The Floodlight

Before last night, football had only brought a tear to my eye a grand total of four times in my thirty three years on this earth. Twice it involved my club side, the first occasion was when I was either ten or eleven years old and looking forward to a trip to Wembley for a play off final that never materialised despite a what seemed like a healthy first leg lead. The second time was after a last minute winner secured promotion on the final day of the season. The other two times involved Gareth Southgate. Yesterday, without a ball being kicked, football brought a tear to my eye once again. Somewhere between scrolling through Netflix looking for something to watch and checking social media, I stumbled across a video from a club team I didn't even support. The video was of their home stadium, almost filled to capacity on what looked like a nice sunny day, in the final minutes before the teams came out to kick off. It seemed like every man woman and child in the stadium was belting out

Being a Southend United fan cannot be easy. However, over the past two seasons it will have been even more difficult for Shrimpers fans to keep the faith. Having escaped relegation on goal difference in the 2018/19 season, the arrival of Sol Campbell as manager did nothing to halt the clubs slide in the shortened 19/20 League One campaign. The season was a dismal one for the Roots Hall club, as they only recorded 4 wins, and were only saved from the embarrassment of finishing bottom by two things, the first being Bolton Wanderers points deduction, and the second being the abrupt finish to football outside of the top two divisions. It should come as no surprise then, that the club went into the off season looking for a new manager following the departure of Campbell. The man they have chosen to take over the reigns is former Weymouth manager, Mark Molesley. It's fair to say that Molesley's path to the Roots Hall hotseat is much different to that of his predecessor. Whilst Campbe

It was announced today that FA Cup replays would not be taking place during the forthcoming season. For many years now, managers of the top teams and other figureheads of the English game have been calling for this change, with their argument being centred around fixture congestion. There are two counters to this argument. The first being from traditionalists, who don't want to format of the worlds oldest cup competition to change, but the second, and much more important argument, is about the money these replays can generate for cash strapped clubs plying their trade in the lower reaches of the game. The financial argument against the scrapping of FA Cup replays has now been removed from the debate, at least for the 2020/21 edition of the tournament, by the restrictions on supporters attending games. It is probably in the interests of lower league clubs to incur the costs of hosting additional fixtures without the presence of the financial incentive to do so, especially at a time

Bristol City’s 1-0 defeat to Cardiff shortly after the resumption of Championship football spelled the end of Lee Johnson’s 4 year stint in charge at Ashton Gate. Despite being popular with many Robins fans for his time as a player during his father Gary’s successful reign in the BS3 hotseat, many supporters on the red half of Bristol felt that the club, whilst secure in the Championship, was never going to challenge for promotion under Johnson. The news of Johnson’s departure was met with a wave of optimism from fans, hoping that the next man in charge would be the one to take Bristol City into the top six of the Championship, and beyond. One name seemed to be on the lips of every City fan, a man by the name of Chris Hughton. It’s easy to see why any Championship club would want Hughton, currently out of work, in charge of footballing affairs. His track record of getting clubs out of the division and into the Premier League is undeniable, and here is a club, with a very wealthy owner,