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Written by Christopher Morley
As something of a lapsed Championship/Football Manager player, the suspension of real-world football in light of the coronavirus has given many cause to look back- in between harking to the real world of the game as it was in the early Nineties. That was my own coming of age as a fan, & conversations with an old friend brought up our old Friday night ritual of revisiting the Champ games of a similar vintage, hours spent in his study poring over what, to the non- initiated, might have looked like a sort of virtual Ceefax...
While their latest European sojourn may have been delayed if not yet derailed by coronavirus, Nuno Espirito Santo's Wolves side is by no means the first to get a taste of it. The early Fifties saw the men in old gold become the first club side in England to spend big on floodlights- a £10,000 set up approved at Molineux in 1953. And to show it off they arranged friendlies against the continent's best- one of which was witnessed by L'Equipe editor Gabriel Hanot, so impressed by their 3-2 win over Honved on December 13, 1954 that he felt compelled to call for the creation of a European Cup.
A question that's done the rounds of late concerns what exactly is going on at West Ham? While they have for the most part played fairly well during their recent run of defeats, they have proved to be consistent in their inconsistency- a baffling turn of events which perhaps shares inconvenient timing with protests against the way Davids Gold & Sullivan are running the club.
As Steven Gerrard continues to pick up plaudits for his work since heading north of the border to have a crack at management, what of one of his former team-mates? Outside the regular readership of his column for the Sunday Mirror it’s doubtful that many would even know that Robbie Fowler has gone even further out & is taking on the challenge of getting Brisbane Roar firing again- one of Australia's A-League's oldest clubs predating even the system they play in!
At a time where it seems television rules football, what of its now oft-neglected cousin, the radio? I myself remain a dedicated listener- this is being written after tuning in to West Ham vs Liverpool, a game which up until a few seasons ago I would have attended alongside a Hammers season ticket holding friend.
While he sat in the London Stadium stands watching the red juggernaut carry on in its path, I could still feel a part of things through the medium of sound- as in retrospect has informed much of my life to date.