As I wrote last week, it was a case of when rather than if QPR suffered their first defeat and they were comprehensively outplayed by Watford, who were 3-0 up before the hour thanks to goals from Danny Graham (2) and on loan Birmingham City midfielder Jordon Mutch.

Despite Watford’s unexpected win, the situation at the top of the table remained pretty much the same on Saturday evening. Once again Cardiff and Swansea failed to take advantage of the leaders dropping points. Swansea were lucky to earn a point at home against Millwall and the Bluebirds lost at Middlesbrough: Jonathan Howson’s winner at Burnley showed that Leeds have now adapted to life in the Championship – the Yorkshire side had to come from behind at Turf Moor and became only the second team to win there this season.

There wasn’t a great deal of change in the relegation zone either, but with Preston picking up their first win in eight games, there are now only four points separating the bottom six clubs. Scunthorpe made their first – but probably not their last – appearance in the bottom three and Boro’s victory propelled them to the heady heights of 21st place.

Although there haven’t been any postponements yet, the winter weather is supposed to be returning this weekend and so it’s worth checking to see if your team will be in action. This week’s programme begins on Friday with Doncaster v Middlesbrough – the visitors have won the last three league meetings in Yorkshire but share the worst away record in the Championship with Crystal Palace; despite being in 16th place Donny are one of the most improved sides at home this season and have only lost once at the Keepmoat stadium this season.

There are three candidates for game of the week on Saturday. Norwich travel to Coventry for a game between two clubs who are looking to maintain or improve their current positions, but it’s Aidy Boothroyd’s side that appear to have the advantages. The Sky Blues have become a force to be reckoned with at the Ricoh Arena and have also improved defensively, keeping clean sheets in their last four games. The Canaries have one of the best away records in the Championship, but only one of their four away wins has come against a team that’s in the top six and they have only won twice in the last twenty league games at Coventry.

Sheffield United v Swansea is the only game between sides in the top and bottom six this weekend and it’ll be interesting to see how the Blades get on without Gary Speed. The ‘will he/won’t he’ saga of Speed’s courtship by the Welsh FA was finally resolved this week and it has to be said that the Blades probably made the right decision to release Speed from his contract. He lost half his games in charge of United; with a couple of obvious candidates for the job now available (Sam Allardyce and Chris Houghton), a manager with experience in the Championship that is capable of getting United out of their current situation is required.

Whoever takes over at Bramall Lane will have to shore up Sheffield United’s home record. They’ve lost five times at Bramall Lane already (they only lost three home games last season) and have failed to score in four of their nine home games so far. Not the best time to be facing one of the six clubs in the Championship with a positive away goal difference that hasn’t lost an away game since the end of September.

Saturday afternoon’s big game is Leeds v QPR, but it would be premature to write off the visitors after losing for the first time last week. The key to this game is whether Leeds can break down QPR’s stingy defence – two of the five goals Queens Park Rangers have conceded on their travels came at Derby at the end of August – without compromising their own. Despite their league position, Leeds have the worst home defensive record in the Championship and opponents have scored more than once in half of the games at Elland Road this season. Yet another away draw for QPR is on the cards.

The last game of the weekend takes place at Portman Road – yes, Ipswich are on telly again (5:00pm Sky Sports 2), presumably because it’s Roy Keane v Sven-Goran Eriksson, but there are a couple of points worth making here. Firstly, none of the last ten Championship games shown on Sky have featured teams from the top ten playing each other but three of those ten have been between teams currently in the bottom six. Secondly, anyone that tunes in might be watching one of the last games featuring Roy Keane as Ipswich manager.

There are four teams that have suffered a serious decline in both home and away form compared to last season: two of them (Leicester and Middlesbrough) have new managers, Nottingham Forest remain an enigma and that leaves Ipswich. The cold hard facts for Ipswich fans are as follows: six games without a win in the Championship, only one win in the last five home games and only Preston and Scunthorpe have lost more home games.

The good news for Ipswich is that Leicester’s away form this season is nothing to write home about and the Foxes have lost seven of their last ten trips to Portman Road, but having won at both Barnsley and Leeds this season, Leicester’s 5-1 demolition of Doncaster Rovers last weekend might be an indication that things might have to get worse for Ipswich before they get better.

Help Chris Kamara raise money for charity

Chris Kamara is calling on football fans in England & Wales to join him in raising money for Marie Curie this Christmas.

Chris Kamara is appealing to fans this Christmas to join him in raising money for Marie Curie Cancer Care – The Official Charity Partner of the English Football League for the 2010/11 Season.

As official ambassador for the partnership, Chris Kamara is asking football fans to make his dreams come true this Christmas – by joining in his ‘Home or Away’ challenge.

Fans have the choice of the ‘home’ challenge – cycling from Lands End to John O’ Groats – or by joining a team of Football League managers and fans trekking up ‘Kamaramanjaro’ on the away leg.

Both challenges take place in June 2011 and registration forms are now available so don’t miss your chance to take part in a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Sign up for one of the challenges.

Chris Kamara said:

“My perfect Christmas list would include a fan from every club in the country taking up a challenge and joining me to raise money for this fantastic cause.

“Marie Curie Nurses will be working in every footballing community across the country this Christmas, giving terminally ill people the choice of being looked after at home, surrounded by their family and friends. I want to rally as much support as possible from football fans to ensure that Marie Curie can continue to deliver free nursing care to people who want to be looked after at home.”

Chris Kamara has backed the partnership in memory of his late mother, who was cared for by Marie Curie nurses at home before she died. There are many ways fans can make a difference this season and help achieve the fundraising goal of £500,000.

For those that can’t take up a challenge, why not sponsor Chris Kamara or to make a £3 donation to Marie Curie Cancer Care text GOAL and your club name to 70300.

Money raised by fans undertaking the challenges will contribute to their club’s total in the Marie Curie Fundraising League so supporters will be backing both Marie Curie and their club!

For more information about the partnership and how to get involved visit www.football-league.co.uk/mariecurie.

Register Your Interest!

Fundraising League Table
Visit the Facebook Fundraising League Table to see how well your team’s supporters are doing.

Please Note:
Each text will cost £3 plus your standard network messaging rate. Marie Curie Cancer Care will receive at least £2.67 from each donation depending on the network, some networks payout 100 per cent. Please get the bill payer’s permission to donate. For full terms and conditions visit www.football-league.co.uk/mariecurie.

Middlesbrough – another club with recent Premiership experience – are current favourites. Manager Gordon Strachan has bought in Kris Boyd from Rangers; if Boyd reproduces his outstanding goalscoring record in the Championship, he could be play a vital part in Boro’s promotion bid.

Although the clubs relegated from the Premiership shouldn’t be entirely written off, Burnley look the best equipped for a serious promotion challenge: Chris Iwelumo’s arrival from Wolves looks like a shrewd investment. Both Hull City and Portsmouth have off field issues that could hinder their efforts to make an immediate return to the top tier.

Two of the teams that reached the play offs last season should challenge for promotion places. Nottingham Forest were outstanding at home last season and Leicester City – where former Swansea City boss Paolo Sousa replaces Nigel Pearson as manager – look capable of maintaining their form from 2009/2010. Cardiff City’s prospects are unclear, but they should still be capable of a top ten finish, a prospect that both Ipswich Town and QPR will be hoping to achieve.

It’ll be interesting to see how the new arrivals from League One will perform. Champions Norwich City return after one season but may have to settle for a mid table finish; Leeds United will probably lead the division in attendance numbers, but their season may depend on how well new signing Billy Paynter adapts to the Championship. Millwall should avoid relegation but may have to be content with a bottom half finish in their first season at this level since 2005/2006.

A number of teams look as if they may struggle. Scunthorpe always seem to be punching above their weight but selling Gary Hooper to Celtic leaves The Iron without a proven goal scorer. Barnsley need to improve at home, Crystal Palace entered administration but eventually owed their survival to an outstanding away record that culminated in a win at Sheffield Wednesday on the last day of the season.

However, every club in the nPower Football League Championship will start on equal terms when the season starts on the evening of Friday August 6th, when Watford travel to Norwich City (7:45pm kick off, live on Sky Sports 3).

Coca-Cola Championship has retained its place as the fourth most watched league in Europe

English football continues to be a big hit with football fans all over the world.

Coca-Cola Championship has retained its place as the fourth most watched league in Europe with a total audience of more than 9.9m fans. Crowds grew by 0.3% this season and averaged 17,949.

Only Germany’s Bundesliga (13.1m), the Premier League (12.9m) and Spain’s La Liga (11.0m) can boast more fans through the turnstiles, with The Football League’s top division, once again, attracting more supporters than Italy’s Serie A (9.1m) and France’s Ligue 1 (7.6m).

Crowds at matches in the Coca-Cola English Football League have broken the seventeen million mark for the first time in 50 years.

A total of 17.1m supporters attended the 1,656 league matches played during 2009/10, an increase of 4.4% on last season and the highest aggregate crowd figure since the 1959/60 campaign.

The Football League continues to enjoy sustained attendance growth with gates having more than doubled during the last 25 years. The average Football League crowd is now higher than 10,000.

Crowds for matches in Coca-Cola League 1 and Coca-Cola League 2 averaged 9,136 and 3,853 respectively, with crowds in the former increasing by a remarkable 21%.

These figures continue to outstrip those of comparable levels of the game in Europe’s other major footballing nations. League 1 crowds are more than 75% greater than those in Germany and more than three times higher than those recorded in Italy and France. League 2, attendances are twice those of their German equivalents and almost five times those of Italian football.

Football League Chairman, Greg Clarke, said: “Attracting more than seventeen million fans into their grounds is an outstanding achievement by Football League clubs, particularly in the current economic climate.

“Our clubs are focussed on attracting a new, family audience to football and those efforts are clearly working.

He went on to add: “I would like to thank everybody that has been to one of our matches this season for supporting their club and our competition.”

mitre tensile football

The Football League have announced that they will be introducing a brand new ball to be used by the 72 League clubs and 12 Scottish Premier League clubs for the duration of next season.

The Mitre Tensile ball is described as the most advanced football in the world.

The Tensile is a revolution in football design and technology, comprised of just 10 panels and has over 30% less stitching. This optimises power and efficiency, improving airflow and reducing drag on the ball. This increases the average speed of a shot, making it a strikers dream. The ball is the first of its kind and will be used in all Football League and Scottish Premier League matches from the beginning of the 2010/11 season.

Tensile’s graphic design is completely unique; with each of the 72 Football League clubs and 12 SPL Clubs for the new season each having their own Tensile matchballs printed in club colours and their club badge.

The Mitre Tensile football will retail at £74.99 and if you fancy one there is a video on the Football League website.

football league

This Saturday, March 27th nine members of the Football League staff will be taking part in a British Military Fitness 10km race in Redhill, Surrey as part of their ongoing commitment to the Help For Heroes fund raising campaign.

Help for Heroes is the official charity partner of The Football League for the duration of the 2009/2010 season and throughout the campaign all 72 clubs have generated tens of thousands of pounds to help rehabilitate injured servicemen.

Andy Dodd, Marketing Executive at The Football League said:

“This season our 72 clubs and their fans have done a tremendous amount of work to raise both awareness and money for our official charity, Help for Heroes. This run is the perfect opportunity for us in the office to show our support and mirror the fantastic efforts of our clubs.”

The Football League staff team (Team FL) are however, currently falling short of the £1,000 fund raising target set for the run and are calling on football fans to support them by sponsoring them for the event.

The run snakes through a muddy, ditch filled private 4×4 course with the organisors warning “You are guaranteed to finish this race wet, muddy, smelly and exhausted!”

Obviously not what you would call a Fun Run then!

If you would like to help support the Help For Heroes fund, you can donate via the Team FL justgiving page.

enjoy the match

SKY Sports News female presenters Georgie Thompson and Natalie Sawyer are the latest famous faces to lend their support to the Football League campaign ‘Enjoy The Match’.

The campaign is designed to bring families back to live football and encourages Football League clubs to make their grounds ‘family friendly’ by having specific areas in the ground which are free from bad language and anti social behaviour.

The campaign has so far been a huge success with families across the country flocking to local football grounds to watch football in a friendly atmosphere.

Over 10,000 supporters have so far pledged their support to the campaign joining the famous faces from sport and music that include Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer and the top band Kasabian.

Georgie Thompson and Natalie Sawyer can be seen pledging their support to the cause in this video:

To add your support to the campaign visit the Enjoy The Match website.

help for heroes

All 72 Football League clubs will be taking part in the Football League’s ‘Help For Heroes’ week which runs from March 6th until March 14th.

The aim of the initiative is to raise awareness and much needed funds and to show support for the efforts and sacrifices of our Armed Forces.

‘Help For Heroes ‘ is the official charity partner of the Football League throughout the 2009/10 season and during this week all 72 clubs will be supporting the charity, with special events and collections.

All clubs will be involved with the following:

• Stage a designated Football for Heroes match at their home ground
• Provide a promotional photo featuring managers and players with Help for Heroes banners and balls
• Emerge from the tunnel behind a Help for Heroes banner
• The respective captains and the match officials will pose for a photo at kick-off with a Help for Heroes banner
• Both managers will wear Help for Heroes wristbands for the duration of the game
• The home team will sign a Football League Help for Heroes ball which will then be auctioned off for the charity

In addition to this, clubs across The Football League will also be holding bucket collections, providing discounted tickets for our heroes and staging cheque presentations from previous Help for Heroes games.

Lord Mawhinney, Chairman of The Football League said: “The contribution being made by our armed forces around the world is truly humbling. As a nation we do not thank them enough for the sacrifices they make. The Football for Heroes week will provide an excellent opportunity for supporters to show their appreciation for the outstanding work being done.”

If you were supporting at many of the League clubs on Saturday you may have already witnessed the collections and special events taking place. The Football for Heroes fixture list will continue this week at the following games:

Monday 8th March
Colchester United v. Brighton & Hove Albion
Tuesday 9th March
Bury v. Darlington (TBC)
Crystal Palace v. Bristol City

For more details of the charity and how you can help visit ‘Help For Heroes’ here.

Despite Wayne Rooney showing signs of frustration with his team mates during the game, he did manage to control himself impeccably in front of the referee and only the continual booing of John Terry let some members of the crowd down.

The FA’s two latest films ‘Are You Losing it?‘ address the issues of anti social behaviour in the form of abusive behaviour from fans  at a match and also an over bearing adult screaming and shouting at his child from the touchline.

The Football Association say that they are making progress in their Respect Campaign with an increase in the number of qualified and trainee referees this season, a drop in the number of dissent cautions throughout the Football League in all divisions and referee assaults down by 25%.

The Respect programme has become a compulsory module in the FA’s training courses for all new referees and coaches coming into the game each season.

On the down side there is still much work to be done; 800 grassroots games were abandoned in 2008/09 season due to player or spectator misconduct and 1 in 4 parents would not consider confronting an offensive spectator for fear of physical retaliation.

You can help further improve the game by joining The FA Respect Campaign here.

Chairman Jim Russo and senior board members Vince Russo and Robin Williams resigned at the club AGM on Tuesday and immediately demanded the repayment of £4.9 million of loans to Valley Grown Salads, a business that the Russo’s have a stake in.

Watford FC will automatically face a ten point penalty if they do go into administration, dropping them from current tenth in the league on 30 points, to second from bottom of the Championship.

Former manager Graham Taylor has taken over as temporary chairman of Watford, but no comment on the financial situation has been made as yet.

Could former owner Elton John help his much loved club out?  Well he is planning a concert to help raise funds for the club in May next year, but that may be too little too late for the club.