As the stirrings of a new academic year continue to evolve, the time is surely right to look back at a university challenge of a different nature- balancing the twin demands of studies towards degrees and lower-tier professional football! Such was the task facing Team Bath, affiliated to the city's university since its formation in 1999 and enjoying a relatively quick rise up the pyramid before disbanding in 2009.
The 2022/23 Serie A season has a new kid on the block in the guise of A.C. Monza. The club has spent most of the 21st Century in a state of financial woe, twice being declared bankrupt (in 2004 and 2015) and languishing between the third and fourth tiers of Italian football, but now they are gracing the top flight for the first time in their history.
They say you never forget your first, and the new- or should that be not so new- Barcelona have been giving your correspondent cause to look back, all misty-eyed, at the sort of chance most of us who follow the enthralling and at times downright unforgiving mistress that is football crave- a visit to the Nou Camp. As a fresh- faced (well, at least fresher than nowadays) eighteen year old young buck, the morning of February 17, 2005 brought with it a surprise possibly even greater than the fact I was old enough to both drink and vote now- my parents had actually listened to the sort of wittering about the beautiful game that I could have sworn had driven them to distraction and we were off to Catalonia's great other cathedral besides the Sagrada Familia.
Many may remain bemused by the spectacle of Premier League teams travelling halfway around the world to play each other in friendlies- see the likes of Manchester United's recent 4-0 pre-season win over Liverpool in Bangkok to start the Erik Ten Hag era- but lest we forget there was a time when the league themselves actively encouraged it!
As the dust settled on what will most likely be regarded as a flop Nations League campaign for the Three Lions, Gareth Southgate could be forgiven for questioning whether it’s worth staying on at St George's Park beyond the World Cup. Instead, should he take the admittedly left- field step of leaving it all behind, and might he do as at least two of his predecessors have and seek career rehabilitation, of a sort, in Holland?