A good news story

A lot has changed in the world of football since I first fell in love with it 30-odd years ago. Some of that change has been positive, some of it considerably less so.

The influx of vast sums of money has seen the beautiful game transformed almost beyond recognition, morphing from a working class sport to an international business.

This increased investment has obviously seen some good things happen. Grounds, for example, have improved substantially. Stadiums that were once only fit for holding mass riots are now safer, cleaner and more family friendly. Providing West Ham aren't playing Millwall, that is.

Television coverage is another area that has moved on in leaps and bounds thanks to the extra cash, both in the number of matches shown and the quality of the coverage itself.

But there have been negative changes too. The money has changed the way clubs operate, especially when it comes to priorities and, more than anything else, it has changed the players themselves.

When I started watching football, players were just ordinary blokes who happened to be handy at running and kicking a ball. Sometimes, not even the running part. Where once they were normal lads you would bump into at the supermarket, today they are international icons with no knowledge of what a supermarket actually is. Unless they happen to be endorsing it on television.

All this change has brought about another shift, this time in the media's approach to covering football. With so much money around, reporting these days is all about contracts, fees, buyouts and finance. Good-natured, sweet, heart-warming stories from the world of football are as rare as hen's teeth.

Well, chaps, I have found one. True, it was lurking in a dark corner of the BBC website, but nevertheless it is such a rare event that I felt it needed sharing with those who may not have picked up on it.

This tale comes from the not-so-heady heights of League One, and the match between Stockport and Yeovil, two clubs where football has still not been tarnished by super-money.

They recently played a league match which ended in a 2-2 draw. Nothing special so far, I hear you cry. True enough. But the person who happened to score both Stockport's goals was a lad called Carl Baker - just a couple of days after the striker's brother had died of leukemia.

His manager, Gary Ablett, had told Baker he didn't need to play in the game, but the lad had shaken his head and decided to go on with the show. After slotting home the first goal, he rushed over to the bench, pulled out a T-shirt with a dedication to his brother on it and was joined by every single one of his teammates in the tributory celebration.

But the bit about this story that really got me came at the end of the match. Ablett told Baker - whose younger brother is also fighting leukemia - he needed to go over to the away end of the ground where 200 or so Yeovil fans were gathered.

He did so and was then presented with a card by the opposing fans which every one of them in that away end had signed.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is what football is all about.

It's not about multi-million pound signings, image rights, billionaire investors, state-of-the-art stadiums, television deals, Ferraris or product endorsements.

It's about people. It's about the fans. It's about men and women from all walks of life sharing a common love and not being afraid to offer sympathy to someone just because he happens to be an opponent.

But this isn't just about Baker and the Yeovil fans. It's also about Stockport. As a club they are heavily in debt and are currently in administration. Yet that hasn't stopped them doing everything they can to raise money for cancer research.

In their pre-season friendlies they wore special shirts which are now being auctioned off for charity. Any spare advertising hoardings around the ground are given to the same charity. And, despite their financial difficulties, if one of those boards happens to be sold they are donating 30 per cent of the proceeds.

These days, the media is only really interested in the populist stories. Did Eduardo dive? Are Chelsea guilty of stealing players? Is Adebayor really the most evil player in the world?

And that means stories like Carl Baker's and Stockport's rarely get heard. Why give a League One club's charitable initiatives airtime when you can run a piece on David Beckham's new tattoo? Why run a story on one of the nicest gestures by a set of away fans in the history of the game when you can tell the world who Ashley Cole has been sleeping with?

But if we are going to restore fans' faith in football and show them that, at least further down the ladder, it is still the people's game, then stories like this need to be told.

The winning feeling

The five-a-side team I play with continues to go from weakness to weakness.

So far, in roughly 20 outings, we have managed just one victory and a draw. And a whole lot of hammerings. Really rather pathetic to be honest and very demoralising.

But I think I have found a little consolation from the heady heights of England's Longhorn Youth Football League where Harraby Athletic have finally won their first game after 90 attempts.

This under-14 squad was formed in 2006 out of all the players who were not good enough to get into any other teams - essentially the district's rejects. They got off to a flying stop, losing their first match 19-0, a scoreline that would have been worse if the opposing coach hadn't ordered his team to take it easy.

Since then, Harraby's goalkeeper has picked the ball out of the net more than 400 times in less than three seasons, and the team have only ever won one point - and that was because the opponents didn't turn up.

But all that changed last weekend when Harraby, dubbed Britain's Worst Football Team, managed a 3-2 victory over Edenvale Hawks.

"Teams just couldn't help scoring against us. Gradually over time, the scores have come down, but we're always bottom of the table and we've never even won a friendly match," manager Brett Preston said. "Pure determination has got us there and their faces after the game meant everything."

On the back of bringing this remarkable run to an end, don't be surprised if Preston is snapped up by a bigger club with similar problems. Maybe Portsmouth are interested?

Chant of the week

How's this for an interesting twist on an age old chant:

Stoke fans to Chelsea fans during their recent Premier League encounter: "You're not signing any more!"

Nice one.

sportscolumnist@timesofmalta.com