English Championship News Archives

Sunday was a momentous day in the English Championship with the teams going up, getting in the play-offs, going down and staying up, changing constantly through ninety breathless, tension filled minutes.

As a Watford fan I was right in there. Looking for other scores as our plan to keep things tight at Blackpool went horribly awry, like so many of our plans over the past few months, going one-nil down after just two minutes.

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Today I want to talk about the Gentlemen’s club that each level of football in England pretends to be. Should any team not deemed worthy of admittance to their particular club have the temerity to be successful and gain promotion to join them, they will be met with criticism, hilarity and condescending pity wherever they go.

The Crystal Palace Chairman Simon Jordan recently made an outrageous comment that Watford last season and Derby currently, have embarrassed the Championship by being so poor in the Premier League. These clubs have had desperately disappointing seasons and have obviously been out of their depth, but that does not make them an embarrassment.

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What a shame it was to see Derby County concede six at home to Aston Villa over the weekend. I’m sure Villa fans and probably all of Derby’s local rivals will have enjoyed the humiliation but no neutral football fans can enjoy watching a team so desperately out of their depth.

I watched my beloved Watford battling away with West Brom to get a ‘well deserved?’ point that keeps both clubs in with a realistic chance of playing Premier League football next year.

The Championship really does seem to be the league that nobody wants to win. The only team in the top few producing anything like promotion form are Hull City, who after becoming firm favourites for promotion fell into the same trap that all of the others have done, and drew 1-1 at home to QPR.

It is a remarkable statistic indeed that Watford have won just eight of their last thirty-one league games but remain just three points behind the league leaders. It is a very strange league.

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One of the many privileges of being a football writer is that occasionally you can be totally self indulgent and write something just to get it off your chest. Today I am going to abuse my position and do just that.

Hello everyone, my name is Graham and I’m a Watford supporter.

I’m thinking of setting up a support group for people just like me. WSA. Watford Supporters Anonymous. I might actually call it Hornets oblivious of Football. HOOF. That’s more appropriate.

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When the full-time whistle blew at Wembley on Sunday afternoon and Cardiff City booked their place in an FA Cup final for the first time in 81 years there was a ray of sunshine over South Wales, but a black cloud hanging over Soho Square.

The prospect of Dave Jones’ mid-table Championship side winning the greatest cup competition in the world on May 17 has thrown up a major quandary for the powers that be on both sides of the border. The English FA Cup winners are guaranteed a place in the following season’s UEFA Cup and that is where the crux of the problem lies. Cardiff are Welsh!

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All English football fans know all about Crystal Palace manager Neil Warnock. He is a manager who you either absolutely love or absolutely hate. For those fans not in England you might not know too much about him.

He is a loud, opinionated and vaguely unpleasant man during games and is constantly in trouble with the FA for comments made, usually involving referees, before, during and after games. Off the field, Warnock seems like a very pleasant family man who is just very passionate about the game of football. He also happens to be a damn good manager.

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The inimitable (we’re running out of adjectives) betting expert Gerry McDonnell gives his take on this weekend’s FA Cup action, Premier League action and all the other action he loves watching on the telly.

The adult film industry has many knockers, but I remain a fully-fledged supporter. My only possible critique would be that the storylines occasionally lack realism. I can’t begin to tell you how disappointed I was with my job as a photocopier repair man.

My wife is a fierce critic of the genre as she incorrectly believes that the art form demeans women. Personally, I think it’s a positive when a hobby becomes an occupation; I would love to get paid for sending nude photographs of myself to Cheryl Tweedy. I’ll have to finance my pastime by backing Portsmouth at 10/11 to beat West Brom in their FA Cup semi-final.

My favourite sub-genre of the adult entertainment industry is the one when two ladies take a spiritual road to self-discovery. There are things I’d rather not see though, and watching Barnsley play Cardiff is the equivalent of watching Lisa Riley tinker with Jade Goody. Cardiff will probably win their semi at 11/8, but I’d rather watch something a little more uplifting.

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I write a lot about the English Championship and in that league the top four, Stoke City, Bristol City, Watford and West Brom, are all doing their level best not to get automatic promotion. Only Stoke have won in their last two games, and that is one in five for them. The rest of the teams can’t buy a win. Despite that, the chasing pack are making no inroads because they can’t win either.

I thought this was because it was a tough league and there were no outstanding teams in it. However, a glance around the top leagues in Europe will show that teams at the top everywhere are trying not to win their leagues.

What is going on? Worldwide corruption? Teams unable to handle the pressure?

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It’s a fact. Nobody wants to go up. Stoke are failing to seriously threaten teams who are reduced to ten men, Bristol City are losing at home, Watford are missing penalties for fun and West Brom are losing 4-1 at home to a relegation threatened team. Just what is going on!

Let’s look at what happened over the weekend:

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So near yet so far away! If Big Darius Henderson had converted from the spot at Ashton Gate I would have been writing this article in a much more optimistic mood. What I didn’t know at the time was that Hendo actually had no chance!

Anyway, there’s a big weekend ahead at both ends of the Championship table. Here’s a look at what happened in midweek:

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Cardiff City compete in their first FA Cup semi-final since 1927, when they take on Championship rivals Barnsley at Wembley next month. With only one Premiership side left in the famous old competition, never has the Welsh side had such a great chance of bringing the Cup back to Ninian Park for the first time in 81 years.

While City fans are concentrating on getting tickets for the big game, the club’s board is focusing on a far greater issue - a make-or-break ruling over the club’s financial future. City’s creditors Langston are taking the Bluebirds to the High Court this week over £24m worth of unpaid loan notes, which chairman Cardiff Peter Ridsdale insists are not due to be repaid until 2016. Should the Swiss-based financier win the court case, Cardiff City would have to make immediate repayments, inevitably forcing the club, already £30m plus in debt, into administration.

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So Watford had a pretty good weekend. They didn’t play, but watched Charlton lose at home, Stoke and Bristol City pick up only a point each and West Brom continue to keep an interest in the FA Cup. Maybe we should have more weekends off!

In a week where Championship footballers have hit the headlines for despicable behaviour and every midweek game bar one has a bearing on promotion or relegation issues, this really is the league to watch at the moment

Results

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I wrote an article about the apparent fear of going up. The excitement of promotion but the almost instant realisation that weekly humiliation may follow. That fear seems to be attacking nearly everyone. Only Bristol City seem to be really marching on proudly towards the Premiership, whilst West Brom may have recovered from their ‘blip’.

Watford don’t have a game this weekend so we have a few days to physically and mentally prepare for the victory at leaders Bristol City next Tuesday.

Midweek Games Review

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Before I start, I’d just like to write a few words about Teddy Sheringham who has announced his retirement from playing at the end of this season. He will be 42 when he finishes and still oozes class. It is a shame that his last season as a player may well end in relegation.

Teddy has been a first team player for 24 years and has made well over 700 senior appearances. He has scored nearly three hundred goals including in the FA Cup final and Champions League final in Manchester United’s treble winning season in 1999. He has 51 England caps with 11 goals to his name.

Never blessed with great pace, Sheringham has been one of the most skillful English players of recent times. His ability to pick out a telling pass has been bettered by very few. His age and injuries have finally caught up with him, but I am sure he will be successful as a coach or manager in the future.

So, back to the Championship, how did the weekend’s fixtures go?

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Back with the fourth installment of his series on exciting young English managers in the Football League, Hugo Steckelmacher looks at Scunthorpe United’s Nigel Adkins, a man hard to pigeon-hole. Come back next week for Paul Ince!

Who needs Mourinho, we’ve got our physio – Scunthorpe fans’ regular chant, home and away.

Nigel Adkins (born 11th March 1965, age 42) is different from other football managers. For one, he was a goalkeeper, and precious few ‘keepers make it into management at the top level. What’s more, his playing career was nothing to write home about, especially compared to his young English managerial colleagues, such as Tony Mowbray and Paul Ince. And finally, he has worked for several years with a Sunday league team, has managed in Ireland, and is a qualified physiotherapist. Confused? Welcome to the hybrid world that is home to Scunthorpe United’s highly-rated manager Nigel Adkins.

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“You’re writing a review of the championship games every Monday, so why don’t you do a preview of the games on Fridays?” Ahmed said to me.

“No problem, I’ll start this week,” I said.

“Yes,” Ahmed continued, “Just do a preview and make some predictions”

That’s where I hit a big problem. As I said in this week’s review, the fact is that every team in the Championship can beat every other one. My track record of predictions has been pretty poor on this site so far, and the prospect of predicting games in this league could completely destroy any vestige of reputation I am clinging on to so desperately.

21st placed Preston sum it up for me really. Last week I was depressed and devastated by the fact that my beloved Watford could only draw with them. In midweek, Preston go and beat the leaders Stoke, and all of a sudden I’m optimistic again and thinking what a great performance we put in last week!

Anyway, here we go with a look at all this weekend’s matches:

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This is the first of what will become a weekly round up of the events in the English Championship. A chance for me to let everyone know how my beloved Watford are doing, and to let you know how much hair I have left and how much of it has gone grey.

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While the Premier League title race rages on, things are edging closer to completion below the top flight.

There are limited spots on the elevator up, but there are plenty of teams trying to throw some elbows and trip some others up to secure their place on the next level.

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As Richard Scudamore and The Premier League continue their campaign for a money spinning 39th fixture abroad, members of England’s Football League go about their daily lives, more concerned with the salient issue of survival.

In the same month the Premiership big boys drooled over the prospects of earning an additional £5m a season for playing overseas, AFC Bournemouth became the latest Football League club to enter administration. Such events serve as a painful reminder to all those who love the beautiful game, that never has the divide between football’s haves and have not’s been as great.

The latest Deloitte Football Money League revealed that six Premiership clubs generated revenue in excess of £100m during the 2006/07 season. That figure is set to grow in the next report, bearing in mind that 2007/08 marks the first campaign under a new television rights deal. Sky and Setanta agreed to a £1.7bn broadcasting contract last summer, which guarantees each team a staggering £28m a season until 2010.

In contrast, The Football League’s latest television package, sold to Sky and BBC in December, will be worth £264m between 2009 to 2011. This works out at just over £1.2m per Football League club per season, with most of that amount likely to go to Championship sides. The prospects for Leagues One and Two therefore, seem particularly grim.

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As we approach the business end of the season the race for success is really starting to hot up with a whole host of clubs all in with a shout of glory!

It’s just a shame I am talking about the Championship as opposed to what has been labelled ‘the greatest league in the world’, the Premier League.

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