The Two Unfortunates

Euro 2012 and Disdain for the Championship

Lanterne Rouge — Tue, 29 May 2012 04:40:10 +0000

An oft quoted claim of recent months has been for the Championship’s status as the fifth richest League in Europe and if this isn’t necessarily reflected in the quality of the goods on offer, that Derby County can attract an average gate of more than 26,000, Hull City shell out £21 million in wages for 2010-11, and Leicester City approach £18 million in net transfer fee spend is evidence of significant trade. Why, therefore, the under representation in the forthcoming European Championships in Poland and Ukraine which commence a week on Friday? The 2010 World Cup wasn’t exactly awash with Football...

The Monday Profile: Chris Eagles

Lanterne Rouge — Mon, 28 May 2012 04:42:18 +0000

My abiding memory of Chris Eagles came from an otherwise long forgotten episode of ITV’s Football League highlights hosted by Matt Smith dating back about five years or so now. In that favourite director’s technique, players were seen alighting from the team bus and amid the friendly smiles and poised pens for autographs, Eagles stepped down coolly, in possession of headphones the size of which would have shamed the participants of the Live Aid video. At the times, Eagles was a young buck at Manchester United and it showed. Four loan spells saw him enjoy a decidedly varied impact. Watford...

20 Years of the Premier League: an Alternative View

The Two Unfortunates — Fri, 25 May 2012 12:07:42 +0000

A polemic for you this Friday from regular contributor Phil Ascough. Phil is the author of Kissing The Badge – How Much Do You Know About 20 Years Of The Premier League? and The Armchair Olympian, both published by Bloomsbury. A shortened version of this article was published earlier this week by The Yorkshire Post. Best team, best player, best match, best goal. The end of the milestone twentieth season finds the Premier League at its most self-congratulatory. Pundits and public who responded to official Premier League polls identified the latest season as the best in the history of the...

Great Football League Teams 35: Fulham, 1982-3

Lanterne Rouge — Wed, 23 May 2012 08:00:52 +0000

Every one of the previous thirty four entries in our Great Teams series has featured promoted teams and this would seem apt given the epithet ’lower leagues’ so often applied to the English divisions 2 to 4. Today, however, we feature a Fulham side that finished the 1982-3 season outside the promotion places. A tempestuous and controversial 1-0 defeat at Derby (more of which later) left the Cottagers short of Leicester City by a point and well behind the Queen’s Park Rangers and Wolves representation previously featured in our annals. Why therefore the fuss? Is a team that lost 13 games...

Conversations with Gabriel Zakuani

The Two Unfortunates — Mon, 21 May 2012 09:11:15 +0000

Today at 1pm, a group of professional athletes and celebrities aiming to use sports as a way to raise funds for charity projects in Africa and other developing countries will come together to raise money under the banner of iPAY2PLAY. Two football league stars are heavily involved - Stevenage loanee Patrick Agyemang and Peterborough United’s Gabriel Zakuani - and the Posh defender is heading to Ghana in June to take training sessions and deliver HIV information to under-privileged kids - a project run in collaboration with the Tackle Africa charity. Here, we spoke to Gabi about his activities as well...

The Monday Profile: Marlon Pack

Lloyd — Mon, 21 May 2012 07:24:13 +0000

[I]n this month’s When Saturday Comes, Andy Lloyd-Williams considers youth development in English football and the benefits of coming through at a smaller club. Citing Bournemouth and Plymouth as examples, he argues that it’s better – surely – to spend one’s formative years at a club at which progression to the first-team isn’t reserved for pure prodigies only. It’s a fair point well made, yet the case of Cheltenham Town’s current man of the hour – Marlon Pack – demonstrates that a thorough schooling at a top side isn’t necessarily a bad thing, even if it fails to result in...

Geographies of Football: Men of Kent

The Two Unfortunates — Fri, 18 May 2012 12:00:07 +0000

Our recent Geographies of Football series piqued interest to such a degree that we received a message from David Field wondering if we would be interested in an application of the methodology we applied to Cornwall and Worcestershire to England's southeasternmost shire. Here are the thought provoking results and we hope to revive the series on an occasional basis. What county is the biggest one club county; Norfolk? Suffolk? Berkshire? What about Sussex before Crawley’s elevation to the Football League? Nowhere near. The biggest captive county for a football league team is the Garden of England - Kent - with a...

Great Football League teams 34: Derby County 1986-7

The Two Unfortunates — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:00:29 +0000

Part 34 of our Great Teams series sees us welcome Jonathan Rodgers, a long time fan of Derby County. Here, he recalls one of the great Baseball Ground campaigns - always a fiendishly difficult place to visit as an away fan and a place that simply oozed character, history and tradition. Jonathan can be followed on Twitter at @popsider It's started already. Ten months of undoubted, solid progress for Derby County has only recently finished (12th place and a number of talented Academy youngsters coming through) but Rams fans are already speculating about next season. Can we have a tilt at the...

No Oblivion for Wolves

The Two Unfortunates — Mon, 14 May 2012 20:49:40 +0000

We are delighted today to welcome back Ben Piggott, illustrator of the very fine images that adorn this site and a supporter of a club newly arrived in our midst, Wolverhampton Wanderers. Here, Ben conveys his mood as the Old Gold settle back among us. Ben previously authored an astute analysis of the Championship players who featured in last year's UEFA European under-21 Championship for us and can be followed on Twitter at @Apt_Pseudonym. Now, this’ll sound like I’m only saying it to suck up to a lower-league football blog, but I’m quite looking forward to getting back into the Championship. There’s a...

The Monday Profile: Uwe Rösler

Lanterne Rouge — Mon, 14 May 2012 05:59:58 +0000

With Norwegian Ståle Solbakken having recently joined the managerial ranks of English football having cut his teeth in Germany; the similarly coiffeured Uwe Rösler has taken the opposite track as a German who conducted his training in Norway. Like Solbakken, Rösler spent some of his playing career in England although his spell on these shores was a much lengthier and more storied one. Manchester City fans still idolise him as the scorer of a half century of goals for the club and his barnstorming, all action style was perfectly suited to a unit that needed to scrap, a world way from the newly...