Archive for February, 2009

Simon Burnton: Pilgrims’ regress leaves Argyle flailing

Their form is bad, but not the worst in the country at the moment: Chester City have lost the last six and not won in 10; Cheltenham Town have lost the last four and not won in nine. Plymouth have only to go back eight games to find a victory. But what is interesting about the Pilgrims is what came before.

While the other struggling teams have spent the whole season scrapping among their division's also-rans, not long ago Plymouth were competing with the cream of the Championship. When they beat Cardiff 2-1 on 22 November, one of the best performances of their season so far, they were seventh, outside the play-offs only on goal difference. "We wanted to give the fans something to cheer about," said their striker Rory Fallon after that game. "We wanted to show them how well we can play and give them a great game. I think we did that." "Pilgrims on the play-off march with Mpenza," bugled the headline in the Daily Mail.

Since then they have played 16 games. One win, four draws, 11 defeats. If they were on the play-off march with Emile Mpenza they have been on the route to relegation without him – the Belgian international, a high-profile pre-season signing earning a rumoured £10,000 a week, has started one game since and appeared in one more as a substitute. They are three points away from the relegation places, with the worst goal difference outside the bottom two.

After Tuesday's 3-1 home defeat to Crystal Palace the board issued a statement giving Paul Sturrock, their increasingly embattled manager, limited support. "We held talks with the manager in which the deep concerns of the board regarding the team's position in the Championship were fully aired," it read. "The directors believe Argyle staying in the top two tiers of the league is paramount for the future of the club."

A good result is very clearly in order, but having lost their last two games to Charlton and Palace, the next two - at home to Sheffield United tomorrow and a trip to Wolves a week later - look far from enticing.

"When we beat Cardiff, everything looked to be going well," says Chris Errington, a football writer for the Evening Herald. "We had a good spell which coincided with Paul Gallagher arriving on loan from Blackburn. But then the goals started drying up for Gallagher, and the confidence has eroded from the team as they've struggled to score goals.

"When things were going well they were getting their noses in front and hanging on to the lead – Sturrock's teams have always been very hard to beat when they get into a winning position. But at the moment they can't get into a winning position."

Sturrock's history – he is the man responsible for Plymouth's place in the Championship, having all but secured promotion during his first spell at Home Park before moving to Southampton in March 2004 – makes the situation more complicated. "A lot of people think he should go, but you're never going to hear 'Sturrock Out' chants," says season-ticket holder Toby Jones. "Nobody can bring themselves to have a go at him because he's such a legend."

"He would absolutely have gone by now if it wasn't for his last spell," says John Lloyd, another season-ticket holder and editor of the fanzine Pasty News. "But after January, what is the point of getting a new manager who then can't change the squad? I still have faith in Paul Sturrock that he's going to get us out of this mess."

Today Sturrock signed the Palace midfielder Carl Fletcher, who turned down a move to the club in the summer, on a one-month loan. The signing addresses the most obvious hole in the squad: Luke Summerfield, the 21-year-old son of the assistant manager, Kevin, has perhaps prematurely become a stalwart of the club's midfield. "That's been the main problem," says Jones. "The strikers aren't great but they get no service, the defence isn't bad but they get no protection."

If memories of three months ago make Argyle fans a little green round the gills, they should avoid looking back a full year. On 23 February 2008 they beat Burnley 3-1 to go fifth, Peter Halmosi scoring twice. That team is but a memory now. It started breaking up last January, when Sylvan Ebanks-Blake went to Wolves for £1.5m, David Norris to Ipswich for £2m and Dan Gosling, the man whose FA Cup goal in the Merseyside derby was memorably missed by ITV this month, to Everton for the same fee. Last summer Halmosi joined Hull for £2m. The last 12 months could be seen as a long story of gradual decline.

A change must clearly come soon. The only question is whether it is a change in luck, or a change in management. "Our confidence is not what it was, but the spirit in the team and the will to work remains the same," goalkeeper Romain Larrieu told the Herald this week. "I'm absolutely convinced these lads have the fight to go on and dig us out of the position we're in now. We just need our luck to turn."

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Tickets go on sale for 2010 World Cup

Tickets for the 2010 World Cup went on sale on the internet and in bank branches around South Africa today, with organisers declaring it was irrevocable proof that the finals would go ahead in the country.

Some 700,000 tickets for the first World Cup hosted in Africa are available for purchase out of a total of just over 3m for the 64 games between 11 June and 11 July next year.

Fans have until the end of March to apply for tickets before going into a random lottery draw in April to determine the successful applicants.

"The beginning of this part of the build-up to the World Cup is our irrevocable promise that we make to the people of the world that all is in place and will be ready for 2010," said organising committee chief executive officer Danny Jordaan.

The readiness of South Africa's stadiums and infrastructure has come under scrutiny but the Fifa president Sepp Blatter said in December there was "no plan B".

Some 20m applications were received during the first phase of the sales process for the 2006 World Cup finals in Germany, which was conducted entirely online.

Immediate figures were not available from Fifa or the organising committee for the first hours of today's sales but Jordaan said he had been told the response had been good.

"We have had people queuing up at the banks to get application forms," he said. "We are very happy with the response we have had, it seems there is huge interest." But Fifa had to issue a statement yesterday apologising for the fact not all bank branches had yet had the ticket application forms delivered: "We kindly ask fans for patience and would like to remind them that the first ticket sales are not conducted on a first come, first served basis," it said. "All the applicants who correctly apply for tickets between 20 February and 31 March 2009 will have an equal opportunity of obtaining the tickets for which they have applied."

Tickets prices range from $20 (£14) to $900 (£639), a drastic increase in the standard $1.50 (£1.05) to $2.50 (£1.75) supporters pay for entry to South African premier league matches.

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BNP march forces Everton to reschedule game with Stoke

Everton have had to move their home game against Stoke City by 24 hours to accommodate a mass rally by the British National Party in Liverpool city centre.

The Goodison Park club were due to host the Premier League game on Saturday, 14 March at 3pm — the same day as the BNP are campaigning in Liverpool for the forthcoming European elections — but must now play 24 hours later after Merseyside police announced they were unable to staff both events. The BNP rally has attracted fierce criticism with community leaders and a local MP, Louise Ellman, due to present their opposition to the chief constable of Merseyside police, Bernard Hogan-Howe, next Friday.

Everton supporters, many of whom had made travel and accommodation arrangements for the 14th, have also inundated their club with complaints at the postponement. Ian Ross, the club's head PR and external affairs, said: "We have had complaints from supporters that the BNP supporters have been put before Everton supporters. This is a matter for Merseyside police to comment on and not Everton Football Club. In the interests of public safety we had no option but to accept the change of date. The first priority is public safety and Merseyside police are taking that into account."

The Guardian understands Merseyside police asked the BNP to reschedule the rally before informing the Football Association that it could not cover the Everton game on 14 March once that request had been declined. Privately, Everton officials are unhappy that the rally is taking precedence over their game and inconveniencing their supporters, with the move to an untelevised Sunday date likely to cost the club substantial revenue, but are powerless to prevent the switch.

Chief Superintendent Steve Watson, the area commander for Liverpool North, said: "There were several events scheduled for Saturday, 14 March, which would have required intensive policing. If they had all taken place at the same time it would have placed extraordinary pressures on demand and would have affected the ability to police those events effectively."

Steve Farley, the chair of North West TUC, who will be attending the meeting with Hogan-Howe next week, said: "We will be making it clear to the Chief Constable that the community, politicians, and the TUC do not believe the BNP should be welcome in our city or our region. In just over 24 hours, over 4000 people have signed the petition [against the Liverpool rally]. This shows the strength of feeling that is out there — and we will be sending out the message that our community stands united against the BNP both in and out of the workplace."

Farley added: "It is disgraceful that Everton fans find themselves forced to watch their team on a Sunday in order for the BNP to march in our city on the Saturday. Over 35,000 football fans are being put out for the sake of a few hundred BNP members."

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Seven players dismissed in Brazilian brawl

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Rangers’ fans should feel the heat

Picture the scene: someone starts knocking seven bells out of an innocent passer-by in the street. As the police arrive, the offender explains himself thus: "Come on, lads, never mind me, there is someone robbing a house round the corner somewhere."

This may be an overcooked comparison for the subject at hand, but one gets used to lunacy when dealing with supporters of Celtic and, in this particular week, Rangers. It remains to be seen whether or not the Scottish Premier League will act on the comments of its match delegate, Alan Dick, who is understood to have raised the issue of sectarian chants by Rangers fans during last Sunday's Old Firm match.

If only to finally set some kind of marker down, the SPL should do just that but it has a patchy record with this sort of thing. Motherwell, whose playing surface would cause disquiet to grazing cattle, received a mere £20,000 suspended fine after the league's patience finally snapped at the embarrassment Fir Park continues to cause.

Rangers have had a deeper-rooted problem for some time now. Despite the best efforts of the club, Sunday represented something of a step back in time: chants about the Celtic midfielder Scott Brown being prepared to "die a Fenian bastard", others about Celtic merely being "Fenian bastards" and shouts of "fuck the Pope" as a closing line of The Sash emanated from the 7,000-strong Rangers support.

Even if you discount the Famine Song – and this blog has recorded before its view that it is far from the most offensive chant in the Rangers song book – this was cringeworthy stuff. And for further avoidance of doubt, it was acknowledged internally and externally because it was so strikingly apparent.

Step forward David Edgar, a spokesman for the Rangers Supporters' Trust (RST). As a body, it has impressively questioned the financial stewardship of Rangers and has every right to do so. Those who dismiss Edgar and his colleagues as barmy rabble-rousers have the wrong idea; bodies such as these should be encouraged if they make even small steps towards bringing football back to people who pay to watch it every week.

On this occasion, though, Edgar's words followed a familiar trend. As news broke that Dick was indeed unimpressed with what he had heard, the RST spokesman replied: "We find it hard to believe that Rangers fans are the only fans in the country who have ever sung an offensive song; yet we are the only ones who have been reported under the rules.

"There were instances of distasteful chanting coming from both ends on Sunday but, yet again, the focus is only on one set of fans. It therefore becomes very difficult for the supporters to understand what is going on. Are the rules genuinely in place to eradicate offensive chanting or simply to punish Rangers? What about Aberdeen fans singing about the Ibrox disaster or Celtic fans singing about [the Rangers striker] Nacho Novo and the IRA?"

So there you are, folks. Why is the world picking on Rangers?

The same Rangers who, by admission of their own chairman, manager and chief executive in recent times, have an ongoing problem with a moronic element in their stands.

The chief executive Martin Bain, strangely, has remained silent in the past week despite being particularly vocal over a routine and perfectly acceptable postponement of a Scottish Cup tie at Forfar only days earlier. At the very least, and given they will know exactly who those 7,000 tickets were dispatched to, firm letters regarding their conduct should have been sent to supporters by Rangers.

It is ironic that many Rangers followers actually quip about Celtic's perception of themselves as the put-upon club of the Scottish game. If some used to grudgingly admire Rangers' fans stance of "no one likes us, we don't care" as opposed to Celtic's over-iced "the world loves us" routine, there has been a sea change.

Edgar's key admission is that "there were instances of distasteful chanting coming from both ends". What should have followed, as opposed to an attempt to throw stones from a glass house, was a firm stance along the lines of: "We thought this had been eradicated among the Rangers travelling support but Sunday proved it had not. For the good of the club, and to eliminate the danger of our title challenge being undermined by a points deduction, we urge our fellow fans to cut this out."

What was chanted on Sunday had nothing to do with what came from the home fans (which amounted to next to nothing, as it happened) and certainly even less to do with Aberdeen. Naming other clubs is irrelevant and makes your own stance appear shaky.

Those who cover the SPL, both in a journalistic capacity or in a match delegate's role, have a duty to be neutral. And, generally speaking, they are. There were no audible renditions of, "We all agree, the Ibrox disaster is magic" when Rangers visited Pittodrie on 24 January. Furthermore, Celtic's fans were widely criticised for IRA chanting in their match against Hearts in October. Potential intrusions on Novo's private life made the front page of a national tabloid.

The test for the likes of Dick, of course, is their familiarity with and interpretation of what songs cross the line of decency. Yet for any Rangers supporter to claim there is any form of agenda against their club alone, and one led by the media, is ludicrous. Barriers of normality are actually stretched for matches involving the Light Blues given their litany of non-footballing verse.

Good on Edgar for almost admitting the error of his fellow fans' ways at Parkhead. Time will tell if he has the courage of his convictions to go further if such an episode occurs again. Denying there is a problem at all, when the rest of the stratosphere acknowledges there is, would be the biggest crime of all.

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