| Wednesday finally step out of the gloom Despite facing a third winding-up order, the promise of new investment has lifted some of the gloom over HillsboroughAlthough Hillsborough sits on the Whitehall spot in the midst of the mid-ranking purple titles on the city's version of the Monopoly board, Sheffield Wednesday have been operating at the Old Kent Road of the market for longer than their fans care to remember, most recently while being mortgaged to the hilt.Failure to beat Crystal Palace in the final game of last season saw the south Londoners survive in the Championship and condemned Wednesday to League One and a 20% drop in income, costing them the services of the chairman, Lee Strafford, and more importantly to the manager, Alan Irvine, his goalkeeper Lee Grant, who was sold to Burnley for around £1m.Irvine's task, meanwhile, after the club overcame two winding-up orders in the summer and wrestle with a £28m debt, is to plan and achieve immediate promotion – the last time they slipped into the third tier, in 2003, it took two seasons until Paul Sturrock did the trick – and to do so despite the loan embargo which comes with the petitions, the third of which has been brought by the taxman for £600,000 and is due to be heard on 17 November.Back in the inaugural season of the Premier League Wednesday kicked off as 5-1 joint favourites with Liverpool and Leeds – better regarded than the eventual winners Manchester United – but after a slow start and despite Trevor Francis's side reaching both cup finals the next spring, the team came seventh. They equalled that placing twice more, the last occasion in 1997, but were relegated under Peter Shreeves in 2000 and after the disastrous appointment of Paul Jewell failed to produce the expected instant return, it has pretty much been downhill from there.Expectation still hangs around Hillsborough like a cloud, however, usually to be followed by a sense of crushing disappointment, but Saturday began with an added tinge of optimism after the chairman, Howard Wilkinson, announced himself to be "cautiously optimistic" he has secured new investment for the club, with a £2m initial payment expected to arrive this week in advance of a takeover which may be worth as much as £17m by a Middle East consortium. It is fronted by the former Wednesday goalkeeper and manager Chris Turner, the man who steered them into League One last time and who is expected to take on an administrative role this time."This is the first time in my memory that any potential investor has actually put some cash on the table," Wilkinson added. "Now we can actually start thinking about the future, not just the present, and certainly not the past."The down-payment would stave off next month's winding-up order and allow Irvine, Wednesday's sixth full-time manager since Jewell got the job in June 2000, to start planning. "If things go the way we want them to go, then perhaps we will be able to get the [loan] embargo lifted next week and do something," Irvine said. "I'm not sure of the timescale and I think we've maybe been in this position before, but it certainly seems to be a big commitment by the potential investors."As with Liverpool, seemingly available at a knockdown £300m – the same price the Indian businessman Ahsan Ali Syed was proposing to pay for Blackburn Rovers two months ago – Wednesday's would-be buyers see the club as undervalued. That leaves Irvine to achieve at least the first of those promotions but after a reasonable start to the season a recent dip – one point from 15 – had begun to get to a crowd who are more than a little impatient, and injuries are starting to stretch the team's meagre resources still further."It could be a coincidence that the problems on the pitch are coming at the same time as problems off the pitch at Liverpool, and likewise that could be the problem here," Irvine said after their second successive league win. "I don't like making excuses but it [the third winding-up order] did coincide with the results going wrong but it shouldn't really be a factor – in some ways it's easier to say that than to actually handle it. A lot of my job in the last month or so has been trying to rebuild confidence and pick people up."Saturday was a case in point, with a win needed to reach the play-off places only for lowly Leyton Orient to play the better football and the crowd of less than 18,000 to resort to booing well-intentioned but misplaced passes during the first half. "The crowd got nervous and the players got very nervous," admitted Irvine, who at half-time challenged his players to demand possession and saw them win the game through Lewis Buxton's back-post header from a corner soon afterwards. "A few players were reluctant to take the ball. That bit of nervousness in the crowd doesn't help but, having said that, they help us in many, many situations."At least they get to sit in a decent stadium and Hillsborough, a regular FA Cup semi-final venue back in the day and still one of the best six grounds in the country, will host World Cup games if England's 2018 bid is successful and must have been a deal-clincher for the would-be investor, although unaccountably the compiler of Sheffield Monopoly managed to slip United's Bramall Lane into the slightly more expensive Northumberland Avenue spot. Such is the lot of a Wednesday fan.Sheffield WednesdayLeague OneMark Tallentireguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Revolution beats Dynamo 2-1 Kheli Dube scored in the 73rd minute to lead the New England Revolution to a 2-1 win over the Houston Dynamo on Sunday night. rssfeeds.usatoday.com |
Football transfer rumours: Bastian Schweinsteiger to Manchester United? | Barry Glendenning Today's tell-all is told that every known football rumour in the world is gathered into the horseshoe of the CarpathiansAware that his ambitious striker Wayne Rooney got a close-up view of exactly how good German midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger can be on a field in Bloemfontein almost four months ago to the day, Sir Alex Ferguson will demonstrate Manchester United's ambition by bringing the one-man Panzer division to Old Trafford from Bayern Munich's Allianz Arena. According to offside.com, the Manchester United manager has unselfishly put the £35m-rated 26-year-old "at the very top of his wish list", selflessly relegating his longheld dreams of being a little bit taller, invisible for a day and blessed with the ability to converse with animals down the pecking order.The same website reveals that Liverpool manager Roy Hodgson is considering "an audacious swoop" for Everton midfielder Steven Pienaar. Born and reared in Westbury, a violent township on the outskirts of Johannesburg where Pienaaar says "gang violence, drug dealing and shootings were everywhere". A fraught upbringing spent dodging stray bullets helped prepared Pienaar for life on Merseyside, where he has fared so well at Goodison Park, although the 28-year-old South Africa international whose contract expires next summer could be forgiven by having his dreadlocked head turned by reported interest from Spurs, Inter and Juve, who are all circling and ready to pounce.Scoring hat-tricks against Inter in one game, then finding himself trapped alongside some spare change, a set of keys and a mobile phone in Phil Neville's pocket the next, it's been a tumultuous few days in the life of Tottenham Hotspur golden boy Gareth Bale, who's being linked with a "big money move" to Chelsea this morning. Quite what Harry Redknapp will make of all those giant novelty £50 notes remains unclear.Speaking of Inter, the Serie A club's president has filled a bucket with water, left it in his fridge overnight and gleefully poured the contents all over yesterday's speculation linking Dutch midfielder Wesley Sneijder with a move to Manchester United. "I think this week he will renew his contract," Milan's answer to JR Ewing told Italy's answer to Sky Sports News reporter Nick Collins.Ian Holloway has admitted that, despite the leaden-footed touch inside his own penalty area that gifted Birmingham a goal on Saturday, Blackpool midfielder Charlie Adam is almost certain to be a target for wealthier clubs in January. Signed from Rangers for £500,000, the young Scottish midfielder has been a revelation at Bloomfield Road. "I know Charlie's a brilliant player and I have a lot of good players who, cunningly, we're not paying a lot of money to," revealed Holloway. "Others will see that and they'll covet them and then come in, and I won't be able to do a damn thing - that's why I was so vocal the other day," added Holloway, whose recent sermon about all that is wrong about modern football finance might have held more water if the well-intentioned man delivering it hadn't been sitting in front of a backdrop plastered with ads for a moneylending cash advance company that charges a vig of 2,689% APR.Italy's Tutto Mercato website may sound like a cup of something hot, expensive, foamy and covered in chocolate sprinkles, but that hasn't stopped it revealing that FC Schalke 04 centre-back Benedikt Howedes is "back in Arsenal's sights". Crouched over his Brown Precision Tactical Elite sniper's rifle with one eyed closed as he makes minor adjustments to the scope's crosshairs, Arsène Wenge may have to wait some time before getting the perfect shot.Monaco's Congolese striker Dieumerci Mbokani is wanted by Harry Redknapp, who has also been busily sticking up for Peter Crouch. "He gives you something else," said Redknapp, stopping short of divulging whether the something else in question is a rousing rendition of Starship's We Built This City at the club Christmas party, thoughtful but inexpensive birthday presents, or something more mundane and unpleasant, such as fleas.Barry Glendenningguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
FIFA widens World Cup corruption probe FIFA widened its probe into alleged World Cup bidding corruption Monday after a former leading administrator reportedly claimed two candidates have colluded to trade votes. cbc.ca |
Goal: Paul, the Octopus Who Predicted World Cup Matches, Dies Paul the octopus, whose record predicting World Cup soccer games was unmatched by mollusk or man, has died. He was 2 years old. feeds.nytimes.com |