I went to university in Essex and have been fortunate enough (…) to have spent my formative years surrounded by Hammers fans. So it has been with some delight that I’ve been reminding them of the cost to the taxpayer that their recent relegation has cost us (they have an incredibly generous rental agreement with the local council on the Olympic Stadium, which means that upon relegation their rent goes down by roughly £2.5 million a year! – agreed to by Boris Johnson – so anot

Sassuolo – or Unione Sportiva Sassuolo Calcio, to be precise – has recently fallen onto my radar because, a) last season they won promotion back to Serie A and, despite the odds, have managed to survive another year (as an Ipswich fan, clubs that can make this jump hold a certain fascination for me), and b) it was also where Muric, Town's former goalkeeper, spent last season on loan and has just today announced he will be joining on a permanent deal. So... who exactly are Sas

One of the best games of football I've ever seen featured Hereford United (the precursor to today's Hereford FC). It was a cold, dark February evening in 2012 and I was at Priestfield in Gillingham. The score finished 5–4, with the Gills coming out on top, but at the 80-minute mark Hereford led 3–2. The next ten minutes, plus stoppage time, were absolute carnage. Unfortunately for United, their luck didn't improve much in the years that followed. Just two years later, they ha

Málaga Club de Fútbol, currently sitting 4th in the second tier of Spanish football at the time of writing, is a club that represents a city breathtaking in both its history and beauty. The team itself won the UEFA Intertoto Cup in 2002 and reached the Champions League quarter-finals in 2013, beating AC Milan and Porto before being stopped by German giants Borussia Dortmund by just a single goal. Since then, the club has faltered somewhat. However, with strong backing from th

The Yellow and Reds. The Wolves. La Magica. Few football clubs are so tightly bound to the identity of their city as Roma. Founded in 1927 through the merger of several Roman clubs, the idea was simple: create a footballing force powerful enough to challenge the wealthy giants of northern Italy. Since then, Roma have become one of Italy’s most passionately supported clubs, winning league titles, European trophies and producing legends such as Francesco Totti, the eternal capt

The Griffin. The Red and the Blues. The Old Fool. Founded in 1893, they are officially the oldest football club in Italy, and for large parts of the early game they dominated Italian football. But Genoa’s history has rarely been smooth. Periods of glory were followed by chaos, relegation, revival and collapse all over again. It was the great Italian journalist Gianni Brera who affectionately labelled them Il Vecchio Balordo — “The Old Fool” — a nickname that captured both th

This club takes the award for the most Instagrammable of hometowns. And in Italy, the competition is fierce. The Amalfi Coast is famously beautiful, with dozens of natural harbours and bays, colourful medieval housing running up the cliffs, and the sparkle of the sun off the Mediterranean. Many a model has been photographed with these iconic views in the background – and many a tourist has drunk more than their fair share of the local delicacy, limoncello, made from the area’