Tiny Tom and the fake blood

In response to the revealing of the final judgement and transcript of the Bloodgate affair, I thought it only right to publish a verdicty myself. The following also appeared on the bbc website.

Having followed this debacle pretty much throughout, I was looking forward to hearing the "whole story". First up I'd have to say that Tom Williams comes out of this rather less covered in glory than he'd have hoped by coming clean/shopping his colleagues and employers.

As Simon Austin on bbc.co.uk points out, Harlequins offered him financial inducements not to fully disclose, but I for one would have thought that everything he has revealed (his blackmail of the club for a mortgage pay off included) should have resulted in a longer ban rather than a reduction. When this wasn't forthcoming he blew the whole story out of the water which seems like a criminal case to answer if Harlequins want to pursue this (which I guess they won't).

Not that it matters, as I'm sure he'll not be playing in the premiership for quite a while - I can't think of any team wanting to touch him. For someone who was told he was "on the fringes of England squad", he seemed quite prepared to knife in the back the guy who'd got him there. He comes across as a bit of a weasel with no backbone. As a professional, and a grown adult more to the point, he had the option to say no, and if the coach then wouldn't pick him, move to another club because he was "on the fringes of the England squad". It all seems like excuses and a poor attempt to save his own skin, which will hopefully have ruined his career as much as a year ban would have.

At least Dean Richards has taken his medicine, which sadly may be career-ending. All the Quins fans who've jumped on the bandwagon to talk about him as a domineering ogre have conveniently forgotten where they were when he took over, and where he has led them to. You can't have it both ways folks - good cop obviously doesn't work, but bad cop managed a great deal of success, both at Leicester and Quins.

It's a shame Richards got involved in this, as I think he'd have made a great England coach, but I would suggest that as this seems to be the tip of an iceberg, a 3 year ban does seeem excessive. I would argue that it was a case of a streetwise coach exploiting a loophole in the laws which needs to be closed. This is no different in my opinion to Batsmen in cricket being offered the light and taking it when it's still fine for play, or a football manager getting a 5th player sent off or injured to get the game abandoned (I think Sheff Utd did this once).

It seems like English Rugby needs a clean up after this blood letting, but I'm absolutely positive that we're not on our own.

Magpies and shiny things

Finally, the start of the new football season has arrived, and men everywhere can stop annoying their wives and girlfriends and enjoy control over the remote control again.

Obviously the main areas of interest over the summer have revolved around finances. Those clubs with money and those clubs feeling the strain of having none.  For every Manchester City there is a Portsmouth, for every Notts County, a Chester City.  The summer has seen some intriguing developments, but surely none more astounding than the arrival of the Munto consortium in Nottingham, offering Sven Goran Eriksson the chance to end his exile from club football.

I've previously mentioned the decline of Notts County, from the top tier of English football in the mid-1980s, to almost going out of the football league and out of business several times since 2000.  As a football fan there are two things to think about in the Notts County equation. Firstly, what are the implications for the team themselves, and secondly, what does this mean for the game as a whole.

The Notts County team finished near the bottom of the entire 92 team league pyramid last season, but seems to have been picked specifically for the potential they have.  They are the 2nd team in a major city so have a large potential audience, have a ground much larger than most of the teams in the division above, were owned by a fan group and therefore had no chance of any major cash injection, and most importantly were so low that the only way was indeed "up".

Whatever your view of Sven Goran Eriksson, and I for one would consider him a one-dimensional tactician as a manager, he certainly has the contacts you would need when looking to re-build a club.  It's interesting that he's seen fit to join such a project, regardless of the £2m salary, which I'm sure he doesn't need anyway after his England pay-off.  He's rumoured to have taken shares, a seat on the board and a performance related contract.

The incumbent manager Ian MacParland has, for now, retained his job in charge of what, at league 2 level at least, is an all-star equivalent of Manchester City squad.  Their strikeforce alone were all plying their trade 2 leagues above just  season ago, which is apparent from 9 goals in their first 2 league games.

It will be interesting to see how MacParland fares if results start to go a little awry, or Notts aren't running away with the league come Christmas.  Come to think of it, the case will be almost identical for Mark Hughes if City aren't achieving their goals by transfer window time. Undoubtedly both clubs will have the finance in place to make extensive signings to strengthen the charge for play-offs/promotion or European places (or even the title), and will want to make sure the right man is in place to carry them onwards.  It is difficult to see how either could fail with bottomless pits of cash to spend, but there will still be a test of their respective coaching abilities.

Strangely a stated objective of Munto is to get Notts back in the Championship within 5 years. Strange because it's not overly ambitious, if anything it's somewhat conservative, but it does seem that the UAE backers are looking to rebuild the club as a whole rather than gloss over the longstanding cracks with superficial (and transient) signings.

Whatever happens with Eriksson, and however long he stays, the spotlight shining on Notts County has almost certainly saved the world's oldest football league club from the ignominy of relegation to the blue square premier or administration.  Who would have thought that they'd be mentioning Pavel Nedved and Luis Figo in the same breath as the magpies.

Whilst a new generation of football fans in Nottingham will randomly grow up enjoying the glitz of the black and white half of town for a few years, it can't be a bad thing for football if one more club is saved from going out of existence, and more clubs benefit from Notts being able to throw a few Emirati pounds around.