Islingword Street

Brighton beautiful

<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/league_cup/7626796.stm>Great win</a> for Brighton tonight at home against Man City in the Carling Cup. Lots of blather on Five Live, though. Quick guide for Five Live commentators:

1. We don't have SKINT on our shirts any more, though it's a shame given the opposition tonight.
2. We have got final planning permission for Falmer.

But don't let that get in your way. Good interview with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Knight">Dick Knight</a>, though.

Haven't they suffered enough?

The BBC reports:

A man bidding to buy Mansfield Town is planning to rename the club Harchester United after the former Sky series The Dream Team

Which just goes to show that the 'fit and proper person' test needs to be extended to cover coin-eyed publicity-seeking nobodies without the sense to understand the what a club's history and reputation mean to its fans. I mean, Dream Team, for fuck's sake. Even Fulchester United would be better.

Rise above it, Nigel

Just left St James' Park after watching Exeter get thumped 4-1 by Burton Albion. Albion looked a pretty good side, to be fair, but their manager, Nigel Clough, was on the edge of his technical area for most of the game, roaring extraordinarily complex instructions at his players like he was playing voice-activated Championship Manager.

This obviously resulted in a fair bit of cat-calling from behind the dugout, and I was amazed by how personally he seemed to take it. A couple of times he even turned around and shouted "shut up" back at the fans, at least until the fourth official told him not to.

You'd think an experienced manager would have a big more sang-froid.

Impressions from the Tour

The caravan has come through now, and there's a big crowd waiting for the riders. It's odd to see UKIP stronghold Tunbridge Wells with gendarmes roaring through the streets (the French police are in control of the race route). There'll be a few people sulking in their houses today.

The locals, including the MP, are really milking the tourism angle. The compere has just been exhorting people to spend money in the town, and saying how much better Tunbridge Wells is than Brighton. Yeah, ok.

One other odd thing: both CGT and Force Ouvrière, big trade unions, one of them aligned with the communists, have big advertising presence in the caravan publicitaire.

Tunbridge Wells welcomes the Tour de France

Sigh

Always next year, I suppose. Morecambe won 2-1 after some really dire play by us for most of the first half. The new Wembley is great, as is having been there so soon after it opened, but that doesn't make it any better just now.

Wembley!

This is the view right now from my seat at Wembley. Up the City!

Update: OK, that was meant to come with a photo. Thanks, TypePad mobile.

To see ourselves as others see us

In France for a conference, and reading the paper on the way, I see le Figaro has a special feature on English football in its sports section. The general tone is summed up by the headline "L'Europe du football aux pieds de l'Angleterre", and the three-page feature has profiles of Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea in advance of the Champions League semi-finals.

Extracts after the jump.

Former Exeter board were indeed useless criminal bastards

Apologies for a parochial post, but the following can't go unremarked. The former board of Exeter City Football Club (of which I am an owner, kind of) have pleaded guilty to fraud that left the club on the brink of extinction. They are also the people who brought Michael Jackson and Uri Geller to the club, but regrettably it is not a criminal offence to make a football club a laughing stock. If it were, more than a few managers might be behind bars.

5 All out

North Yorkshire club side gets all out for 5. Cricinfo reports.