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A Bunch of Fives So when all is said and done we translate the number of times a ball has landed in the back of a net, past and present, and somehow work out why it was so obviously going to be so and what will happen in the future!! That’s the unenviable task of our resident expert Professor Statto, Nobel Prize Winner in waiting, who’s been explaining the meaning of football life and giving comfort to his followers for years.  He’ll tell you why your predictions were bound to be wrong. He’ll tell you about the most outrageous possibilities to come. He’ll tell you…But whatever he says remember: “98% of all statistics are made up.” ~Author Unknown Professor Statto and his amazing statistics. ====================================== Previous analysis Week 34.... Week 33.... Week 32.... Week 31.... Week 30The Nearly Departed, And Death Is Not The End
Hello again, pals Another week gone by, and we’re no nearer resolving the big Premier League issues. Indeed, at the bottom, it’s murkier than before, where the Nearly Departed of West Brom are doing their best to make the undertaker’s job difficult by refusing to lie down. In this, they’re being generously aided by the members of the Professional Footballers Association (North-East Branch), who appear collectively determined to give encouragement to Tony Mowbray’s Undead XI. Prem positions 16 to 19 are now occupied by the four teams from north of the Humber, whose record over the last five weeks is: P 20 W 2 D 3 L 15
Remember how well Hull started the season? They were third in October after back-to-back wins at Spurs and Arsenal. Form is a strange thing. On Sunday, Burton Albion squeaked into the league as Conference champs, but only because second-placed Cambridge Utd failed to win. A close finish wasn’t on the cards when Burton led the table by 18 points early in the year, but they fell calamitously apart in April: their loss at Torquay on Sunday was their fifth in six games. Contrast this with Conference strugglers Northwich Victoria, who were so far adrift, they were relegated back in March. They have since won their last six games. Maybe Messrs. Shearer, Southgate, Brown and Sbragia should put in a call to Northwich manager Andy Preece to find out what’s the secret before that bloke in the black garb carrying the scythe comes calling. One thing we do know: whoever the unlucky ones are, they will be replaced by the Wolves, (who now rejoice in the title Football League Champions) and one of Birmingham, Sheffield Utd. and Reading, who have contrived to ensure this Sunday’s final round of Div. 1 games will be interesting. At least the two who miss out will have a second chance via the playoffs. Weekly Roundup Who found diamonds among the coal? Consider this: Everton are mustard at home, Man. City are rubbish away. Only an idiot would back City! Ah, but Everton have just had three tough games, and they haven’t much of a squad to rotate, thought Simoscy and new boy Thomas as they entered 1-2 in their predictions. How right they were! The media clamour surrounding Newcastle v Portsmouth was ignored by John W, who could see that this was going to be a game with defences on top, or at least, with strikers who preferred shooting over the bar. Special note to Sunderland fan Michael B – you’re meant to enter the score you expect, not the one you hope for. 0-4 was never going to fly… How many players expected West Brom to score three? Well, it’s a round number, and it exactly matches the number who expected Man. Utd. to score five. Top Players Once again, Samso, the Sunderland Seer, had a stellar week, picking up points from every match. Could someone please let Redrum and Colui72 know they’ve made this week’s Famous Five. They’re busy gazing at the ocean…
The Champions League It’s Semi-finals time: with only 25 pts left to play for in our competition, there are five players still in the hunt. In the Quarters, Antomeno reclaimed the lead from Christina with a scorching 13 points – he got all four results right, while the other leading lights couldn’t muster 10 between them. Kojja2205 chose a bad day to forget his Predictions, and thus allowed Simoscy to claim a share of 3rd place. It’s now-or-never for them and Kiriacos, the other main contender, if they are to catch up. Death is not the end… What’s the worst thing that can happen to your club? Lose your local derby? Relegation? A couple of relegations? It’s bought by a devious property magnate who’s hoping to flog the ground? Bad as all these possibilities are, there’s a worse possibility – your club just ceases to exist. It’s a rare event, but like London buses, three have come along in quick succession recently, so this week, I’ve three tales of highs and lows for you, and at least one happy ending. Stories of debt-laden clubs in the lower leagues surviving only by the generosity of supporters are common. Despite this, the clubs somehow manage to stay afloat. The only modern exception is Accrington Stanley, who resigned from Div. 3N on 6 March 1962 when mounting debts bankrupted them. The results of all their 33 games were expunged from the records – tough if your team had beaten them home and away. By the way, anyone who tells you they were founder members of the Football League is off the mark. Accrington FC, one of The Original Twelve in 1888, withdrew in 1893 and disbanded three years later. Stanley joined the league in 1921, and had the bad luck to finish 2nd, 3rd, 3rd, and 2nd in successive seasons during the mid-’50s when only the top team was promoted. Five years later they were gone. Supporters of current Div. 2 highflyers, please note. The Accrington story had a happy ending, or at least a happier next chapter, after the club was revived as Accrington Stanley (1968) Ltd, and slogged it’s way up the non-league pyramid over the next 40 years to regain full league status in 2007. At the time of the last UK census in 2001, the Scottish border village of Gretna was revealed to have a population of 2705. It also had a football club who were playing in front of 60 fans in the Unibond League, otherwise known as Tier 6 of the English pyramid. Benefitting from the demise of Airdrieonians, Gretna were invited to join Scottish Division Three in 2002. In the next couple of years, backed by a burgeoning weekly crowd, (sometimes over 400!) and more importantly, the generosity of millionaire benefactor Brooks Mileson, things began to improve. Under manager Rowan Alexander, the squad was expensively – well, by Scottish Third Division standards – revamped, and promotion was achieved in 2004-05. In 2006, they reached the Scottish Cup Final, and sold their full ticket allocation of 10,000, despite the fact that their gates, though again improved, still only averaged 1339! By general consensus, they were unlucky to lose (to Hearts, on penalties), but Gretna had the consolation of a UEFA Cup entry, although they were quickly despatched by Derry City, 7-3 on aggregate. This was just after Mileson, who existed on a diet of Lucozade, 100 cigs a day, and not much else, was stricken with stomach problems. Alexander too was suffering, on long-term sick leave due to stress, but at least the team’s results were still healthy. Maybe the dressing-room presence of ace striker Dr. Kenny Deuchar was the reason? Over three seasons, the medic broke numerous Scottish league goal-scoring records. Mileson recuperated, no doubt cheered by his club’s arrival in the Scottish Premier League via a third successive promotion in April 2007, much to the anger of all the other clubs who didn’t have a millionaire sugar daddy. At this point, the SPL declared Gretna’s Raydale Park inadequate, and they were forced into a ground-share with Motherwell, 75 miles away. The fans wouldn’t wear it, and an SPL record low 501 turned up for a game with Dundee Utd. Mileson’s health again deteriorated, and while he was out of action, his family cut off the money supply to the club, which was now losing players and matches in equal measure. They went into administration while Mileson was battling for his life in hospital, and were bankrupted just before the end of last season, ceasing to exist in June 2008. From non-league to the UEFA Cup and then extinction, all within seven years! What a ride! It makes an atomic roller-coaster look like a kiddie’s tricycle. Mileson died of a brain infection in November 2008, having poured all his wealth into football and animal charities. A Sunderland fan, he sponsored the Northern League in England for years. He pumped money into Whitby Town, gave several hundred thousand pounds to Carlisle United’s supporters’ trust and handed out thousands more to other supporters’ trusts across England and Scotland. In 2005 when Gretna played Dundee he let everyone in for free and gave the profits from the catering outlets to the visiting fans to help them rescue their club from debt. He even did odd jobs around the Gretna ground. With suspicious types wondering “What’s the catch?”, it took a long time for them to realise that he really had no ulterior motives. He just liked football and animals. For Gretna, all may not be lost….a few diehard fans formed Gretna (2008) FC and started again from square one. Without resources, any progress is likely to be slow. I wish them well. While all that was going on in Scotland, another club and it’s fans to the south of the border were going through multi-division, ownership and ground-change upheavals, though they weren’t village strugglers. While Mileson was welcomed in at Gretna, Pete Winkleman, the prospective buyer of Div. 1 Wimbledon, was fought tooth and nail from 2001 onwards as he planned to move the club 90km north to Milton Keynes, taking with him the club’s trophy cabinet but not much else. For many years a top non-league club, Wimbledon finally climbed into Div. 4 in 1977. After five topsy-turvy seasons, they began a rapid ascent to the top tier, under a new young manager, Dave Bassett. They reached Div. 1 in 1986, with some players, notably Alan Cork, who had been on the staff since non-league days. Two seasons later, Cork and the rest of Wimbledon’s muscular ‘Crazy Gang’ of misfits (e.g. Vinnie Jones, Dennis Wise, Lawrie Sanchez) and artists (Dave Beasant, Justin Fashanu) unaccountably beat overwhelming favourites Liverpool in the 1988 FA Cup final. Despite selling their Final ticket allocation of 22,000 easily, Wimbledon rarely attracted 10,000 supporters to their cramped Plough Lane ground where they existed on a shoestring. Their better players were enticed away and they slipped down a division in 1990. The following year, after the recommendations of the Taylor Report into the Hillsborough tragedy made Plough Lane redundant, they moved out to share with Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park. This wasn’t popular with the fans, though they endured it until 2001, when they heard that their club’s board were in negotiations with music entrepreneur Winkleman to relocate the club to a new stadium in faraway Milton Keynes. Despite a year-long resistance and match boycotts by fans and rival supporters alike, the FA sanctioned the idea, and by the time Wimbledon went into financial administration on June 5 2003, the die was cast. Wimbledon FC began the 2003-04 season in Milton Keynes Hockey Stadium, and were unpopular with fans up and down the land. They were derisively referred to as Franchise FC, due to the manner of their move. The following year, Winkleman, going back on various promises, changed the club name to Milton Keynes Don, and along with it, altered the club badge and colours. The fans who had led the protest had not sat idly by as their club left town. They formed a new club, AFC Wimbledon, and applied to join the semi-pro Combined Counties League in 2002. They attracted some excellent players, and were soon on a rapid upward trajectory. They set a new all-time English record for the most consecutive unbeaten league games by any senior football club: 78 undefeated league matches over three seasons. Last weekend, they achieved their fourth promotion in seven seasons: from August, they will play in the Conference. Theoretically, they’re only two seasons away from a meeting with the Dons – the one game all AFC Wimbledon fans are aching for. Backed by those upstanding folks at the Football Supporters Federation, AFC Wimbledon have negotiated the return of all their memorabilia from Milton Keynes to their home borough of Merton. For the fans, this represents the re-claiming of their club. They can be proud of all they’ve achieved. This week there are stories about Southampton being on the brink of folding. Half a dozen other historic clubs have flirted with bankruptcy in recent years. If it can happen to Leeds Utd, it can happen to anyone. Sad to say, not all endangered clubs have fans as dedicated and organised as Wimbledon’s. Don’t be surprised if there are more funerals in the near future. Of course, if a couple of percent of the Prem’s bulging coffers were shared within the football family, all 92 clubs, and even their Conference cousins, could live happily ever after. Hey, you lot, stop laughing…. Until next week, keep well, folks – and take care of your club. Regards, Prof. Statto |
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