JAIL, in case you are confused. Anyway, Sheffield United have
finally decided to axe their infamous striker Ched Evans, who was convicted of rape and sentenced
to five years imprisonment last month.
The Blades only recently suffered the heartbreak of losing on penalties in the League One
play-off final, while it is a strong possibility that if their top-scorer Evans had not committed
such a thoroughly vile crime and totally messed up a number of people's lives in the process,
United could well have secured an automatic promotion place.
There was always something inherently contradictory about Stan Flashman. He is, perhaps, bestÂ
remembered as the "King Of The Touts" (often with the prefix "Self-Styled" attached to it), but
when he craved respectability he would rebrand himself as a "Ticket Broker." Ultimately, though, he
himself stated that he didn't care what he was called as long as the money was right.
Having been around or about the League One automatic promotion places for much of the season,
the last few days have suddenly become rather uncomfortable for Sheffield United. A single goal
defeat in Milton Keynes at the weekend coupled with a home win for local and promotion rivals
Sheffield Wednesday cut the gap between second and third place in the table to a single point with
just two games left to play, but even this precarious state of affairs is now threatening to be
overshadowed by events off the pitch.
There is, perhaps, little to surprised about regarding the decision of Steve Evans to leave
promotion-chasing Crawley Town for Rotherham United this morning. Rumours had been circulating for
the last few days that Rotherham were interested in taking him and his baggage on and even the
timing with six games of the season left to play and Crawley Town two points off an automatic
promotion place isn't a major shock.
Chasing The Big Leagues West Ham United (English Championship) is a post from: Just Football
Tales from Tier Two is a series on Just Football in
partnership with @tiertwofooty, in which we assess the promotion chances of the clubs in tier two
of Europe's major leagues at the midway point of 2011/12.
West Ham are back in the Premier League after defeating Blackpool 2-1 at Wembley today in the
npower Championship play-off final.
Ian Holloway's Blackpool had much the better of the opening exchanges, with Matt Phillips
missing two chances, but it was West Ham who took the lead after Carlton Cole nicely controlled
Matt Taylor's pass and slotted the ball past Matt Gilks in the 34th minute.
Championship Play-Off Final Preview: Hammers and Seasiders seek immediate Premier League return
- originally posted on Soccerlens.com
When you get relegated from the Premier League, it's not easy to get back there quickly. And
sometimes, it gets worse before it gets better. Just ask Southampton, who are headed back to the
top flight after seven years away and after being in League One only last year.
West Ham United fans will have to wait just a little longer to see their side back in the EPL
after the Hammers failed to secure automatic promotion despite a 2-1 win over Hull City on the last
day of the Npower Championship.
West Ham find themselves in the third place in the standings with 86 points three behind winners
Reading and two behind second place Southampton.
Npower Championship 2011/2012: Promotion and Relegation Review - originally posted on
Soccerlens.com
The 2011-12 Championship league fixtures have come to an end and finally the automatic promotion
positions have been confirmed. However, at the other end of the table, the relegation picture had
been clear for some time.
Wolverhampton Wanderers chief executive, Jez Moxey, insists a horror run of form and the club's
relegation from the Premier League has not damaged Terry Connor's reputation at the side. The side
have been odds-on for the drop in Premier League betting for a number of months.
Caretaker manager, Connor, inherited a flagging side from his former boss, Mick McCarthy, in
February, and is without a win in his first 10 games in charge, losing eight.
Don't panic, the Kickette Special Investigation Unit are on this. They should have a definitive
answer for you by the time Javi Martinez retires. Image via twitter.
If we are what we eat, call us fast, cheap and easy.
Just thought you needed to know that, Kickettes.
GOOD WEEK
Fashion Feil: After our probing interview technique last year, we didn't think
there was anything left to learn about the Benny Feilhaber.
The four players who left Newcastle last year have not done particularly well at their new
clubs. Demba Ba - may not want to leave Newcastle Joey Barton is struggling to stay in the Premier
League with QPR, Kevin Nolan is struggling with West Ham to nail down an automatic promotion place,
and the Hammers are now [.
For a long while the Championship promotion battle seemed to be in effect a race for the play-offs
and the chance to join Southampton and West Ham United in the Premier League. The big spending duo
seemed to be a class above the opposition, but things have got interesting recently as the Hammers
have faltered.
Blackpool's accession to the Premier League was, on the surface, one of the feel-good stories of
2010. A club with a tight wage budget had broken up from the bottom division of the Football League
and reclaimed a place in the top division that it had last held almost forty years previously. The
team itself battled hard in the Premier League once there, winning a league double against
Liverpool and beating Tottenham Hotspur at Bloomfield Road before succumbing to relegation by a
single point on the final day of the season.
The end of season play-offs are both exhilarating and exhausting. For the clubs that finish in
places just below the automatic promotion places, everything comes down those two or three matches
at the end of the season and they come so quickly after the end of the normal league season that
the work that has gone into securing a place just above that dotted line can feel as if it has come
and gone all too quickly.
Birmingham: Premier league dreams, play-off anguish and losing your head - originally posted on
Soccerlens.com
This is a funny old time of year for any team in the Championship. Depending on how you've
fared, you could be singing, crying, or just plain tearing your hair out. Any team from the
Championship can be sorted into one of these categories:
1) Promoted this is the holy grail of this league, you're going to be playing
Premier League football next season.
It is not that often that league title races are open enough to go to the final day of the
season with the whereabouts of the championship trophy still undecided, but this season two of the
divisions of the Ryman League will end with five clubs still hoping to win automatic promotion as
champions of their division.
With two games remaining in the regular League One season, the race for automatic promotion
couldn't be much tighter. Sheffield United are now just one point ahead of their steel city rivals,
Sheffield Wednesday, and must now contemplate life without top scorer, Ched Evans.
Evans, 23, was sentenced to five years in prison, this week, after being found guilty of rape.
The Manchester derby is always a tense affair, but when the Premier League title is on the line
it becomes one of the must-see games of the season.
Manchester United have seen their eight-point lead from two weeks ago shrink to a mere three
points, and Manchester City now control their own destiny because of their superior goal
differential.
David Beckham's hopes for participating in the Olympics have cleared the first hurdle.
Team Great Britain manager Stuart Pearce has narrowed down his long initial list of candidates
for his 18-man roster down to 80, with Beckham, Gareth Bale, Craig Bellamy and Joe Cole being among
the other players whose names have been released.
A week after coming off the bench and scoring two goals in the last five minutes to sink Leeds,
Adam 'The Melt' Le Fondre knocked in another couple of late'ns after coming off the bench at St
Mary's last night to send Reading three-points clear of Southampton at the top of the pile.
[T]his time four years ago Carlisle United stood on the brink of glory. Â A single win from their
last three games against Leeds United, Southend or Millwall would have been enough for the
Cumbrians to claim the final automatic promotion spot from League One and reach the heady heights
of English football's second tier for the first time in 20 years.
When OTP heard that Lee Clark had today been sacked as Huddersfield Town manager, our first
thoughts were: "Hmmm, thought they were doing pretty well. We must have lost track of their recent
results." But after double-checking our facts, the League One table and the Terriers' results, it
turns out we were right.
Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho was an unexpected visitor for yesterday's Championship play-off final between Crystal Palace and Watford. The Special One's appearance at Wembley sparked a series of theories, the most plausible of which is that he was running the rule over Watford's on-loan Chelsea midfielder Nathaniel Chalobah.
Josh Gatt's return to Molde's starting lineup ended in victory, while Kyle Helton, Rhett Bernstein and Mjondalen's hopes of automatic promotion continued to fade.
Kyle Helton, Rhett Bernstein and Mjondalen need three points as they chase the last automatic
promotion spot, while Sebastian Troupe and Baerum hope to end its slide against Bryne.
Even before he relieved Blackburn Rovers of the burden of playing Premier League football last
year, manager Steve Kean struggled to win the confidence of the Ewood Park faithful. The unpopular
Glaswegian is set to go down even further in the estimation of long-suffering Blackburn fans, after
he admitted he has never seen three of his deadline day transfers play.
Finally, after Scottish football's traumatic summer, the chance to get back to some actual
football. Starting with the now-traditional curtain-raiser of the Challenge Cup (currently the
Ramsdens Cup, if you prefer). It's for the lower league teams only – which means most media
attention has been focused on Rangers' debut in the cup, at Brechin on the Sunday.
Earlier this week, a curious Early Day Motion was presented to parliament. Early Day Motions are
one of the more endearing quirks of our antiquated parliamentary system, allowing Members of
Parliament the opportunity to get whatever may have been on their minds of late which couldn't be
considered of national importance out there in the open.
After spending the majority of the Primera Nacional B season firmly rooted in the top two of
Argentina's second division, Insituto dropped out of the automatic promotion places and into third
after losing 3-2 to fifth-place Boca Unidos on Monday night a result which saw both River Plate and
Rosario Central move above them in the standings.
