I very nearly shed a tear this week, it was almost like the death of an old friend, as 125 years of history was brought to a close in less than a minute as Chester City were wound up in the High Court.

And it brought to a final end a chapter for me as Chester were the club where I cut my journalistic teeth freelance reporting on matchdays from the Deva Stadium (the only ground to be in two countries at the same time) as far back as 1996.

I've witnessed some turmoil at Chester over the years, a club which seemed to lurch from one crisis to another as frequently as they changed their manager. And all through this it was the long suffering fans you had to feel for - and yet a hardcore turned up week after week to suffer in a slightly different way to this hack who frequently had to produce 500 words by the final whistle from a shockingly dull 0-0 draw that had mustered barely a shot of note.

The writing was on the wall a few weeks ago when the Football Conference clubs lost patience and voted to expel Chester from the league.  The only hope is that a 'phoenix club' will rise from the flames, possibly to start out in the Unibond League One. Oh poor old Harry McNally will be turning in his grave.

Sadly, Chester's demise won't be the last, and both Cardiff and Southend are facing winding up orders care of HM Revenue and Customs who are seeking to extract their pound of flesh from the ailing clubs. But what the taxman needs to remember is that football clubs are not just about VAT and PAYE returns - they mean so much more to fans and communities than that. 

Both Cardiff and Southend have been given extra time to make "full and final" payment to HM Revenue and Customs of VAT and PAYE debts, but should they be unable then another 214 combined years of history could well have their final chapter written and firmly sealed with HM Revenue and Customs stamped across it.

Tags: chester city, football conference, southend united, cardiff city, HM Revenue and Customs

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You'd be forgiven for thinking that a lot of footy players these days lack 'bottle', that vital bravery element that makes them stand out from the rest - but that need not be the case for this year's World Cup, at least for the teams sponsored by Nike.

For the players turning out in kits with the big swoosh will be playing in kits made out of discarded plastic bottles. It's just 94 days 'til the big kick off, and the sports giant has decided to let us in on the fact that the kits have been made from bottles harvested from Japan and Taiwan, which have been melted down into yarn and then spun into fabric. Are they spinning us a yarn?

Teams like Brazil, Portugal, and the Netherlands, will be out there on the pitch in South Africa wearing jerseys made from recycled polyester, which Nike claims as the most environmentally friendly and technologically advanced kits in football history.

So here's the lowdown on the kits according to Nike: 

- Each shirt comprises up to eight recycled plastic bottles Shirts made in this way reduce energy consumption by up to 30% compared with manufacturing new polyester kits from virgin sources.
- Nike diverted nearly 13 million plastic bottles (or nearly 560,000 pounds of polyester waste) from the landfill - enough to cover more than 29 footy pitches.
-If the recycled bottles used to produce the jerseys were laid end to end, according to Nike, they would span more than 3,000 kilometers (roughly 1,860 miles), a distance that exceeds the entire South African coastline.

If you're  a totally statto, then you can quotes these facts down the pub with your mates. Alternatively, you can sit back and consider all the airmiles that will be clocked up by players, WAGS, media etc and realise that a few million plastic bottles won't make a jot. And god knows about the pollution that will be caused by sweating fans wearing those replica shirts who will effectively be like walking greenhouses. 

I still wonder why no-one has created a football shirt that doesn't make you sweat profusely, even when you're not participating in a game. Fact is, anyone who wears a replica footy kit for more than a few hours is usually humming worst than a Turkish wrestler's jockstrap.

Tags: world cup, nike, brazil, kit, netherlands

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