All posts by Mark Critchley

As It Happened: FA Trophy Final: North Ferriby v Wrexham

Wrexham took on North Ferriby United in the 2015 FA Trophy Final at Wembley.

The Welsh side had not had the best of seasons up to this point and the pressure was on manager Kevin Wilkin. Anything less than victory over Ferriby, a team from a town of just 3,893, would have been seen as a disaster.

Wrexham won this competition in 2013 with a penalty shoot-out victory over fellow big fish Grimsby Town. North Ferriby, meanwhile, had never reached this stage of the Trophy before.

What were the chances that they would be taken to spot-kicks again, this by relative minnows from the second tier of non-league football?

Our man @mjcritchley was there to describe the action…

 

Live Blog FA Trophy Final: Wrexham v North Ferriby
 

@mjcritchley

An image of Brisbane Road, Leyton Orient's home ground.

Bring your dinner: A meeting with John Sitton

It’s half-time. Leyton Orient are trailing 1-0 to Blackpool at home. Having just sacked a long-serving player, a member of the club’s embattled managerial duo now turns to two youngsters who have disobeyed his tactical instructions.

“You, you little c**t, when I tell you to do something, and you, you f***ing big c**t, when I tell you to do something, do it. And if you come back at me, we’ll have a f***ing right sort-out in here. All right? And you can pair up if you like, and you can f***ing pick someone else to help you, and you can bring your f***ing dinner, ‘cos by the time I’ve finished with you, you’ll f***ing need it.”

The dressing room air, having just turned blue, now condenses on a nearby camera lens. This is how John Sitton will be remembered; by a moment he would rather forget.

“Stupid,” he says, recalling the incident today. “It was ridiculous. It made me look an oaf.”

The outburst didn’t cost him his job. The club’s relegation, amid three boardroom upheavals and a persistent threat of liquidation, took care of that.

It did, however, all but end Sitton’s career following its inclusion in ‘Orient: Club for a Fiver’, a fly-on-the-wall documentary which aired twenty years ago. He hasn’t worked as a manager in professional football since.

“For months afterwards I applied for everything but never even got a letter in reply. The documentary ruined any future prospects because me drilling the back four, working with the reserves, working with the youth team – that doesn’t make good television.”

Whereas his fellow co-manager Chris Turner received advice to stay out of the filming process and went on to manage other high-profile clubs, Sitton was ostracised from the game.

He now earns a living as a cab driver, working shifts which stretch into the early hours of the morning, but still his reputation precedes him. He couldn’t even escape it when he applied to take the ‘Knowledge’.

“The senior London examiner lent across and said: ‘I recognise you. That documentary didn’t do you any favours, did it?’ Later I realised that, to test my temperament, they were asking me to locate obscure blue plaques while my contemporaries were asked to find stuff you can see from space.”

When he returns home from work, he lights a cigar and compiles his forthcoming autobiography, A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing, which promises to address what happened during those turbulent ten months at Brisbane Road. It will show that, for all his light-heartedness, embarrassment and contrition, he is frustrated by his treatment. He knows the punishment did not fit the crime.

“Truly, what did I do?” he asks. “It’s happened a thousand times before, it’s happened a thousand times since. I was judged on my coaching license course by Alan Pardew, who didn’t sit next to me in the dining room because he didn’t want to be perceived as a friend.”

This is the same Pardew who, eleven months ago, publicly head-butted an opposition player. The same Pardew who remains a top-flight manager. “If your face fits you’re forgiven. If it doesn’t, you’re perceived as the lunatic.”

The subject of Twitter surfaces as we sit in the back of his cab. The social network provides Sitton with an outlet to voice his opinion on the game. He writes out his thoughts in longhand and allows his wife Loiza to type them up for his 4,314 followers.

Meanwhile, at Brisbane Road last night, his old club capitulated to a 1-0 defeat against Notts County, watched by a smaller following than that reading Sitton’s tweets.


@mjcritchley

 

An image of African supporters.

Follow5: Africa Cup of Nations 2015

 

The Africa Cup of Nations is, historically, the only tournament where players assault paramedics, teams gate-crash press conferences and, occasionally, there are astonishing games of football. It got underway in Equatorial Guinea on Saturday, so we’ve compiled a list of five resources that will bring you up to speed with the squads and keep you abreast of events in this year’s edition.

Jonathan Wilson
@jonawils

Wilson is one of the most respected football writers in the industry and a leading expert on the African game. This is will be his seventh time reporting on the tournament and if nothing else, it will be interesting to see whether his lodgings improve.

r/AFCON
reddit.com/r/AFCON

The self-styled ‘front page of the internet’ is not for everybody, but a community of Redditors have set up this invaluable one-stop resource. Be sure to bookmark it if you want to keep up with the web’s best Africa Cup of Nations content during the tournament.

Ed Dove
@eddydove

Dove’s tactical guides to each team in the tournament accomplish the fine balancing act of being both light and informative. If you find your interest piqued by a particular Burkinabe centre-back, you’ll find all you need to know here.

Ed Dove's Burkina Faso preview
Ed Dove’s Burkina Faso preview
Sandals for Goalposts
@Sandal4Goalpost / sandalsforgoalposts.com

This team of bloggers have produced the stand-out tournament guide, which features interviews from the aformentioned Wilson, Crystal Palace and Algeria midfielder Adlène Guedioura. They are also covering the 2015 Asian Cup, which is underway in Australia.

Gervinho
@GervinhoOfficial

Despite missing a crucial penalty in the final three years ago, the forward is many observers’ tip to be the player of the tournament. He’s rejuvenated his career in Rome and what’s more, this is the one Twitter account that definitely won’t make a bad joke about his hairline.

Featured image: Shine 2010 (Flickr)

@mjcritchley