This week John talks about numerous football clubs including Darlington Spartans FC, looks at basket cases such as Bury and Bolton Wanderers, and returns to his ‘fondness’ for Notts County. He also manages to give us an insight into the development of breakdancing as an Olympic sport, tracing its roots back to the car park of The Greensides and the pavement outside of what was The Devon. He also tells us about when he met Bolton manager Phil Parkinson in the gentlemen’s toilets at a hotel in Bradford – and he needs to provide far more explanation – and hopefully will, next week.Read More →

You could be forgiven for thinking that John plans his articles weeks in advance! The answers to last week’s quiz all seem to be ‘Motherwell’ and this gets him on to asking if Pools are a feeder club for this giant of Scottish football! But it also leads him to a short film from the BBC about Motherwell, the town and the club – an amazing film and the parallels to Hartlepool are powerful. It is worth reading the column just for the link to this film – but he also looks at the success of Cambridge Fans United and concludes by ‘sort of’ inviting the chairman for a pint or three!Read More →