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Championship Play-Off Final Preview: Hammers and Seasiders seek immediate Premier League return

When you get relegated from the Premier League, it’s not easy to get back there quickly. And sometimes, it gets worse before it gets better. Just ask Southampton, who are headed back to the top flight after seven years away – and after being in League One only last year. Or Coventry City, who’ve never…

Birmingham: Premier league dreams, play-off anguish and losing your head

This is a funny old time of year for any team in the Championship. Depending on how you’ve fared, you could be singing, crying, or just plain tearing your hair out. Any team from the Championship can be sorted into one of these categories: 1) Promoted – this is the holy grail of this league,…

Finance in English Football: Wage Disparities Between the Divisions

As the money involved in football increases, so does each individual player’s salary. According to a study, a player at one of the top-flight teams in England earns £1.5 million a year. This compares to the £646,000 of six seasons ago. The disparities of finance between the top division and lower league teams are still…

Npower Championship 2011/2012: Promotion and Relegation Review

The 2011-12 Championship league fixtures have come to an end and finally the automatic promotion positions have been confirmed. However, at the other end of the table, the relegation picture had been clear for some time. The bottom three teams can now begin preparation for a spell in League 1. Below are the final league…

Aston Villa: what if the problem is the club and not McLeish?

This Premier League season has been a memorable one, with the title race again going down to the wire and potentially being settled by a Manchester derby, the new arrivals Norwich and Swansea reminding everyone that the gap in class between the Premier League and the Championship actually isn’t all that great, and the relegation…

Carlsberg’s Euro 2012 Ad

Carlsberg’s Euro 2012 ad is titled “Wearing your passion with passion”. Luckily the ad itself is a lot better than the slogan. Check it out below:

The Championship Race for Promotion: Southampton, Reading and the Play-Off Candidates

With 6 games to go in the season, the race for promotion to the riches of the Premier League is hotting up. It is seemingly a three-horse race for the two automatic promotion places on offer. Southampton and Reading are the two clubs currently in the driving seat but a strong West Ham United side…

Mick McCarthy pays price for misplaced priorities

Wolves have quite literally taken the ‘Mick’ out of their own club following the sacking of Mick McCarthy after just over five and a half years in charge. A difficult season for McCarthy culminated in a crushing 5-1 home defeat to fierce Black Country rivals West Brom. It is a long established fact that in…

English Football Wages: 1984 to 2010

Football wages are a ridiculously easy target – whether it’s the high wages paid by Chelsea and then Manchester City, the astronomical wage bills of Barcelona and Real Madrid fueled by unequal TV deals or the retirement homes that front as football clubs in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, football wages have steadily increased…

Steve McClaren back in English football hoping to inspire Forest renaissance

It has been 1305 days since Steve McClaren stood sombrely alone clutching the handle of an umbrella on a rain-sodden night at Wembley as the England national team failed to qualify for the 2008 European Championships – beaten at home by Croatia. Many lessons were learnt that night, none more so for the man who…