³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ

recently held a at the picturesque not far outside Brisbane.

It was attended by many of the great and the good of Australian spin bowling and aimed at addressing the deficiency of talent in that very particular and specialised art.

was there, along with his mentor . In a recent telephone conversation, Jenner told me that a core aim of the summit was to canvas opinion on how to help children rediscover spin bowling and then successfully nurture and manage their development.

Its very existence speaks volumes about the void left by the retirement of Shane Warne. Ever since Warne delivered that ball to Mike Gatting on the second day of the first Test at Old Trafford in 1993, Australia have dominated spin bowling in the Ashes.

Warne and off spinner took 55 wickets in that series and spin has remained an essential part of Australia's bowling armoury ever since. Australia's riches extended not just to Warne but also fellow leg spinner , a bowler with a better strike rate than his illustrious team-mate. When Warne missed the 1998-99 series, MacGill claimed 27 wickets. Mercy was in short supply for tortured Englishmen.

This summer the man charged with the spin bowling duties for the Australians is 27-year-old .

Read the rest of this entry

The other day I posted a blog entitled The Secrets of the Fixtures Computer.

Plenty of the information in the blog was the result of an interview with a man called Glenn Thompson, who works for a company called .

Glenn owns the actual fixtures computer and is very heavily involved in putting together the fixtures for the Premier League, the Football League and the lower Scottish divisions.

Plenty of you posted on the blog asking a variety of questions.

As you can imagine Glenn has had a very busy week but earlier on Wednesday he e-mailed me the answers to some of the issues you raised.

Read the rest of this entry

Within 10 minutes of arriving at work this morning I heard three conversations about the fixtures list.

Firstly, a Sheffield United supporter who is presumably expecting some kind of promotion campaign bemoaned the fact that , end against Roy Keane's Ipswich and face both Newcastle and local rivals Wednesday during the crucial month of April.

Secondly, a Tottenham fan was all raised eyebrows when noting that his team opened with . Not the easiest to start the campaign, he seemed to suggest, but he was at least grateful there would be no repeat of recent opening-day trips to Middlesbrough, Bolton and Sunderland.

Then I heard the booming voice of our resident Bournemouth fan bemoaning the fact that the , while Boxing Day comprises a visit to Cheltenham. The three dates his extraordinary mind immediately searched out - and all away from home.

Read the rest of this entry

Ever wondered why you have had to travel the length of the country on a wet Tuesday night to watch your team in action?

Or you haven't played at home on Boxing Day for the last three years?

Like me, you've probably just blamed the fixture computer, that mythical piece of technology that determines where you will be and when throughout the football season.

I have always imagined it to be some great beast of a machine like , firing out tickertape full of fixtures while some overworked scientist desperately tries to make sense of the information spewing forth.

The fixtures for the 2009-2010 season are released at and last week I spoke to some of the key people involved in the formation of the schedule.

I wanted to find out exactly how the fixture list is put together and just how difficult a job it is. Needless to say, I spent a large chunk of last weekend in a dark and cool room as my brain tried to come to terms with its most serious case of information overload since I asked my wife to point out my most obvious flaws.

Read the rest of this entry

With the Football League season out of the way following its climax which saw now is a good time to take stock of the big issues facing the competition.

Try a few of these on for size - the credit crunch, a transfer embargo, the formation of two Premier League divisions, the home-grown player rule, wage-capping, the future of the transfer window and the widening gulf between the top flight and the Championship.

They might not necessarily be as exciting as a discussion about who your team is going to buy over the summer or their prospects for next season, but they are of huge significance and transcend the importance of any single club.

With this in mind, I sat down in the stands at Wembley with a few hours before Scunthorpe's League One play-off final against Millwall to get his take on what really matters at the moment.

Read the rest of this entry