After a week of vacation, I returned to my post here at the MLS Offside to find absolutely terrible news: MLS Rumors has closed. This website needed no introduction: MLS-Rumors.net was, bar none, the spiciest, edgiest, and, often, most accurate source for anything pertaining to Major League Soccer.

The 2011/2012 Championship season gets underway this weekend and in what has become recognised as possibly the most competitive division in football, it is Leicester City and West Ham United who are the favourites to win the much coverted price of a place in the Premier League.

Traditionally the hardest league to be promoted from, the Championship has earned the reputation of being uncompromising, erratic, unpredictable but always entertaining, where any team can win any game.

The Kickette Army tipsters were out in full force this weekend, and we're ever grateful for the amount of real news items you all provided. Without your priceless assistance, we'd be pulling the goose feathers out of our duvet lairs one by one as we scrambled for stories.