You Can Probably Guess Who Blinked First

So, it looks like he (and, by extension, they) have got away with it. The HMRC have dropped their court case against Leeds United, and Ken Bates has, as a result, got himself a bargain. A debt-free football club with a massive stadium, some very valuable real estate (in the name of a conveniently anonymous [...]

Football Is Not More Important Than Life & Death

I have often been irked by the following quotation: “Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I’m very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that”. It came, of course, from the great Bill Shankly, and it troubles me that his [...]

For Fax Sake

It’s been a pretty bad last few months for football in Yorkshire, to varying degrees. In May, Sheffield United were relegated from the Premier League and, since then, Leeds United have sailed close to extinction (and we haven’t heard the last of that yet) and Scarborough went into liquidation and were reformed as Scarborough Athletic. [...]

A Right To Free Speech

For as long as football has been played, the running of clubs has been a political issue. Right the way back to the nineteenth century and the division of the game into amateurs and professionals, via Billy Meredith and “The Outcasts FC”, Jimmy Hill and the abolition of the maximum wage, right the way up [...]

Radio Free Europe

I know that I’ve been neglecting you all over the last few days, so here’s a bit more Baker & Kelly, from the start of the 1998 World Cup. Plenty more of these to follow.
13th June 1998 – 17.30
Also, while I think of it, I’ll be going on my summer holidays for just over a [...]

AFC Sudbury 6-0 Wivenhoe Town

What more pleasant a way to finish a weekend in the country could there be than to spend a warm, sunny afternoon, at King’s Marsh, watching the Ryman League Division One North match between AFC Sudbury and Wivenhoe Town. One of the smarter moves that the senior football leagues below the Football League have made [...]

Gone But Not Forgotten (Part 5)

England played a friendly last night, apparently. To be honest, I had better things to do, like reading up on the history of New Brighton FC, who graced the Football League for thirty years until 1951, before falling away and into obscurity. I have to say that this will be the last one of these [...]

A Recurring Dream

Indulge me a moment here, and take a moment to consider your job. Try to imagine that you go into work this morning, and you find that your manager has been sacked. One or two people might be reasonably pleased about it, but a number of others will probably be quite upset by it. At [...]

A 1998 World Cup Preview

You may or may not be aware that, when I am on a late shift at work, everything goes a bit haywire on here. I don’t normally get home until about 9.30, and then I’m not always of sufficient bonhomie to put something up on here. With that in mind, here’s Baker & Kelly’s 1998 [...]

Football League Review

Although the weekend before last was, strictly speaking the “start” of the football season, the fact that the leagues below the Conference didn’t kick off until last Saturday left the schedules looking somewhat empty, as far as I was concerned. This week, normal service has returned, with the Ryman League, British Gas Southern League [...]