So i am on a man utd forum as well and what they do quite well is have the ability to apply a threadmark to any given thread. So say you have a training camp thread and something big happens you can apply a threadmark to the first post discussing it usually with the news link and everyone can jump straight to that post easily.

What they also do is have one thread for every player in a player performances section and apply a threadmark at the end of every game so you can jump to that players game discussion easily.

It stops a new thread after every game for 10 or so players, keeps the forum tidy and allows other good threads to stay on page 1 which can be lost easily by thread overload.

Redcafe.net for reference