With the British and Irish Lions having just concluded a successful and hard-fought tour of Australia, despite losing the third and final Test in the series, we can cross from Down Under to back home at Blackheath FC, a Football Association founder member club which eventually swapped the round ball for its oval cousin…
After an ultimately disappointing tilt at the play-offs last season, will the Cider Army be able to march on, following Liam Manning's exit to return closer to home at Norwich. and finally make Bristol home to a Premier League club? It oozes potential as we tick ever closer to the Championship's 2025/26 kick-off, after the aggregate 6-0 defeat by Sheffield United, across two three-goal encounters, ensured it was the Blades who went to Wembley to take on Sunderland for a chance for either to return to the top tier.
The assertion that the signature of any player can quite literally change the identity of a club is so often hyperbole. However, is there a case for saying John Aldridge's arrival at Real Sociedad in the September of 1989, having found his first-team opportunities at Anfield limited by the emergence of Ian Rush and Peter Beardsley as Kenny Dalglish's preferred front two for Liverpool, did just that?
Back on April 12th the time had come for the next in our increasingly long line of football away day pilgrimages. This time we were heading towards the midlands and had chosen The Hawthorns as the venue for our latest first-time football experience. West Bromwich Albion were hosting Watford FC, with just a point between the clubs and both of them still harbouring ambitions for the Championship play-offs. As things have turned out, this would be my fourth time watching The Hornets, home and away, in the past couple of years. Amazingly, by the standards of Gino Pozzo, Tom Cleverley has been the manager of the away side for more than a year now, although it remains to be seen if he survives the coming summer.
Given that Portsmouth Women won promotion under Jay Sadler's stewardship last season at roughly around the same time as the men wrapped up the League One title, its perhaps not entirely surprising that both initially struggled to make the step up. However, John Mousinho's boys have given themselves a fighting chance with a good recent run of form, particularly at home, to take themselves up to seventeenth in the table after a long while spent looking up.