The Smell of Football: Mick ‘Baz’ Rathbone’s eventful 35 year-career in football

by

The Smell of Football: Mick 'Baz' Rathbone's eventful 35 year-career in football ‘The Smell of Football’ is the candid story of his eventful 35 year-career in professional football of Mick ‘Baz’ Rathbone.

As a young player crippled by nerves (and an irrational fear of the legendary Trevor Francis!), Baz struggled to hold down a place at his boyhood club, Birmingham City, but went on to forge a distinguished career in the lower leagues with Blackburn and Preston in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

Baz qualified as a physio when his body finally gave in and, after a rollercoaster season battling against the relegation trap door as manager/physio at Halifax, he re-joined Preston where he met up with a young David Moyes. After a successful period at Preston he eventually joined forces again with David at Everton as Head of Sports Medicine.

At Goodison Park he was responsible for the well being of millions of pounds worth of talent – rubbing shoulders with the likes of Duncan Ferguson, Wayne Rooney and Tim Cahill – in a remarkable eight year spell that would take him to the heights of walking out at Wembley on FA Cup Final day.

The book is the honest, uncensored account of life in the dressing room – charting the changing face of football up and down the divisions, from booze-fuelled bus trips and £50 a week pay packets, to the glitz and glamour of the Premiership and its celebrity trappings.




Tapping up is rife in transfer market

by

Tapping up is rife in transfer market The transfer window is about to close for another summer and the process of ‘tapping up’ seems rife across all the sports divisions. Tapping up is the process where club with approach players without the consent of that players club. Many people argue there is not enough protection in the sport from this kind of predatory behaviour. Some people involved with the sport have noted that this process even extends to approaching players on Twitter.

Football rules say that this kind of approach is illegal but according to Harry Redknapp, manager of Tottenham, this has just happened to one of his players, Luke Modric. Redknapp has said, “Someone is clearly whispering in his ear, it’s not a surprise, this kind of predatory behaviour is rife in the sport.” A recent survey has confirmed Redknapp’s opinion as it found that, “only 15% of clubs in the last year felt sure that no one has approached their players illegally.”

A director in the Premier League has said, “This practice is illegal but it is almost impossible to control. Clubs have begun to accept that tapping up will always happen and they are learning to live with it. We recognise that it is wrong, but we cannot stop it.” Clubs are being encouraged to report any suspected attempts of tapping up but this does not seem to be to any great effect.

Another director has said, “The fact that we are not seeing any direct complaints from the clubs means that tapping up is occurring but they believe there is nothing that can be done about it.” In most cases of suspected tapping up, clubs settle before the case is arbitrated by the Premier League. In the past fines by the League have been up to £300,000 and have seen clubs receive significant point reductions.

Helen Flanagan gets VIP treatment at City ground

by

Helen Flanagan gets VIP treatment at City ground Helen Flanagan, the Coronation Street actress, is the girlfriend of footballer Scott Sinclair who plays for Swansea. She was turned away by security from a game last season as security did not recognize her. This season however she was a VIP at the City of Manchester stadium something that, judging from press photographs of the day, seemed to delight her.

The Swansea striker met Flanagan when he was on loan to Chelsea and was living in Manchester. The girlfriends of footballers, WAG’s, are expected to know something about the sport and from the comments of Ms Flanagan it seems she will need to learn a little more about the sport.

The team were brutally beaten by Man City, 4-0, in the match but she commented that, “Swansea played totally amazing today. It seems like they are going to be staying in the Premier League.” This comment caused some people to comment on her Twitter page saying things such as, “Were you actually watching the game? The team were thrashed.”

Even though her opinions on the match were somewhat off, she was at least able to watch it without any trouble. Last season she had come to watch a play-off match between Reading and Swansea and she left the stadium at half time.

When she returned, security did not recognise her and she was turned away. Fortunately for her, while security were not fans of Coronation Street several people watching the match vouched for her identity and she was eventually let back in. This was just in time for her to see her boyfriend score a spectacular hat-trick which catapulted Swansea into the Premier League.

Italian Footballers paid much less than international stars in Serie A

by

This week has seen the very unusual stop of Italian Serie A with Totti, Del Piero, Ibrahimovich, Milito & Co. striking for industrial relations issues linked to the agreement on the collective contract. The main cause sounds marginal to the public audience. However, professional footballers in Italy could have other reasons for striking, above all those holding an Italian passport.

According to a study from Antonio Giangreco and Johan Maes, researchers at IESEG School of Management, Italian players in the major “Serie A” league are significantly less paid than, alternatively, their European or non-European teammates. In fact, starting from secondary data of the four last football seasons, it was found that by average that Italian players earned about 1.00 million euros per year, which is .68 million euros less than other European players and .42 million euros less than non-European players contracted by an Italian football club.

This gap is particularly relevant for defenders and midfielders. In fact, in the season 2007-08, for example, Italian defenders earned “only” 0.53 million euros against 1.3 million made by the other European players and the 1.01 million euros of the non-European players. The statistics for defenders show a similar trend up to the last season with, however, a general decrease of between 10% and 15% for the non-Italian category. Wages for Italian midfielders present, over the same period, the same tendency with a gap even larger at the advantage of European midfielders: for example, 0.96 million euros for 2009-10, and of 0.5 million euros for 2010-11.

The segmentation of footballers according to their performance in four categories (lowest, second lowest, second best, best performers) confirmed the same conclusion for the first season. In fact, Italian players appear to be the least paid within the same category of performers if compared to other European players and non-European players contracted by an Italian football club. The discriminating effect against Italian players becomes milder to the extent that for the last season examined 2010-11, it is true only for top performers. A “cannoniere” is worth less than an international star.

Sir Alex ends his BBC boycott

by

Sir Alex ends his BBC boycott The recent end to the boycott of the BBC by Sir Alex Ferguson has led many people to wonder how it actually begun in the first place. This is a common problem with long running arguments; we sometime forget how it all started.

The conversations between Sir Alex and Mark Thompson, BBC director general, will probably never be known as both parties have agreed to not comment on the talks. The only reason for Ferguson’s original boycott was the BBC airing the documentary ‘Fergie and Son,’ in 2004 – he never actually mentioned what it was in the documentary that affronted him and caused him to boycott the BBC.

The only time he spoke of the BBC since 2004 was in 2007, when he accused the broadcaster of being incredibly arrogant and saying they would never apologise for the content of the documentary. He said the film was very insulting to his son and damaged his honour. He also accused the BBC for making up the contents of the documentary.

The documentary focused on Ferguson’s son, Jason. Alex Millar directed the programme and went back to examine the revelations that the agents Jason had once worked for had got £25,000 for the transfer of Massimo Taibi, a goalkeeper. Other transfers were also examined in the film.

John Magnier and J P McManus, former friends of Ferguson’s had asked nearly one hundred questions about the football clubs financial propriety. These questions were leaked to the Daily Mail and United faced much greater scrutiny. As a response to this, the club decided to conduct a review of all its transfer dealings.

Before the airing of the documentary, the BBC released information about some of the findings that Millar had made. Unexpectedly, and in an attempt to pre-empt the revelations in the film, the club publicly announced that it was reviewing its transfers.