Week Ending: Has Chairman Dave scored an own goal? The cost of graphene…

THEY say a week is a long time in politics, but that’s surely true of football too?

On Tuesday night, Championship football club Wigan Athletic was celebrating winning the community club of the year award at the MBNA North West Football Awards for teams outside the Premier League.

Just 48 hours later and the club was embroiled in all manner of controversy after the appointment of new manager Malky Mackay – who is facing an Football Association investigation for sending racist, sexist and homophobic text messages.

To say Wigan chairman Dave Whelan has done a lot for the club (a new stadium, millions of pounds investment over the last 20 years) is gross understatement, and he is quite entitled to do what he pleases, but it looks like he’s scored an own goal with this one.

Even when it was in the top flight, Wigan struggled to get bums on seats for many games, and now they are languishing at the wrong end of the second tier in English football, it seems strange to ignore the views of fans/stakeholders/customers who voiced concerns about Mackay’s suitability prior to him getting the job.

And now Whelan has been accused of anti-semitism while clumsily trying to explain the decision.

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GRAPHENE – the super light, super strong material that will change the face of industry.

Surely, the new wonder-product developed in Manchester, is vastly expensive and complicated to make? Apparently not.

At an event at graphene firm 2-DTech this week, Dr Aravind Vijayaraghavan, lecturer in materials science at Manchester University, said the material is selling at around £100/litre, “depending on the quality”.

That’s about the same as a litre of Krug Grande Cuvee champagne and cheaper than printer ink.

“It’s just graphite, which is cheap, plus electricity and labour,” said Dr Vijayaraghavan.

After all, Manchester scientists Professors Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov, who won the Nobel prize for discovery, did start by peeling sellotape from the end of a pencil. 

Now there are four different established methods of making the stuff which all involve taking graphite and slicing off very thin pieces.