Peter Ridsdale was once the most popular chairman in football. That was before chasing the dream was added to the list of banned sports. Ridsdale, whose business career had grown alongside that of Sir Ralph “five times a night” Halpern, did much to make Leeds United sexy. They reached the semi-finals of the Champions League with players they could not afford: how delightfully fin-de-siècle!

Then the money ran out and the club’s fortunes collapsed.

Suddenly Ridsdale was the lone fool who had let it happen. No longer was he fêted on the terraces. Just as millions of profligates with their swelling loans — “well, it’s only plastic, isn’t it?” — were to blame the Government when the credit boom went bust, the fans turned on Ridsdale for having given them what they wanted.

This left Steve Gibson as the undisputed king of the boardrooms. Now here was a proper chairman. He had built Middlesbrough a sparkling new stadium and training facilities to match, and invested in famous players: Juninho, Alen Boksic, Fabrizio Ravanelli (yes, agents came to love Gibson almost as much as the fans).

The club won the League Cup under Steve McClaren and reached the Uefa Cup final in 2006. Nor were they in hock to banks; Middlesbrough’s vast and growing debt was to Gibson, or to be precise, his haulage company.

The assumption, even when it reached £85 million, was that it would never be called in and Gibson, whose affection for the club is unquestioned, continues to pass the test of time. Yet last week he appeared to panic in dismissing Gareth Southgate as manager and it was only when we discovered that Gordon Strachan had been approached three weeks earlier that an element of cynicism arose.

Because Gibson had kept Southgate after relegation from the Barclays Premier League in May — as at Leeds, the money had run out, though at least Middlesbrough went down with dignity — we imagined that he would be given a proper chance to regroup in the Coca-Cola Championship. Better managers than he, Sir Bobby Robson included, have been sacked early in a season, but not by footballing paragons.

For all the admirable aspects of Gibson’s Middlesbrough, not least the prolific youth policy that helped Southgate to stop the financial rot by selling the likes of Stewart Downing and Lee Cattermole, it is more difficult to see them as an exemplary club now. We shall have to find someone else to hail.

I know, what about the Welsh club, on their uppers not so long ago, who have leapfrogged Middlesbrough and look increasingly convincing contenders for promotion? Yes, Cardiff City. Peter Ridsdale’s Cardiff City.

League already has answer to thorny question of club ownership

The Football League’s latest statement about Notts County shrouds the issue of the club’s ownership in more mystery than ever.

In essence, it tells us that the League has ascertained, as far as possible and after “due diligence”, the identity of the “ultimate beneficial owner” (at first those running the club since the takeover that installed Sven-Göran Eriksson as director of football declined to provide this information), but that, at the club’s request and in accordance with the law, his identity will not be disclosed to the wider public.

Since the League’s inquiries began after press reports linking County with a controversial character or two, it is a perturbing outcome.

At least we have the reassurance that the supposed owner is known to the League chairman, Lord Mawhinney, who has a good record on matters of governance, not least the activities of agents, which he has curbed by the simple device of insisting that each club publish the total amount of commissions paid to them in the previous year. But we cannot rely on this for ever; one day Mawhinney will be replaced and the new chairman may be less trustworthy.

All football authorities are entitled to some sympathy, for the task of policing club ownership has never been harder. Even the Premier League, with all its resources, finds it difficult to check everything and the Football League is also encountering the problem that a “fit and proper persons” test stops at the United Kingdom’s borders.

Notts County are owned offshore. So are Leeds United, whose chairman, Ken Bates, has admitted “an error” in telling a Jersey court nine months ago that he part-owned the club. The League has asked him to amplify this and, although we await the outcome, it is not with bated breath because Bates, like Peter Trembling at Meadow Lane, has the law’s support in keeping mum.

Football is too shy, however, in using the law for its own benefit. My advice is that any League would be entitled to make full disclosure of ownership a condition of entry to its competitions. If the Football League adopted such a regulation, there would never be another Notts County or Leeds situation.

We should have to put up with those two and the other clubs — no one seems to know how many there are — based in the Cayman Islands and similar havens from tax and other intrusions into their affairs. But eventually their ownership would change again and, lo and behold, there would be the transparency that football is always talking about but never quite manages to achieve.

Obstruction of justice a pain – official

It was Matt Jackson, late of Everton, Norwich City and Wigan Athletic, summarising for BBC Radio 5 Live from the KC Stadium on Saturday. “I know I’m a fully paid-up member of the centre halves’ union, but . . .” And then he described a familiar scene that in recent years has become one of the most irritating in the game.

Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, the Hull City striker, had been trying to reach the ball before it went into touch, but Marc Wilson put his body in the way. A free kick was given by Stuart Attwell and you will not be surprised to hear that it went against Hull, even though Wilson was, by Jackson’s reckoning, at least six yards from the ball and making no attempt to play it, merely preventing his rival from doing so.

There is a common misconception that the offence formerly known as “obstruction” has been abolished — it exists, but is known as “impeding an opponent” — and so the convention among referees that defenders can impede an attacker as he goes legitimately about his business of providing goals is disturbing.

It is also hideously anti-football and I wonder why Fifa, which took such trouble to tilt the balance in favour of attackers when the offside law was changed and instructions given to assistant referees always to favour them when there is an element of doubt, does not step in and order a bit of consistency.

When even members of the centre halves’ union are protesting, it is time to act.