Football
League Two: Tight at the top – twelve teams separated by five points
Fleetwood turned to the inexperienced Charlie Adam as manager last season but he could not prevent relegation from League One.
The Scotsman has the Cod Army in the final play-off spot, playing an attractive possession-based style but they could drop out of the top seven on Saturday with their game against Colchester postponed because of international call-ups.
After defeat by Crawley in the play-off final, Crewe have regrouped and five wins from six matches has them in eighth place before their trip to Doncaster.
The Gresty Road club lost the goals of Elliott Nevitt and Courtney Baker-Richardson in the summer when they turned down new deals, while Rio Adebisi and Luke Offord also opted for pastures new.
Manager Lee Bell did convince forward Chris Long to sign a new contract and former Stevenage striker Kane Hemmings will have to plug the gap up front.
Bradford are always tipped to be up among the frontrunners and in Graham Alexander they have a man who has promotion experience from League Two with Fleetwood.
The Bantams also have the prolific Andy Cook, and if he stays fit they will surely remain in the frame.
Newport are going down a different route after dispensing with the services of Graham Coughlan and appointing the former Swansea coach, Nelson Jardim.
The Portuguese is well known to Newport owner Huw Jenkins from their time together at Liberty Stadium, and the loan signing of striker Kyle Hudlin looks a smart piece of business.
Along with Bradford and Newport, Grimsby find themselves just one point outside the play-off spots with manager David Artell waxing lyrical about their recent win at Gillingham.
A subsequent 3-0 home defeat by Doncaster felt like a dose of reality and they will need to plug a leaky defence which is the third worst in the division.
Fresh from romping to the National League title by 12 points, Chesterfield were many pundits’ tip for promotion and, despite an inconsistent start, a four-match unbeaten run may indicate they are getting to grips with things.
With James Berry, Armando Dobra, Will Grigg and Dilan Markanday in his ranks, manager Paul Cook is well stocked with the firepower needed to sustain a promotion push.
A lunchtime win over Notts County for the Spireites would push them up from 12th to seventh.
A derby in League Two with revenge the order of the day – is there a better way to start your EFL weekend?
Chesterfield and Notts County are just 28 miles apart but in 2023 both teams and 38,000 fans headed down the M1 motorway to Wembley for the National League Play-off final.
The Spireites twice took the lead only for the Magpies to peg them back and take the game to extra time.
County’s substitute goalkeeper Archie Mair, brought on to replace Sam Slocombe in the 120th minute, then saved spot-kicks from Darren Oldaker and Jeff King before Cedwyn Scott sealed a dramatic 4-3 shootout triumph.
Chesterfield did end their six-year exile in non-league 12 months later, however, cruising to the National League title.
The Spireites have made a steady start to this campaign, losing only two of their opening 10 games and know a win would take them within a point of County, who have also lost only twice.
They are unbeaten at home, drawing four of their five matches, while the Magpies are unbeaten on the road, with 11 points from their five away games making this their best start to a campaign on their travels in a decade.
The referee for this one is Matt Corlett, who also officiated on that sultry day last May, dishing out six bookings, three to either side.
Former Hibernian, Liverpool and Scotland midfielder Peter Cormack has died at the age of 78.
Cormack, who earned nine international caps, won two league titles, the Uefa Cup and FA Cup during a four-year spell at Anfield between 1972 and 1976 working under manager Bill Shankly.
Born in Edinburgh, he was a youth signing with Heart of Midlothian, but it was with city rivals Hibs where he broke into the first team, playing 182 times across seven years before moving to Nottingham Forest, Liverpool and Bristol City, with whom he won the Anglo-Scottish Cup.
He returned to Scotland for a second spell at Easter Road before finishing his playing career with Partick Thistle.
Cormack began his managerial career with Thistle and also had spells in charge of Anorthosis, Botswana, Cowdenbeath and Greenock Morton.
Paul Scally has been voted off the board at Gillingham after 29 years at the club.
The former chairman sold his majority stake to American businessman Brad Galinson in December 2022 but continued to serve as a non-executive director.
He was officially voted out of the position by shareholders on Thursday after Galinson called a meeting at Priestfield Stadium.
“We are very frustrated with how little we can say about it,” Galinson told a fan forum event on Thursday evening.
“Mr Scally was removed as a director both at the football club and GFC Holdings, so that was concluded. It’s been a difficult process.”
It ends the 69-year-old’s association with the club with immediate effect.
Gillingham were relegated to League Two in 2022 after nine seasons in League One.
They are aiming to gain promotion this season, and sit in second place before their home game against Accrington Stanley on Saturday.
England interim manager Lee Carsley says the Three Lions “have to be courageous at times” after his attacking line-up failed to impress in a 2-1 defeat by Greece.
Source link
In their latest Nations League fixture Northern Ireland will take on Belarus in Hungary on Saturday, the neutral venue the result of Uefa restrictions on the hosts. Fifty years ago, it was Northern Ireland playing in homes away from home with no international football staged in Belfast between October 1971 and April 1975. BBC Sport NI looks back on the side’s nomadic years.
Sammy McIlroy still vividly remembers what it was like to see George Best in the flesh for the first time.
While the two would later become Manchester United and Northern Ireland team-mates, for a 13-year-old to watch the soon-to-be Ballon d’Or winner against Scotland at Windsor Park in October 1967 was “absolutely mesmerising”.
“To this day I can still see things George did with the ball,” remembers the midfielder who went on to win 88 Northern Ireland caps before managing his country.
“I’ll never forget it. The crowd, the atmosphere, it was electric.
“I’d never seen anything like that, a player with the ball tied to his boots. It just made me want to go back home and get the ball out on the street.”
It would be a rare privilege soon denied to the people of Northern Ireland.
By the time of McIlroy’s own international debut against Spain in a Euro ’72 qualifier just five years later, Northern Ireland were the “home” team in a game staged at Hull City’s Boothferry Park, an arrangement enabled by Terry Neill being the player-manager of both sides.
The early 1970s provided the bloodiest years of the Troubles, the name given colloquially to the decades-long sectarian conflict in the country and, after a 1-1 draw against the USSR in October 1971, Northern Ireland was deemed unsafe to host international football.
“To be honest, I was devastated it wasn’t in Belfast,” says McIlroy of the 1-1 draw with Spain, the first of 18 consecutive fixtures played outside of Northern Ireland.
“I was delighted to play, to make my debut for Northern Ireland, it just took the gloss off it that it wasn’t in Belfast in front of my home fans. That was very, very sad.”
During the following years Northern Ireland would play in front of a small mix of expats and curious locals, using Goodison Park, Highfield Road, Hillsborough and Craven Cottage just to fulfil their World Cup ’74 qualifying fixtures, as well as those in the British Home Nations Championship.
Goalkeeper Angus Gunn is injured.
So are right-backs Aaron Hickey and Nathan Patterson. And three starting central defenders in the shape of Jack Hendry, Scott McKenna and Kieran Tierney.
Second-choice left-back Greg Taylor is hobbled too.
Lewis Ferguson, John McGinn and Stuart Armstrong will be at home instead of in the Scotland midfield.
And strikers Tommy Conway and Lawrence Shankland are absent too.
It leaves the squad looking alarmingly undermanned, but can you eke a coherent XI out of the players who are left behind?
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoHow to unsnarl a tangle of threads, according to physics
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoHyperelastic gel is one of the stretchiest materials known to science
-
Technology3 weeks agoWould-be reality TV contestants ‘not looking real’
-
Womens Workouts3 weeks ago3 Day Full Body Women’s Dumbbell Only Workout
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoMaxwell’s demon charges quantum batteries inside of a quantum computer
-
Science & Environment3 weeks ago‘Running of the bulls’ festival crowds move like charged particles
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoLiquid crystals could improve quantum communication devices
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoQuantum ‘supersolid’ matter stirred using magnets
-
News4 weeks ago
the pick of new debut fiction
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoITER: Is the world’s biggest fusion experiment dead after new delay to 2035?
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoHow to wrap your mind around the real multiverse
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoSunlight-trapping device can generate temperatures over 1000°C
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoWhy this is a golden age for life to thrive across the universe
-
News3 weeks agoOur millionaire neighbour blocks us from using public footpath & screams at us in street.. it’s like living in a WARZONE – WordupNews
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoQuantum forces used to automatically assemble tiny device
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoNerve fibres in the brain could generate quantum entanglement
-
Science & Environment2 weeks agoX-rays reveal half-billion-year-old insect ancestor
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoPhysicists are grappling with their own reproducibility crisis
-
Business2 weeks ago
Eurosceptic Andrej Babiš eyes return to power in Czech Republic
-
News4 weeks ago▶️ Hamas in the West Bank: Rising Support and Deadly Attacks You Might Not Know About
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoTime travel sci-fi novel is a rip-roaringly good thought experiment
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoLaser helps turn an electron into a coil of mass and charge
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoNuclear fusion experiment overcomes two key operating hurdles
-
Technology2 weeks agoIs sharing your smartphone PIN part of a healthy relationship?
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoCaroline Ellison aims to duck prison sentence for role in FTX collapse
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoA slight curve helps rocks make the biggest splash
-
News3 weeks agoYou’re a Hypocrite, And So Am I
-
Sport3 weeks agoJoshua vs Dubois: Chris Eubank Jr says ‘AJ’ could beat Tyson Fury and any other heavyweight in the world
-
News3 weeks ago▶️ Media Bias: How They Spin Attack on Hezbollah and Ignore the Reality
-
Technology2 weeks ago‘From a toaster to a server’: UK startup promises 5x ‘speed up without changing a line of code’ as it plans to take on Nvidia, AMD in the generative AI battlefield
-
Football2 weeks agoFootball Focus: Martin Keown on Liverpool’s Alisson Becker
-
News4 weeks agoNew investigation ordered into ‘doorstep murder’ of Alistair Wilson
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoRethinking space and time could let us do away with dark matter
-
News3 weeks ago
The Project Censored Newsletter – May 2024
-
Technology2 weeks agoQuantum computers may work better when they ignore causality
-
Business2 weeks ago
Should London’s tax exiles head for Spain, Italy . . . or Wales?
-
MMA2 weeks agoConor McGregor challenges ‘woeful’ Belal Muhammad, tells Ilia Topuria it’s ‘on sight’
-
Sport2 weeks agoWatch UFC star deliver ‘one of the most brutal knockouts ever’ that left opponent laid spark out on the canvas
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoA new kind of experiment at the Large Hadron Collider could unravel quantum reality
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoFuture of fusion: How the UK’s JET reactor paved the way for ITER
-
News3 weeks ago
Israel strikes Lebanese targets as Hizbollah chief warns of ‘red lines’ crossed
-
Technology2 weeks agoGet ready for Meta Connect
-
Business1 week ago
Ukraine faces its darkest hour
-
Health & fitness3 weeks agoThe secret to a six pack – and how to keep your washboard abs in 2022
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoWhy we need to invoke philosophy to judge bizarre concepts in science
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoA tale of two mysteries: ghostly neutrinos and the proton decay puzzle
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoUK spurns European invitation to join ITER nuclear fusion project
-
Health & fitness2 weeks agoThe 7 lifestyle habits you can stop now for a slimmer face by next week
-
Technology3 weeks agoThe ‘superfood’ taking over fields in northern India
-
CryptoCurrency3 weeks agoCardano founder to meet Argentina president Javier Milei
-
Politics3 weeks ago
UK consumer confidence falls sharply amid fears of ‘painful’ budget | Economics
-
MMA3 weeks agoRankings Show: Is Umar Nurmagomedov a lock to become UFC champion?
-
News3 weeks agoWhy Is Everyone Excited About These Smart Insoles?
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoMeet the world's first female male model | 7.30
-
News3 weeks agoFour dead & 18 injured in horror mass shooting with victims ‘caught in crossfire’ as cops hunt multiple gunmen
-
Womens Workouts3 weeks ago3 Day Full Body Toning Workout for Women
-
Technology2 weeks agoRobo-tuna reveals how foldable fins help the speedy fish manoeuvre
-
News4 weeks agoHow FedEx CEO Raj Subramaniam Is Adapting to a Post-Pandemic Economy
-
Health & fitness3 weeks agoThe maps that could hold the secret to curing cancer
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoBeing in two places at once could make a quantum battery charge faster
-
CryptoCurrency3 weeks agoLow users, sex predators kill Korean metaverses, 3AC sues Terra: Asia Express
-
Womens Workouts3 weeks agoBest Exercises if You Want to Build a Great Physique
-
Womens Workouts3 weeks agoEverything a Beginner Needs to Know About Squatting
-
TV3 weeks agoCNN TÜRK – 🔴 Canlı Yayın ᴴᴰ – Canlı TV izle
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoCNN TÜRK – 🔴 Canlı Yayın ᴴᴰ – Canlı TV izle
-
Servers computers2 weeks agoWhat are the benefits of Blade servers compared to rack servers?
-
Technology2 weeks agoThe best robot vacuum cleaners of 2024
-
Business3 weeks ago
JPMorgan in talks to take over Apple credit card from Goldman Sachs
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoQuantum time travel: The experiment to ‘send a particle into the past’
-
CryptoCurrency3 weeks agoDecentraland X account hacked, phishing scam targets MANA airdrop
-
CryptoCurrency3 weeks agoBitcoin miners steamrolled after electricity thefts, exchange ‘closure’ scam: Asia Express
-
CryptoCurrency3 weeks agoDorsey’s ‘marketplace of algorithms’ could fix social media… so why hasn’t it?
-
CryptoCurrency3 weeks agoDZ Bank partners with Boerse Stuttgart for crypto trading
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoMost accurate clock ever can tick for 40 billion years without error
-
CryptoCurrency3 weeks agoBitcoin bulls target $64K BTC price hurdle as US stocks eye new record
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoHow one theory ties together everything we know about the universe
-
News3 weeks agoChurch same-sex split affecting bishop appointments
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoTiny magnet could help measure gravity on the quantum scale
-
CryptoCurrency3 weeks agoBlockdaemon mulls 2026 IPO: Report
-
Sport3 weeks agoUFC Edmonton fight card revealed, including Brandon Moreno vs. Amir Albazi headliner
-
Business3 weeks ago
Thames Water seeks extension on debt terms to avoid renationalisation
-
CryptoCurrency3 weeks agoEthereum is a 'contrarian bet' into 2025, says Bitwise exec
-
CryptoCurrency3 weeks agoCoinbase’s cbBTC surges to third-largest wrapped BTC token in just one week
-
Politics3 weeks ago
‘Appalling’ rows over Sue Gray must stop, senior ministers say | Sue Gray
-
News2 weeks agoUS Newspapers Diluting Democratic Discourse with Political Bias
-
Politics3 weeks agoTrump says he will meet with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi next week
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoPhysicists have worked out how to melt any material
-
CryptoCurrency3 weeks agoRedStone integrates first oracle price feeds on TON blockchain
-
CryptoCurrency3 weeks ago‘No matter how bad it gets, there’s a lot going on with NFTs’: 24 Hours of Art, NFT Creator
-
Science & Environment3 weeks agoHow do you recycle a nuclear fusion reactor? We’re about to find out
-
Business3 weeks ago
How Labour donor’s largesse tarnished government’s squeaky clean image
-
Technology3 weeks agoiPhone 15 Pro Max Camera Review: Depth and Reach
-
News3 weeks agoBrian Tyree Henry on voicing young Megatron, his love for villain roles
-
News3 weeks ago
Brian Tyree Henry on voicing young Megatron, his love for villain roles
-
Travel2 weeks agoDelta signs codeshare agreement with SAS
-
Politics2 weeks agoHope, finally? Keir Starmer’s first conference in power – podcast | News
-
CryptoCurrency3 weeks agoLouisiana takes first crypto payment over Bitcoin Lightning
-
CryptoCurrency3 weeks agoCrypto scammers orchestrate massive hack on X but barely made $8K
-
CryptoCurrency3 weeks agoTelegram bot Banana Gun’s users drained of over $1.9M
-
CryptoCurrency3 weeks agoSEC asks court for four months to produce documents for Coinbase
You must be logged in to post a comment Login