Section:GDN 1N PaGe:37 Edition Date:190731 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 30/7/2019 20:16 cYanmaGentaYellowb
Wednesday 31 July 2019 The Guardian •Sport^37
FootballSunderland rely on
Grigg to ease pain
of play-off bruises
Title challengers
It was little solace to a sore
Sunderland dressing room at
Wembley in May when Jack Ross
said play-off heartbreak would
strengthen his team but now, 10
weeks on, is the time to prove the
bruising was not lasting. They froze
that day , being too predictable,
sheepish and slovenly in possession.
Ross’s side came away empty-
handed after a 61-game campaign
despite losing only fi ve times in the
regular season.
Supporters felt sure Will Grigg
would fi re them to promotion after
Sunderland had an eighth bid, of
£4m, accepted on deadline day in
January but the striker’s return
of four goals in 18 appearances
was disappointing. If Grigg can
rediscover the form that helped
Wigan to promotion from this
division in 2017-18, when he scored
19 league goals, they will be halfway
there. Given the subsequent arrival
of another sharpshooter Marc
McNulty on a season’s loan from
Reading, Sunderland’s main task
may be how to load them. Lee
Cattermole has departed but they
still possess plenty of nous. In
Jordan Willis, the former Coventry
captain, and George Dobson, they
have another couple of leaders.
Portsmouth were head and
shoulders above most of the division
until suff ering winter blues, which
coincided with Ronan Curtis’s
form tailing off , but the Republic
of Ireland winger should return
stronger after a dream debut season
and Pompey look well equipped
to go the distance. Kenny Jackett
appears to have fi lled the void left
by Matt Clarke, who has joined
Brighton, with the signings of Sean
Raggett and Paul Downing while the
loan capture of Ross McCrorie from
Rangers, who is highly regardedby Steven Gerrard, seems shrewd.
Ellis Harrison failed to make the
grade at Ipswich but the forward
gives Jackett another dimension in
attack. If Jamal Lowe stays put amid
Championship interest, Pompey will
be hard to stop.Play-off contenders
As Peterborough ’s chairman,
Darragh MacAnthony, put it,
they have not messed about this
summer. “We want to deliver an
historic season for our fans and we
believe we can,” he said. “We want
promotion, let’s not make any bones
about it.” Darren Ferguson, in his
third spell at the club, is seeking his
fourth promotion with the m and few
teams can boast such an impressive
attacking armoury. Mo Eisa, from
Cheltenham via Bristol City,
represents their marquee signing,
the striker arriving for a club-record
£1.3m to complement Ivan Toney,
who was prolifi c last season.
Posh have re-signed George
Boyd and again recruited the cream
of the crop from clubs beneath
them, with Frankie Kent arriving
from Colchester, Dan Butler from
Newport, Christy Pym from Exeter
and Serhat Tasdemir, an exciting
teenage winger who started at
Blackburn, signing from Fylde.
Paul Lambert and Ipswich had
four wins in seven months, paving
the way to relegation, but James
Norwood should end their struggle
to score, Alan Judge will terrorise
defenders if he can stay fi t and the
youngsters Flynn Downes, Jack
Lankester and Andre Dozzell, who
has been tracked by Norwich , will
have an opportunity to fl ourish.
To mark a new Oyston-less era
at Blackpool the club re appointed
Simon Grayson as manager. He is a
serial promotion winner from this
division who led the Tangerines to
the Championship in 2007. Sullay
Kaikai, for so long seen as the heir to
Wilfried Zaha at Crystal Palace, is an
exciting signing.
If Coventry can adapt to playing
away from home for the second
time in fi ve years Mark Robins’s
side could threaten, while a more
dynamic Lincoln may surprise
following promotion; Jack Payne,Portsmouth will also be hard
to stop and Darren Ferguson’s
third spell at Peterborough
will provide an extra pushBen FisherJorge Grant and Joe Morrell are
intriguing additions. The incomings
at Shrewsbury suggest Sam
Ricketts’s side are serious about
making a play for the top six. The
35-year-old Millwall striker Steve
Morison arrives on loan. It is diffi cult
to discount Rotherham ’s chances of
bouncing back under the inspiring
Paul Warne, despite losing Semi
Ajayi and Will Vaulks to West Brom
and Cardiff respectively.Relegation candidates
Bolton and Bury have,
inadvertently, spent the summer
battling it out for the tag of the
worst-run club in the country.
Both start a shadow of their former
selves, bogged down and beset by
interminable takeover sagas, with
skeleton squads and a 12-point
deduction. Bury’s plight is such
that their opening game has been
suspended.
Wally Downes worked wonders as
AFC Wimbledon avoided the drop
and has strengthened the squad,
including the intriguing signings
of Nesta Guinness-Walker and
Adam Roscrow from Metropolitan
Police FC and Cardiff Metropolitan
University respectively. Accrington
Stanley, who limbered up for the
new campaign with a friendly win
over Marseille, will be tested as
they seek to avoid second-season
syndrome. Wycombe, Southend ,
Rochdale and Oxford look
worryingly light in key areas.Three players to watch
Brandon Goodship, Southend
The striker came through the
ranks at Bournemouth but had to
drop into non-league in search of
game time. After being released by
Yeovil two years ago Goodship was
a big hit at the part-time Southern
League Premier Division side
Weymouth, scoring 77 goals in 97
games (including fi ve hat-tricks) and
earning England C recognition in
March.George Boyd, Peterborough
Boyd will, according to MacAnthony,
fi nish his Football League career
where he started it more than a
decade ago following his release
by Sheffi eld Wednesday. Ferguson
believes the 31-year-old, who made
his name as a winger, can be a force
in centr al midfi eld.Colby Bishop, Accrington Stanley
The striker has quit teaching PE at a
primary school in Newark to relive
his dream of being a professional
footballer. The 22-year-old dropped
into non-league with Leamington
after being released by Notts County
and caught the eye of John Coleman,
also a former teacher, after scoring
28 goals from October last season.Sky Bet League One previewSouthend will look
for goals from
Brandon Goodship▼ Sunderland reached
Wembley in May at
Portsmouth’s expense
SUNDERLAND VIA GETTY IMAGESFootball League shows some
teeth over Bury but it needs
to improve its takeover rules
Analysis
David ConnF
or supporters of clubs
in crisis who have
repeatedly accused the
English Football League
of weak governance
in recent years, it was
striking to see the league issue an
ultimatum on Monday and fi nally,
determinedly, stick to it. Bury, in
League One, were subjected to a last-
resort measure, of having Saturday’s
opening fi xture suspended , on
the grounds that the owner, Steve
Dale, has not provided the required
information to show how the
stricken club will be funded.
Dale hit back with a
characteristically beefy, pugnacious
statement on Tuesday , arguing
the EFL was “ignoring the facts”,
he had indeed sent full “proof of
funds ”, and accusing it of issuing an
“incendiary statement for no gain to
anybody other than to discredit Bury
FC and it’s [sic] board”.
This sorry mess and fi nancial
collapse, a genuine jeopardy now to
the existence of a club established
in 1885, a member of the Football
League for 125 years, has highlighted
a hole in the EFL rules designed
to protect clubs’ viability. The
league’s position, denied by Dale, is
he has never provided full proof of
funds, as specifi cally required by its
regulations, either before or after his
£1 takeover in December. With the
opening match against MK Dons at
Gigg Lane just days away, the board,
led by the executive chair Debbie
Jevans, could not approve the club
as safe to start.
This requirement that prospective
owners at least show they have
the money to run a club, coupled
with the owners and directors “fi t
and proper persons” test – a most
basic character self-certifi cation- are about the only protections
supporters have when their clubs are
in the process of being taken over.
The “fi t and proper person
test”, introduced in 2004 after
years of resistance to it by the
Premier and Football Leagues, in
eff ect only bars people who have
unspent criminal convictions
for dishonesty, or are currently
disqualifi ed directors or bankrupt.
The unambitious nature of that
quality control has always been a
complaint of supporters who fi nd
their owner behaving disgracefully
or outrageously, and regulations
were passed last summer to also
bar people whose conduct has been
shown to be “clearly damaging to
the standing and reputation of the
wider profession and the game
of football”.
But in a process subject to forensic
legal challenge on every word by
expensively paid lawyers for people
determined to take over clubs, the
detail of that new regulation has
not yet been worked up, so the test
remains basic.
The requirement that a new
owner shows he has the money to
fund a club is the only other vital
step in the process, and there have
been times when the EFL has in
eff ect said publicly it has blocked
a takeover because it has not
been satisfi ed the money is truly
there. In the case of Bury, it is the
EFL’s version of events that Dale
never provided full, satisfactory
proof of funds as required , but he
nevertheless took over the club and
remains the owner. According to
Companies House , he is also Bury’s
sole director – there is no board.D
escending into the
wording of the rules,
a weakness is that
while a new owner
must submit all
relevant fi nancial
information before a takeover or
at the latest within 10 working
days, he can be barred for failing
the “fi t and proper person test ”
but not for failing to provide proof
of funds. The league can refuse
to approve a takeover where a
person has engaged with the
process in advance but apparently
not where, as with Bury – whose
then owner, Stewart Day, was
in fi nancial diffi culties – Dale’s
takeover was concluded quickly
without going through the league’s
requirements fi rst.
The penalty for failing to
provide the necessary information
after a takeover is a player
registration embargo, to which
Bury are subject, and there is
scope for other measures, but the
takeover itself stands.
Hence Bury, a club of precious
heritage with a core of supporters
loyally resisting Manchester’s
Premier League temptations 10
miles to the south, fi nd themselves
in a paralysed standoff , the future
very uncertain. When the volleys
from Dale have been responded
to and the crisis at Gigg Lane
somehow concluded, the EFL
needs to have a fi rm review of its
rules, too.▲ Bury’s fi rst game of the season
has been suspended by the leagueРЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS
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