They've Fixed it for Jim

Well, another football season is mercifully almost over, but the real action seems to be taking place off the pitch. Over at Southampton their financial worries with a Partner Company going into administration have led to them being given a 10 point penalty and probable relegation (the Football Association really ought to be more in tune with this economic recession), just like for poor old Luton. And rather closer to home, there's a rough, tough new kid on the block in Town.

I remember walking with Jim Magilton into the Regent Theatre in Ipswich once, when he was taking his children to see Brian Blessed in Peter Pan. His tenure as Ipswich manager was never particularly fruitful, and the performances on the pitch were often uneven, but the standard of football that I saw was often very good, and he now may well be the last of the old guard.

It must be the first time that an Ipswich manager has been sacked only two days after WINNING a big derby game. That 3-2 win over Norwich has ultimately done no good for anybody, except I suppose the extreme wing of the "Blue Army" for whom nothing matters except beating Norwich. After witnessing the general bloodthirstiness and antipathy in East Anglia that day, I'm not sure I want to see too many more local derbies.

The overbearing influence of Ipswich's curiously reclusive new "Emperor" Marcus Evans has now made due effect, with the appointment of Britain's Olympic team manager Simon Clegg, no less, as chief executive - and as if that wasn't enough, Mr. Evans has instructed Mr. Clegg to sack Magilton and bring in Roy Keane - who has gone into his new job with typical Bull-in-a-China-Shop gusto.
There's a lot of greed around in football nowadays, but I hoped it would never extend to Ipswich Town.

RIP Alf Ramsey and the good old John Cobbold days.

Hillsborough and the Hatters

Watching the Morecambe & Wise Christmas Show from 1980 on DVD, I was reminded that Eric Morecambe's beloved Luton Town are now a non-league club, after failing to beat Chesterfield at Kenilworth Road.

Their departure from the Football League comes two days before the 20th anniversary of arguably football's greatest recent tragedy. The death of 96 Liverpool fans at the FA Cup semi-Final at Sheffield Wednesday's home ground was initially declared by the more sensationalist media as an act of hooliganism (4 years after the Heysel Stadium disaster which also involved Liverpool fans), but was later declared by the Taylor Enquiry to be a failure of the police to control the situation.

The whole deep and sorry tragedy of Hillsborough brings to my mind the sheer folly and rashness of human behaviour at times; too often the police always take the blame for being unable to control a mob, and Liverpudlians likewise were equally dismayed (and still are) by the suggestion that they alone were the cause of their own fans' deaths. I suspect both aspects were partially true that day.

A watershed in Association Football history, it led thankfully to the elimination of "anti-hooligan" perimeter fencing (the true killer at Hillsborough) and terracing (including the legendary "Kop" terrace at Anfield) and one of the more positive aspects of the aftermath of Hillsborough was the decision to stage the FA Cup Final at Wembley (which Liverpool won in emotional circumstances) against close neighbours Everton with both sets of fans mixing freely together in the stands, and none of the segregation that usually creates tribal antipathy and sometimes extreme violence.

It's a trend which sadly hasn't caught on since (and it should), but what has is the whole commercial boom that football has become with the advent of sophisticated all-seater stadia - that Hillsborough indirectly helped to bring about. The game went up-market, and has now become one of this country's biggest economies.

And poor Luton Town have had to suffer by it, with their 30-point penalty at the beginning of the season (for "financial irregularities") - too great an obstacle for them to overcome. One can't help feeling that a top flight Premiership club would never dare receive such a harsh punishment. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Luton did at least avert financial disaster last season (despite the worst that the FA could do to them), thanks to a lucrative FA Cup Fourth Round replay against Premiership opponents: Liverpool.

You know you're a Star Wars fanatic when...

You hear news about the G20 Summit at London Excel, and your first thought is that it was also the venue for SW Celebration Europe in 2007.

Good Things:17: Second-Hand Bookshops

They struggle to make ends meet nowadays (with amazon.co.uk for competition), but I love strolling through those musty surroundings of undiscovered literary treasures. It's like the end scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I'm also reminded more and more nowadays of the film Fahrenheit 451, where there are scenes of immersed private libraries - one character treasures her literature so much that she would rather go up in smoke with them, than to live in a world without books.

Goodbye to Natasha

That the loss of Natasha Richardson is a tragedy goes without saying, but I'm also reminded of a time when her husband Liam Neeson had a motorbike accident in 2000, for which Mrs. Neeson kept him off the vehicle from then on, to prevent any fatal repetition. Sadly the fates were unable to allow Liam to do the same for his wife, and I pity him as much as anyone.

In some ways, I think she was a better actress than her mother Vanessa. That's how much of a loss she is to the acting profession.

Sad reflections are also due for the jaded life of Jade Goody.

To both ladies, this link is suitably dedicated: Cabaret title song

A good neighbour: Rosalie Miles

It's funny the things you learn about people you used to know in your own back yard. Just a few doors down Granville Road lived Rosalie, who was, as the Clacton and Frinton Gazette says, a figure locally often seen walking her two dogs through the nearby Recreation Ground, with the replacement electronic voicebox for her lost larynx. I always found her amiable whenever I saw her - although I confess in later years I was often too shy to chat because of her Dalek-like voice!

The Broader perspective

The unprecedented terrorist attack on a cricket team in Pakistan has prompted an equally outspoken response from the ICC Test Match referee, Chris Broad, who returned from the cancelled Test Series fuming at the lack of "top level" security promised by the Pakistanis towards the visiting Sri Lankan team and the match officials. It's a sad and inevitable reflection of the climate in that country at the moment that the terrorists were allowed to just walk away and disappear without the authorities being able to track them down. It may be the last international sporting event in Pakistan for some considerable time.

In the war of words however, the Pakistan Cricket Board have spoken out against Mr. Broad's criticisms: six policemen have been killed in the ongoing battle, and "top level" security can only go so far when a war zone is suddenly involved, as was the case near the Gadaffi Stadium (unfortunately but appropriately named) in Lahore.

I can't help wondering if history still rankles with the PCB; back in 1987, during the controversial England tour of Pakistan (when Mike Gatting came to blows with umpire Shakoor Rana), Chris Broad refused to leave the crease after being "dismissed" by the Pakistani umpire during the First Test that troubled autumn - at the Gadaffi Stadium, Lahore.