There have been plenty of comings and goings at Swindon Town over the course of the 2013 summer transfer window, but do you think that Town are actually in a stronger position to compete for promotion? Ron Smith asks. To be honest my expectations for 2013/14 dramatically reduced many months ago, about the time Andrew Black withdrew his funds and
Read more
It’s Friday, so it must be time for the latest blog by BBC Devon’s Vic Morgan. So when you heard the draw how did you feel? Was it mild indifference or did you, like me, make strange whooping noises that would have scared anything within hearing distance. I was about to present my Late Show to the BBC’s South West cluster when
Read more
The Swindon Town’s defender has claimed that chairman Jed McCory is blocking a loan move to Millwall or Birmingham, but what would you do with the ex-Celtic man? Alex Cooke asks. He was once a Swindon’s captain, a crucial part of a championship-winning team and, crucially, TheWashbag’s nomination for player of the season, but now Paul Caddis is unwanted, unplayed
Read more
It’s Friday, so it must be time for the latest blog by BBC Devon’s Vic Morgan. When it finally happened, it turned out we’d known all along. The appointment of Mark Cooper as Swindon Town’s new manager surprised no one. After all he’d been here since last season, been caretaker since July and was here when all the players that
Read more
Pliable, pragmatic and powerless, Cooper is an ideal head coach for Town’s current structure, says Alex Cooke. Mark Cooper is the perfect manager for Swindon Town precisely because he has no reputation, no great history and no obvious footballing philosophy. He is a journey-man manager with coaching experience thrust into one of his biggest ever jobs but no cache to
Read more
Didn’t Paolo Di Canio always want to sign the elusive ‘nasty striker’? The Italian may have departed, but now a striker with an equally notorious reputation has joined Town as the No.9. The County Ground ‘welcomes’ former Newcastle United forward Nile Ranger. Writes Ron Smith. Nile Ranger has some history. He started his career with the Crystal Palace youth academy
Read more
It’s Friday, so it must be time for the latest blog by BBC Devon’s Vic Morgan. Much of the Swindon Town speculation this week has centred around a new striker, or Centre Forward for those of us old enough to remember such a phrase. Well one story has emerged to gladden the hearts of even the most cynical, OK I
Read more
How Swindon’s progressive football was spoiled by Stevenage and what Mark Cooper needs to do to prevent it happening every week, by Alex Cooke. Swindon dominated Stevenage: For 45 minutes, Town’s football spoke a new freedom for the men in red, of collective effort, of complexity hidden in the simplicity of angles. And yet, in the second half the plodding,
Read more
Leon Clarke, Dany N’Guessan, Wes Thomas, Nile Ranger or someone very different? Alex Cooke looks at what type of striker suits Town’s 433. Swindon Town seem to have a problem scoring goals at the moment. Some choose to blame the 433 system, many blame the lone, central striker: Andy Williams. But what can be done? Chairman Jed McCory has stated
Read more
Sir Alex Ferguson said he had ‘great potential’. Andy King described him as ‘an inspiration’ while Sam Parkin suggests he could have been ‘better than James Milner’. Sadly, though, after Jimmy Davis’s untimely death in 2003, we’ll never get to find out if they were right. Writes Nick Judd. Davis was killed in a car accident in the early hours of
Read more
The Washbag 