tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2704433934063458212024-02-25T21:13:33.067+00:00The Accidental GroundhopperMichaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11492434940865733042noreply@blogger.comBlogger293125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270443393406345821.post-86760991419518069182020-05-09T16:36:00.002+01:002020-05-13T17:06:45.288+01:00Football Then and Now<i>Another article from The Popular Side archives. This one appeared in issue three, which came out on the day Newcastle picked up their first three points </i><i>of the 2014-15 season. The 1-0 victory over Leicester City followed seven games without a win and was in turn followed by four wins in a row. Pardew that. Elsewhere, David Moyes had been jettisoned after 10 months in charge at Manchester United and Nile Ranger had recently been cleared of being drunk in charge of a sports car after the police turned up to an M4 crash site and found him sleeping behind the wheel. </i><br />
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr BCX1 SCXW166139024" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; clear: both; color: black; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: "Segoe UI","Segoe UI Web",Arial,Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; overflow: visible; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="Paragraph SCXW166139024 BCX1" paraeid="{939963be-654f-4306-b360-5be9276d6943}{168}" paraid="316747714" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Pity the cossetted modern </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">professional footballer, so removed from real-world anxieties that they can offer up the absence of chips from a pre-match menu as a legitimate excuse for a multi-million pound squad of internationals failing to qualify for the Champions League. </span></span><span class="EOP SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":200,"335559740":276}" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="EOP SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":200,"335559740":276}" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr BCX1 SCXW166139024" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; clear: both; color: black; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: "Segoe UI","Segoe UI Web",Arial,Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; overflow: visible; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
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<span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Perhaps David </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Moyes</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> – an incumbent judged “disastrous” by the</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">same </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">national </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">journalist who criticised</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> Newcastle fans for “expecting a lot” - should</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> have provided his underachieving stars with</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> pies </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">and a bottle of pop instead, the 19-year-old Jackie Milburn guzzling both before scoring six times in 45 minutes during his trial game in 1943. </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Heaton-born Tom Watson, the Victorian prototype </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">of the modern manager and the Geordie who brought Sunderland their greatest period of success</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">, was an advocate of “weak tea with chops, eggs and dry toast” as prime pre-match fodder. A glass of beer or claret was allowed at dinner, while tobacco – taken only “sparingly” – was followed by an hour-long stroll at 7.30pm. </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Half a century later, </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Joe Harvey </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">skippere</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">d the Magpies to two FA Cups and fourth place in the league</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> on a Desperate Dan diet of 12 eggs and half a dozen rashers of bacon for breakfast, two pints of Guinness bef</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">ore kick-off and a cigarette at</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> half-time. </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=270443393406345821" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">“Football turns us into our parents and our parents into our grandparents,” wrote Harry Pearson. “I have worked hard at avoiding the traps that plunge a supporter from youth to middle-age.” </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">And yet, as I find myself growing ever more distant from </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">hollow-eyed millionaires</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">, it’s hard to resist the pull of what the Welsh call </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">hiraeth</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">: a longing for the unobtainable past. I miss zig-</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">zag</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> concrete steps and the smell of hops and barley, when the </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SpellingErrorV2 SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; background-image: url("data:image/svg+xml; background-position-x: left; background-position-y: bottom; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">club shop</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> was a </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SpellingErrorV2 SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; background-image: url("data:image/svg+xml; background-position-x: left; background-position-y: bottom; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">portakabin</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> and players used to scoot about town in sponsored Rovers, their names - Peter Jackson drives Bramall Motors - gaudily emblazoned on the side. You’d laugh </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">at club cars </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">nowadays – even Nile Ranger sleeps in a sixty grand Mercedes – </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">but they were better </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">than Jackie Milburn</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> ever managed. U</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">nable to </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">scrape together the cash for a car, </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> he </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">did his </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">matchday</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> commute from</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> a shift at</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SpellingErrorV2 SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; background-image: url("data:image/svg+xml; background-position-x: left; background-position-y: bottom; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Hazelrigg</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> Colliery by</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> motorbike, the directors</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> eventually forcing him</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">on to public transport</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> when a</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> front wheel go</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">t stuck in a Gosforth </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">tram track and sent </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Len </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Shackleton</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> – his colliery assistant, strike partner and pillion passenger -</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> careering into the road. </span></span><span class="EOP SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":200,"335559740":276}" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr BCX1 SCXW166139024" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; clear: both; color: black; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: "Segoe UI","Segoe UI Web",Arial,Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; overflow: visible; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
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<span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Bring back fixed advertising hoardings for</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> Auto Trader, MP Stephenson & Sons and Scorpion Dry Lager</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> – all on display as Liam O’Brien sent his free kick over the Sunderland wall and the away end </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">into delirium in October 1992 - </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Jim Smith shopping in Northumberland Street’s C&A and John </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Burridge</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> combining</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> Saturday afternoon goalkeeping duties with peddling Heart of Midlothian seconds in hotel function rooms the following day. “You haven’t got this away top in small, have you?” my mother once asked him, which is not a question you’d ever imagine Tim </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Krul</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> fielding in the overheated conference facilities of the Gateshead Swallow Hotel. </span></span><span class="EOP SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":200,"335559740":276}" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </span><br />
<span class="EOP SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":200,"335559740":276}" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr BCX1 SCXW166139024" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; clear: both; color: black; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: "Segoe UI","Segoe UI Web",Arial,Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; overflow: visible; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="Paragraph SCXW166139024 BCX1" paraeid="{e9c412ff-6e10-4b82-8883-51d449229fd5}{90}" paraid="983653885" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Not that footballers didn’t have their foibles back then. My </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">childhood </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">hero David Kelly once turned down a proffered free copy of a fanzine because he “only ever read Ceefax”, while Andy Cole s</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">narled sarcastically at another fanzine </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">seller for pointing out his picture</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> was</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> on the front cover. But that was Andy Cole for you. Just ask Teddy </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Sheringham</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">. </span></span><span class="EOP SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":200,"335559740":276}" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </span></div>
<div class="Paragraph SCXW166139024 BCX1" paraeid="{e9c412ff-6e10-4b82-8883-51d449229fd5}{90}" paraid="983653885" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="EOP SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":200,"335559740":276}" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr BCX1 SCXW166139024" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; clear: both; color: black; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: "Segoe UI","Segoe UI Web",Arial,Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; overflow: visible; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="Paragraph SCXW166139024 BCX1" paraeid="{e9c412ff-6e10-4b82-8883-51d449229fd5}{112}" paraid="1612680970" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Cole, famously, decided</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> to live in Crook when he first arrived at Newcastle, as improbable a choice as Andreas </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Andersson</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">– an expensive signing from AC Milan – </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">made when choosing</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> to reside</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> in the frozen wilds of </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Consett</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">. My abiding memory of the Swedish striking flop remains him being cornered for an autograph by a cadaverous local with track marks up his arms. “</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SpellingErrorV2 SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; background-image: url("data:image/svg+xml; background-position-x: left; background-position-y: bottom; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Y’alreet</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">, mate? </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Here, </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SpellingErrorV2 SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; background-image: url("data:image/svg+xml; background-position-x: left; background-position-y: bottom; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">g</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SpellingErrorV2 SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; background-image: url("data:image/svg+xml; background-position-x: left; background-position-y: bottom; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">iz</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SpellingErrorV2 SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; background-image: url("data:image/svg+xml; background-position-x: left; background-position-y: bottom; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">yer</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> signature for wor kid</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">.</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">”</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Andersson</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> looked </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW166139024 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">even more petrified than he did at Wembley in 1998. </span></span><span class="EOP SCXW166139024 BCX1" data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":200,"335559740":276}" style="font-family: "calibri" , "calibri_embeddedfont" , "calibri_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20.7px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </span></div>
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Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11492434940865733042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270443393406345821.post-15365773832956925692020-05-03T11:11:00.000+01:002020-05-08T19:44:04.023+01:00Newcastle at the World Cup<i>You never forget your first World Cup. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgfKIeIgO4E" target="_blank">Aztec Lightning</a>, Josimar, Maradona and la mano de Dios. Maradona and Terry Fenwick, the Mexican wave, Danish Dynamite, Belanov and Butragueno, Gary Lineker against the Poles, Gordon Strachan against the advertising hoarding, that black spider shadow on the Azetca pitch, Captain Marvel's shoulder and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-3gJJqg1fc" target="_blank">Peter Beardsley sidefooting in the first goal a Newcastle player had scored in the finals </a>since Ivor Broadis against Belgium in 1954. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Newcastle United and World Cups haven't always mixed so well. Jackie Milburn made just a single appearance as England exited at the group stage in 1950 and was left at home four years later. David Batty's 1998 penalty found Carlos Roa's gloves instead of the net. In 2006, Michael Owen's right knee made it through two starts and 51 seconds then kept him out for the next 10 months. Even the one player who'd actually won a World Cup, future swimming pool salesman Stephane Guivarc'h, managed nothing in a Newcastle shirt besides a bobbled goal in a 4-1 home defeat. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><a href="https://www.themag.co.uk/2018/06/every-newcastle-united-player-world-cup-1930-2018/" target="_blank">In total, 28 men have represented the Magpies at the world's greatest sporting event</a>, from Milburn and George Robledo at Brazil 1950 to Aleksandar Mitrovic at Russia 2018. Beardsley and the two-goal Broadis aside, George Robledo, Alan Shearer (2), Moussa Sissoko, Craig Moore and Mitrovic have scored World Cup goals. The only Newcastle player to make it to more than a single tournament was David McCreery ('82 and '86) and none can match Jean-Alain Boumsong, who failed to play a single minute in 2006 but left with a runners-up medal and a move to Juventus. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>16 years after Beardsley, McCreery and Ian Stewart had represented United in Mexico, I finally made it to a World Cup myself. </i><i><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"> In 2002, </span> I was living in South Korea and got to see the hosts against Italy and Spain (I know) plus La Furia Roja's narrow win against </i><i>Shay Given and the Roy Keane-less Republic of Ireland. Twelve years later, I was in Brazil together with a record half-dozen players from Alan Pardew's 10th-placed Mags...</i><br />
<i></i><br />
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr BCX1 SCXW140640624" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; clear: both; color: black; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: "Segoe UI","Segoe UI Web",Arial,Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; overflow: visible; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="Paragraph SCXW140640624 BCX1" paraeid="{97edae4b-9290-44dd-b398-8e70395f5903}{168}" paraid="1004407286" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">As Francisco </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Ernani</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> Lima da Silva soon discovered, it’s a long, long way from Sao Paulo to Newcastle. It had taken me two flights, one ferry, thirty-three hours on two buses from Montevideo and another one and a half inching forward in a strike-swelled taxi queue to get to South America’s biggest city. “Newcastle United?” the driver repeated as I finally saw the back of Tiete Bus Station. “Yes, I remember </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SpellingErrorV2 SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; background-image: url("data:image/svg+xml; background-position-x: left; background-position-y: bottom; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Mirandinha</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">. We called him the hen because he ran a lot but went nowhere. </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SpellingErrorV2 SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; background-image: url("data:image/svg+xml; background-position-x: left; background-position-y: bottom; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Cacapa</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">? Terrible. </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SpellingErrorV2 SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; background-image: url("data:image/svg+xml; background-position-x: left; background-position-y: bottom; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Fumaca</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">? No, never heard of him.”</span></span><span class="EOP SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-ccp-props="{"134233117":true,"134233118":true}" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </span></div>
<div class="Paragraph SCXW140640624 BCX1" paraeid="{97edae4b-9290-44dd-b398-8e70395f5903}{168}" paraid="1004407286" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="EOP SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-ccp-props="{"134233117":true,"134233118":true}" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr BCX1 SCXW140640624" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; clear: both; color: black; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: "Segoe UI","Segoe UI Web",Arial,Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; overflow: visible; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div class="Paragraph SCXW140640624 BCX1" paraeid="{97edae4b-9290-44dd-b398-8e70395f5903}{190}" paraid="537590307" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">My Brazil World Cup journe</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">y began in Buenos Aires in the third week of </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">May, where a San Lorenzo-supporting cab driver eulogised </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Fabricio</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SpellingErrorV2 SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; background-image: url("data:image/svg+xml; background-position-x: left; background-position-y: bottom; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Coloccini</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> as “a great man and a hero to everyone at our club”. “Average defender,” sniffed Aldo </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SpellingErrorV2 SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; background-image: url("data:image/svg+xml; background-position-x: left; background-position-y: bottom; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Baccaro</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">, </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">our fixer in the city, who was </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">more impressed with the work Christian </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SpellingErrorV2 SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; background-image: url("data:image/svg+xml; background-position-x: left; background-position-y: bottom; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Bassedas</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> had done </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">since returning to</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> Vélez </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Sarsfield</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> as general manager in 2008. </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Vélez</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">, </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SpellingErrorV2 SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; background-image: url("data:image/svg+xml; background-position-x: left; background-position-y: bottom; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Superfinal</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> champions in 2013 with </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Facundo</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Ferreyra</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> in their starting eleven, had fallen behind San Lorenzo and River Plate since their star striker’s departure to </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SpellingErrorV2 SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; background-image: url("data:image/svg+xml; background-position-x: left; background-position-y: bottom; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Shakhtar</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> Donetsk. On the day before the two teams met to decide who would inherit the 2014 crown, </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">I was</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> taken on a nine-hour tour of River Plate’s </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">El Monumental stadium</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">, less a football ground than a round-the-clock </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">community hub. “Welcome to my home,” a River </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SpellingErrorV2 SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; background-image: url("data:image/svg+xml; background-position-x: left; background-position-y: bottom; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Solidario</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">worker</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> greeted me as we entered his office in the main entrance hall. </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Part of the club’s Social Department, </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SpellingErrorV2 SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; background-image: url("data:image/svg+xml; background-position-x: left; background-position-y: bottom; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Solidario’s</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> volunteers lead outreach programmes, conduct ground tours and </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">collect donations </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">for charity projects which </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">promote “a fairer society” nationwide. </span></span><span class="EOP SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-ccp-props="{"134233117":true,"134233118":true}" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> It was, on every level, an eye-opening experience. </span></div>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr BCX1 SCXW140640624" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; clear: both; color: black; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: "Segoe UI","Segoe UI Web",Arial,Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; overflow: visible; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
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<span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">As the players ra</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">n throug</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">h their final training session</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">, the stadium was</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> abuzz with noise from the club’s nursery school and you</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">th sport organisations. I spoke</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> to a husband and wife who worked as swimming and gymnastics coaches, had an 18-month-old daughter enrolled in the club's childcare programme and a 9-year-old son training at the academy. </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Together</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> with the multi-use sports facilities – free or heavily subsidised to club members – </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">are cl</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">assrooms, a theatre, cinema and </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">cafeteria where youth prospects eat alongside their coaches, club officials and fans. </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">“There’s no club without the people who support it,”</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> a </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SpellingErrorV2 SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; background-image: url("data:image/svg+xml; background-position-x: left; background-position-y: bottom; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Solidario</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> member explained</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">. “We’re all part of the same family.”</span></span><span class="EOP SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-ccp-props="{"134233117":true,"134233118":true}" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </span></div>
<div class="Paragraph SCXW140640624 BCX1" paraeid="{e9937fe4-b6e7-43c3-85a7-860c8c0e1139}{25}" paraid="1389821688" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijNJdErfw6Bkgvwb34Sg-aYoNQTgDbcHYoQ8HEc2LFGITVGLk0-1qSRxMuMRNM5eillXs39b532IzjaaPlBKoNj0NJqIszDwFM9XqPf5I_Cb3aKHMr3fdH9-vvEq9niBrhfhjRaseOTQE/s1600/Screenshot+%2528238%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="663" data-original-width="482" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijNJdErfw6Bkgvwb34Sg-aYoNQTgDbcHYoQ8HEc2LFGITVGLk0-1qSRxMuMRNM5eillXs39b532IzjaaPlBKoNj0NJqIszDwFM9XqPf5I_Cb3aKHMr3fdH9-vvEq9niBrhfhjRaseOTQE/s200/Screenshot+%2528238%2529.png" width="145" /></a></div>
<span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">I spent five days in Argentina before talking the one-hour fast boat to the Uruguayan port of Colonia del Sacramento. “Where are you from?” asked a customs officer, breaking off from rifling through the bottom of my bag. “Who do you support?”</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> Squeezed between the behemoths of</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> South American football, </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Uruguayans have a longstanding affinity with the English game and a more transient love affair with </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">the red half of Merseyside</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">. “I’m a Luis Suarez fan,”</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> one local told</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> me. “I don’</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">t know much about </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Liverpool </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">except for him.”</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> Minus their injured superstar </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">striker</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">, I watched the national team labour to a single-goal friendly win over a Northern Ireland side coached by Michael O’Neill, second highest scorer with five in the calamitous 1988-89 season that was </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SpellingErrorV2 SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; background-image: url("data:image/svg+xml; background-position-x: left; background-position-y: bottom; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Mirandinha’s</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> swansong in the black-and-white stripes. “I still think about Newcastle,” English football’s first Brazilian told </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The Guardian</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> earlier this year. “I was so happy there.” </span></span><span class="EOP SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-ccp-props="{"134233117":true,"134233118":true}" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </span><br />
<span class="EOP SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-ccp-props="{"134233117":true,"134233118":true}" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><br /></span>
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<span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">A fortnight later, there was a contemporary </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Magpie</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> presence inside Porto Alegre's </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SpellingErrorV2 SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; background-image: url("data:image/svg+xml; background-position-x: left; background-position-y: bottom; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Beiro</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">-Rio </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">S</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">tadium</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">, </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Cabaye</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">, </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SpellingErrorV2 SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; background-image: url("data:image/svg+xml; background-position-x: left; background-position-y: bottom; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Debuchy</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> and </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Sissoko</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> all involved as France </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">put three goals past a Honduras side more intent on kicking flesh than leather. </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The woeful French support spent most of the ninety minutes attempting Mexican Waves while the locals – </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">evidently </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">still to recover from losing the ’98 final to </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Stéphane</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SpellingErrorV2 SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; background-image: url("data:image/svg+xml; background-position-x: left; background-position-y: bottom; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Guivarc'h</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> – booed </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">whenever</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> anyone in blue </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">took possession of the ball. </span></span><span class="EOP SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-ccp-props="{"134233117":true,"134233118":true}" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </span><br />
<span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Flying back to Tyneside, I managed to catch Shola </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SpellingErrorV2 SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; background-image: url("data:image/svg+xml; background-position-x: left; background-position-y: bottom; background-repeat: repeat-x; border-bottom-color: transparent; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Ameobi’s</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> World Cup entrance from a TV screen in Brasilia International Airport. </span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">“That guy needs to run more,” a North American accent boomed across the departure lounge. “What’s he doing just standing around?”</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-contrast="auto" lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW140640624 BCX1" style="-ms-touch-select: none; -ms-user-select: text; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </span></span><span class="EOP SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-ccp-props="{"134233117":true,"134233118":true}" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </span><br />
<span class="EOP SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-ccp-props="{"134233117":true,"134233118":true}" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span class="EOP SCXW140640624 BCX1" data-ccp-props="{"134233117":true,"134233118":true}" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "helvetica_embeddedfont" , "helvetica_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.42px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b>This article first appeared in the Newcastle United fanzine The Popular Side.</b> </span></div>
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><br />Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11492434940865733042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270443393406345821.post-88808585670608976842020-04-26T13:10:00.003+01:002020-04-26T13:15:18.697+01:00Matt Kingsley: the story of Newcastle's first England international<i>The Popular Side was a Newcastle United print fanzine that ran for 14 issues between August 2014 and December 2016. Here's an article I wrote for issue 5 in January 2015, during a season in which Alan Pardew found a way out of his eight-year contract, John Carver almost found a way out of the Premier League, our big summer signings, Riviere, De Jong and Cabella, scored a total of five goals, and Jack Colback was briefly touted as an England possi</i><i>ble...</i><br />
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=270443393406345821" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=270443393406345821" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a>But for an ill-timed calf strain, Killingworth's Jack Colback might have lined up as the 36th Newcastle United player to be capped by England during September's double header with Norway and Switzerland, adding to a list that includes many of the most celebrated names in the club's history but remains bookended by Andy Carroll's November 2010 start in a Wembley loss to France and Matthew Kingsley's debut versus Wales on March 18th 1901.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUq3buh_St27xHF0eyPbz6s7tWeyWagOs3ao8-vmoZZfsIHhJzlbTafNMF-qkK8eB7uXN9PzIQk7COMlegA_P1NoC6af8xaUTzd2NfAJSvOLG3Iex8tfpY-PswCVYf8VcnGanye97YgpU/s1600/Screenshot+%2528226%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="538" data-original-width="339" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUq3buh_St27xHF0eyPbz6s7tWeyWagOs3ao8-vmoZZfsIHhJzlbTafNMF-qkK8eB7uXN9PzIQk7COMlegA_P1NoC6af8xaUTzd2NfAJSvOLG3Iex8tfpY-PswCVYf8VcnGanye97YgpU/s320/Screenshot+%2528226%2529.png" width="201" /></a></div>
A talented, charismatic but little-remembered figure, the Lancashire-born keeper made his only England appearance in a 6-0 British Championship victory that was the first of the 16 international fixtures to be played at St James' Park. Rejecting a transfer to Everton, he had arrived on Tyneside from second division Darwen in the summer of 1898, having previously worked on the production line at a calico printworks near Bolton while turning out for amateur sides Edgworth and Turton. "He had a distinctive playing style," writes Paul Joannou in his <i>Who's Who of Newcastle United</i>, "continually swinging his arms around as he waited for the ball to come his way. At 14 stone, he was heavier than most footballers and put his bulk to good use."<br />
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After displacing Charlie Watts in the United starting eleven, Kingsley played every minute of the 1898-99 season as the Magpies survived their maiden top-flight campaign and defeated three-time champions Sunderland in the first of the 139-league meetings between the two clubs. "Every north-country devotee of the code was present either in person or in spirit," the local press enthused. Over 25,000 fans, including an estimated 8,000 who'd travelled from Tyneside, packed Roker Park for a Christmas Eve fixture hailed as "one of the most remarkable games ever witnessed on a football field in the north of England." The visitors fell a goal behind - "the crowd, or rather the Sunderland section of it, went delirious with joy" - but swiftly levelled through Willie Wardrope, took a halftime lead with a Jock Peddie goal, and then made sure of only a third league victory of the season when the two scorers combined for Peddie's second strike of the game. "Fouls became frequent," the <i>Manchester Guardian</i> reported. Sunderland halved the deficit when a shot squirmed free of Kingsley's dive, "Newcastle afterwards confined themselves to a more defensive game, and indulged in a good deal of kicking out."<br />
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Kingsley's error was by no means characteristic, the keeper a virtual ever-present as United placed in the top six in four of his half-dozen seasons between the posts, finishing third in 1901-02 and denying their local rivals back-to-back titles with a 1-0 win on the final day of the following season. More than league placings have altered dramatically since those days. "Goalkeepers were a different breed in the Edwardian years," Joannou writes, "far removed from the super-fit and athletic figures of the modern age." The style of play was very bit as alien as the physiques: Kingsley was able to use his hands well outside the area he'd be confined to today - Leigh Roose, who kept goal for Wales in that first St James' international was known for regularly bouncing the ball halfway up the pitch before starting attacks with either a kick or long throw - and was allowed to move off his line when facing penalties, the kicker free to place the ball anywhere along a twelve-yard line which stretched from one touchline to the other until the 18-yard-box was introduced in 1901-02. No-one bothered to hold on to crosses when opposition forwards could barge you into the goal net, "sometimes taking a defender along for good measure with one almighty shoulder-charge", It was little easier for Kingsley and his contemporaries when the ball stayed on the floor: St James' Park was still classed as common grazing land and had a surface described as "primitive" by visiting officials from Grimsby Town. <br />
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It was injury that eventually felled Newcastle's first England international, Kingsley ousted by Jim Lawrence as Frank Watt built a side which would lift the title three times and lose the same number of FA Cup finals in the following half decade. While Lawrence didn't relinquish the keeper's jersey until 1921, Kingsley moved on to West Ham United, then of the Western and Southern Leagues, in May 1904. "A feisty character," the London club's official history records, the hefty Lancastrian almost provoked a riot when he hoofed ex-Hammer Herbert Lyon in the middle of a game with Brighton and Hove Albion. "(He) ran at Lyon and kicked him to the ground, and matters looked ugly for the international keeper, who was ordered off the ground by the referee, but the Brighton officials, with a posse of police, acted very promptly and escorted him from the playing arena before any violence was used," reported the <i>Stratford Express</i>. Kingsley's West Ham career came to a full stop rather quicker than the correspondent's sentence, the club announcing his immediate release almost four years to the day since his sole England appearance. After serving out a Football League suspension, the keeper wound down his career at QPR, Rochdale, Barrow and back at Edgworth, where the 1911 census records the 35-year-old living with his wife, two sons and a daughter - a fourth child had died on Tyneside in 1903 - while working as a nightwatchman at the same textile printers he'd left to sign for Newcastle. Joining the Royal Engineers as a sapper in 1917, he was listed on the census as "a general labourer" in 1939. Kingsley died in March 1960, 59 years after becoming the first Magpie to don an England shirt, but long since reduced to just a footnote in the history of the club.<br />
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11492434940865733042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270443393406345821.post-4462864861397500462020-03-15T18:11:00.003+00:002020-03-16T11:18:29.762+00:00Ground 333: Polideportivo Municipal, UD SanseOne small problem with groundhopping in a place as miniscule as La Gomera is you pretty quickly run short of grounds left to hop to. Even at my recent pace - somewhere between La Sagrada Familia's build time and Ian Rush when he played up front for Newcastle United - I'd already ticked off Bahia de Playa Santiago three times, UD Alajero and Valle Gran Rey's Santos Reyes once apiece, and even managed to make it to CD Mulagua twice in the five months during which the club was formed, went through three different presidents, two coaches and two different playing squads, won just once, gave up 61 goals in just 14 games, accused their first manager of stealing cash, forging contracts and "being very bad as a coach", folded and then almost immediately announced they'd be starting again next year. It's one way to make the news, I suppose.<br />
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Things haven't been too much sunnier at AD Juventud San Sebastian. This season, the club's fourth since adding a women's team to their youth set-up, had descended into "a cluster of misfortunes with no logical explanation" even before coronavirus shut everything down, inexplicable injuries and a series of shellackings leaving them second from bottom of the third-tier Primera Nacional Feminino Grupo Canarias with just seven points from 18 games and a negative goal difference that had outstripped their average attendance at the council-owned Polideportivo Municipal. Nonetheless, with only schoolkids using the pitches at Vallehermoso and Agulo nowadays, the biggest, most easily accessible and least visually appealing of La Gomera's footballing venues was the last remaining tick on my island to-do list.<br />
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When I wandered into the ground five minutes before kick-off through a side gate wedged open with a breezeblock and two athletics hurdles, it wasn't immediately clear the match was even on. Flanked by hills on both touchlines, the single stand - once painted red but now more desiccated salmon with specks of sand - was disconcertingly empty. Ageing floodlight pylons towered above a concrete running track, heaped-up high jump mats and side-by-side tea huts with AD Sanse and UD Gomera - a men's team who managed five seasons in the fourth-tier Tercera Grupo 12 before a shortage of both players and money forced their demise in 2015 - written above the hatches. Two women waited for customers while three blokes on the far side of the pitch were attempting to straighten an advertising banner. When the teams marched out the visitors turned to applaud all four sides and a watching crowd of 17, including substitutes, two officials, a couple who'd brought their own roof along and a vociferous travelling army of four.<br />
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With no shade except the Walls ice cream parasol that two of the onlookers had disappeared into, I took a seat at the back of the stand for an opening 20 minutes in which nothing happened until everything did. A stabbed through ball put a Sanse forward clear of the pursuing Las Majoreras defence. Three touches took her halfway round the keeper before an outstretched arm sent her tumbling to the artificial turf. The referee had the red card up for so long I thought he might be using it to shelter from the sun. "What are you doing?" the away fans yelled at the flustered official, though he was too busy threatening to send another two players off for what I imagined was some slightly more strongly worded criticism to reply. The replacement keeper went right, the ball left, and Las Majoreras' manager was sent to join us in the stand as the home players noisily celebrated the rarity of a lead.<br />
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While the visiting manager moaned on his mobile about the injustice of it all, his 10-woman team turned the game on its head in a 20-minute spell in which they scored twice, missed two one-on-ones and then poked a third goal through the Sanse keeper's legs. The dispirited home side struggled to muster a response, the visitors strolling through the second half at mid-afternoon pace as most of those watching began turning from the pitch to their mobile phone screens. Sanse's stopper made a double save with her legs, watched as Majoreras twice contrived to steer the ball wide with nothing left to do except put it between the posts, and then was finally beaten for a fourth time in the last minute of the game. The hatch came down on the tea hut, we ducked back out past the high-hurdles and wandered towards the cafes in town, little realising that it might well be the last game of football we'd be seeing for quite some time. <br />
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Date: Sunday March 1st<br />
Admission: Free<br />
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If you're thinking of visiting for the day from Tenerife, San Sebastian de la Gomera's stadium is easy enough to find. Take a left out of the port, a right at the Plaza de las Americas and continue on past the statue of Columbus, passing the well where he drew water, the church where he prayed for the success of the trip and the house he supposedly stayed in before setting off. Continue past a small supermarket, head for the mountains and look out for the floodlights on your left hand side. Games kick off at noon on Sundays; you can see forthcoming fixtures <a href="https://futboltenerife.com/1femenino/" target="_blank">here</a> or on the club's <a href="https://www.facebook.com/AD-Juventud-San-Sebastián-637170549649870/" target="_blank">Facebook page</a>. <br />
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<br />Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11492434940865733042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270443393406345821.post-70053315982365864882019-09-22T20:30:00.000+01:002019-09-24T07:40:45.743+01:00Ground 332: Campo Municipal, CD Mulagua How long does it take to start a football club from scratch? For CD Mulagua, just 35 days separated registering with their regional football federation and fielding a team in a friendly against Gomeran neighbours UD Alajero. "The work of many months achieved in weeks," Mulagua's Facebook account announced when the team was accepted into the third group of the seventh-tier Segunda Regional."My family and friends were all against me getting involved in this," president Lorenzo Negrin wrote, "but Sergio Jerez Padilla brought a group of committed players who have aspirations to go higher. We hope to be a family that will bring a lot of happiness to the people of Hermigua."<br />
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The co-founders are well-known around La Gomera, Padilla arriving from two seasons as <i>el mister</i> at Alajero and Negrin formerly involved with the now-defunct CD Orone Santiago. These connections have helped their new club hoover up a whole host of raffle prize sponsors, vital funding for what's now the fourth senior men's team on the island. "I'm very happy to receive support from all over La Gomera and Tenerife too," Negrin wrote. "Maybe we can add a few grains of sand to the local economy." <br />
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Mulagua's first ever competitive opposition is Union Deportivo Chio, a village team from the south of Tenerife who come fresh from an eventful summer of their own. "This will be a very complicated year because we've just lost half of our team," reckoned new coach Nando Ferrer. "My only goal this year is for the club to function properly." With no car and just a single bus that can make it in time for the 12.30 kick-off, things functioning properly are at the top of my mind as well. Fortunately, I'm saved the 19km hike to Hermigua by the punctual departure of the half ten <i>guagua</i>, which climbs straight up through the mountains, loops precariously back down by a terraced vineyard and some banana trees, and finally drops me off by a 16th century Dominican monastery and an enthnographic park. Safe to say it's all <i>un poco mas exotico</i> than my <a href="https://theaccidentalgroundhopper.blogspot.com/2019/09/ground-331-new-fields-whitburn-and.html" target="_blank">last time out in suburban South Tyneside.</a><br />
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Things are different on the pitch too. A chalkboard at the entrance lists raffle prizes, including a box of biscuits and a restaurant meal for two. There's a Lego block-coloured concrete stand along the near touchline, with a road above and a mountain, a banana field and a park on the other three sides. The home side kick off but it's the visitors who score, a first-minute through ball bouncing twice between defenders and straight to the boot of Chio's centre forward. "Have it!" he shouts, jogging to the corner flag in celebration. "But...," Mulagua's left-back begins, looking at the linesman for help. Chio have a second chalked off for offside before the home side muster a threat of their own, a midfielder chesting down and smashing the blue-and-pink ball against the bar. I count a crowd of around 80, including 15 standing on the road above, three sitting on a pile of logs and ten on the ramp that leads down to the stand. Most of them are cheering when Mulagua score their first ever competitive goal, a corner skimming the pitch before the side netting ripples and green shirts joyously converge on the mystery scorer. "For real?" laughs a bloke in flip-flops. "I didn't see a thing," chuckles his mate between two gulps of beer. </div>
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"You've lost your intensity," Ferrer screams from the touchline, but his team doesn't take long to win back the lead, the number 10 doing a Riyad Mahrez impression down the right before bending in a cross that that a teammate gleefully cushions in. The middle of the stand rises in celebration as the centre forward gives the scorer a fireman's lift back to halfway. At the interval I shell out a euro on a raffle ticket and head down to the tea hut, which is busy knocking out paella and cold beer from under a tree in the neighbouring park. <br />
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The second half is no less eventful. I miss a sending off, fail to win the raffle, a Mulagua player Joelintons a free header wide, and two of his teammates can't get their foreheads to a ball that spins annoyingly across the six-yard line. "Up! Up! Come on," a home fan implores his team. "In the goal." With 15 minutes left, the visitors oblige him by smacking a free kick in to the corner from 25 yards. Even worse, in time added on the red-and-whites knock in a fortuitous fourth, finally poking a shot into the net after the luckless home keeper twice saves one-on-ones. "They didn't deserve so much punishment," <i>Gomera Verde</i> <a href="https://gomeraverde.es/art/76582/la-ud-chio-se-lleva-los-tres-puntos-ante-un-mulagua-que-no-merecio-tanto-castigo?fbclid=IwAR0mH7h_sFNx7f8gA92WROICeIbmfk6AGoH887RngaGZrYnA1Tl6kiZv-pY" target="_blank">laments post-game</a>. Not the start Padilla and Negrin were looking for, but then they've only been going a month and a half. <br />
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Admission: Free<br />
Date: September 22nd 2019<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;"><b>A Brief Guide to Groundhopping in La Gomera</b></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPzYZVH5wyLBzYfYttvX1d7RfF3_8VhXjc5QTOMHBqg50phLYN5HN88-si4fJkxOW17oH0hRILe6jE3NotMVxKldgz6YqJVy9UN8oWtRsJTJNTuy2ui6bXP2dZBwe5ob6uX2EErpibBs4/s1600/RenderedContent-CD3A0E8A-9A14-4493-BCEC-41DEF15CE259.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; color: #0066cc; float: left; font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center; text-decoration: underline; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1136" data-original-width="852" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPzYZVH5wyLBzYfYttvX1d7RfF3_8VhXjc5QTOMHBqg50phLYN5HN88-si4fJkxOW17oH0hRILe6jE3NotMVxKldgz6YqJVy9UN8oWtRsJTJNTuy2ui6bXP2dZBwe5ob6uX2EErpibBs4/s200/RenderedContent-CD3A0E8A-9A14-4493-BCEC-41DEF15CE259.JPG" style="cursor: move;" width="150" /></a><b>CD Santos Reyes</b> are the current kings of Gomeran football. The Valle Gran Rey team were promoted to the fifth-tier Primera Regional last season and play their home matches a short walk from Playa del Ingles on the edge of the closest La Gomera gets to a beach resort. If you're travelling from San Sebastian de La Gomera, <a href="https://www.guaguagomera.com/publico/contenido/LINEA1" target="_blank">bus number 1</a> takes the scenic route (5 euro; about 1 hour 40 minutes) through Garajonay National Park, or you can skip round the island on <a href="https://www.fredolsen.es/en/fred-olsen-experience/destinations/la-gomera" target="_blank">Fred Olsen's fast boat</a> (10 euro; 70 minutes) then walk 30 minutes along the seafront from the port at Vueltas. The quirky stadium has the Atlantic at one end, a mountain at the other and a single stand with cover half provided by a roof and half by some parasols. Entrance to games is 5 euro, though any cheapskates among you can climb up a road behind one goal and watch from a rock for free.<br />
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<b>CD Bahia de Santiago</b> were a penalty shoot-out away from promotion to the Primeria Regional last season and must be one of the few club sides in Spanish football that are best reached by boat. Their <i>campo municipal</i> is a short stroll from Playa Santiago's beach, where the <a href="https://www.fredolsen.es/en" target="_blank">Fred Olsen ferries</a> stop off on their route from San Sebastian to Valle Gran Rey. Unless you've got a residents' discount, the <a href="https://www.guaguagomera.com/publico/contenido/lineas" target="_blank">number 3 bus</a> from San Sebastian takes a bit longer but is half the price or there's the free option of a 21km coastal walk. If you're coming from the north of Tenerife, <a href="https://www.bintercanarias.com/" target="_blank">you can also fly to La Gomera's pint-sized airport </a>and walk down the hill to the ground. Entrance is free and there's a bar inside the ground.<br />
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<b>UD Alajero</b> play on a municipal pitch with a covered stand, a bar in the corner and a view downhill to the North Atlantic. After finishing last season dead last in the Primera Regional, they're now in the same Segunda grupo as Mulagua. You can get to Alajero on <a href="https://www.guaguagomera.com/publico/contenido/lineas" target="_blank">bus number 3</a> from the station in San Sebastian de La Gomera (4 euro; about one hour). Entrance to the ground is free.<br />
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As most of the players travel from Tenerife, kick off times for the four men's teams are usually 12 or 12:30 on Sundays to fit in with the ferry schedules. You can find all the league fixtures for Canary Islands football at Tercera level and below <a href="https://www.siguetuliga.com/region/canarias" target="_blank">here.</a> With other fixtures staggered across Friday night to Sunday afternoon, it's easy enough to fit in more than one game across a weekend if you base yourself on Tenerife. Including La Gomera in your plans would mean a flight or return ferry (<a href="https://www.navieraarmas.com/en/home" target="_blank">64 euro with Naviera Armas</a> or 68 with Fred Olsen, though there are discounts for groups and over-60s). You can find all the Gomeran teams on Facebook; up-to-date kick off times are listed <a href="https://eldeportivo.es/" target="_blank">here. </a><br />
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After <b>UD Gomera </b>resigned their Primera Regional place in March 2018<b>, </b>the sole occupants of San Sebastian's stadium are <b>AD Sanse, </b>who play in the third-tier Segunda Division Feminino Group 6. The uncovered stadium is a 10-15 minute walk from the town centre. There's a hut selling coffee next to a corner flag and a bar on the street outside. Games usually kick off at noon on Sundays; entrance is free. Their Facebook page is <a href="https://www.facebook.com/AD-Juventud-San-Sebastián-637170549649870/" target="_blank">here. </a>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11492434940865733042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270443393406345821.post-84776576967496693632019-09-08T09:14:00.001+01:002019-09-21T21:04:29.615+01:00Ground 331: New Fields, Whitburn and Cleadon FCHello again, reader. It's been a while. In case you'd been wondering, since I last wrote anything on here I've shivered through the <a href="http://boxtoboxfootball.uk/dnipro-metalist-demise-ukrainian-football/" target="_blank">death throes of Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk</a>, watched an unlikely promotion lift-off at Desna Chernahiv's Yuri Gagarin Stadium almost aborted by Arsenal Kyiv, looked on as Whitley Bay lost at Stockton Town, South Shields won at Whitby, Hercules Alicante stalled at home to Levante's B team, and Rayo Vallecano went down to Getafe on a balmy Sunday lunchtime in Madrid. Apologies to all but one of the home teams listed; I can only promise not to come back soon.<br />
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I've also accidentally taken in the reopening of Belarus's national stadium as Dynamo Minsk hosted Derry City in the early rounds of the Europa League, sat through Ukraine U16s besting Belgium - a rare home win - at Kyiv's House of Football, and ended two years in Eastern Europe with a Brexit-beating move to the North Atlantic, tanning myself at three grounds on La Gomera: a promotion play-off that Playa Santiago lost on penalty kicks, an island derby at Santa Reyes where the opposition turned up off the ferry with just nine men, and CD Tenerife's youth team's routine thrashing of UD Alajero as the latter finished rock bottom of the sixth-tier 1a Regional Grupo 2. Oh, the glamour of it all. Eleven new grounds in just over two years; in school report parlance, I could definitely do better.<br />
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Which is one of the reasons I'm at <a href="http://theaccidentalgroundhopper.blogspot.com/2016/09/ground-315-temple-park-whitburn-athletic.html" target="_blank">groundhoppers' dream club Whitburn and Cleadon</a> this afternoon. Since my last visit in 2016, they've joined up with a junior football team, changed their name, shifted to a fourth different home ground, and been promoted to the middle-tier of the Northern Football Alliance after a six-season stay in Division Two. "The move to New Fields settled us," reckoned manager Ryan Shave. "Having a pitch we know is in decent condition and looked after is important...in previous seasons we were asking players to help put up nets and barriers while watching us pick up dog crap off the pitch". Whatever else they suffered, that was something they never had to dirty their hands with while dropping through the leagues at the Dnipro Arena.<br />
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Shave's team sit third with seven games gone, already 15 points ahead of a Felling Magpies side who've played six, lost six and conceded 42 goals while they were at it. The visitors are out and working on their shape in more than one sense of the word when I arrive at New Fields. "A perfectly normal clump of grassland, with a hedge on one side and a school on the other," <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/07/30/england-disunited-how-the-soul-of-english-football-came-to-be-br/" target="_blank"> the <i>Telegraph</i>'s Jonathan Liew wrote </a>in a piece on South Tyneside Council's plans to sell it off in 2016. With the local area not yet safe from the housebuilders, the 'Keep Cleadon Green' flags are still flying outside the brick clubhouse building the home team are emerging from. I find myself a spot where I won't be expected to chase down stray balls, eventually settling on a place where the visiting subs can retrieve any overhit passes and the home keeper beats me to the weeds behind his goal. "Howay lads, someone grab this," referee Keith Scoffham says, holding linesman's flags out to both teams. I take a headcount of nine other spectators, including a bloke with sunglasses and a camera bag he never opens, two people out for a walk and a visiting fan with his own folding chair. <br />
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The Magpies hold their own until the quarter hour, when their keeper scuffs a clearance and a Whitburn forward walks the ball around him and into the net. "Eeeh, Jesus Christ," a defender rages. "From our own mistake again." "Keep the shape, keep the shape," a midfielder tells his teammates. "You're doing well," says Scoffham. "Great half, lads. Great discipline. Thank you." At half-time the teams form circles on the touchline, the referee stands alone with a water bottle and a defender has a slash behind the goal. "At least he turned his back," a player laughs. "You won't be coming on as a sub this half, will you?" Scoffham asks one of his assistants before restarting the game.<br />
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The second 45 is dominated by the home team, who see a header nudged back off the line and a shot that just fails to squeeze between the keeper's knees before they finally clank a second goal in off the bar. "Dig in!" shout the Felling coaches. "Keep going, heads up." The away side battle gamely but the closest they get to a goal is a penalty shout that Scoffham waves away. "Blatant ref, man," a midfielder complains. "Come on, lads. Sometimes I get them right, sometimes I get them wrong. Do you want to moan or play?" With ten minutes left, Whitburn dink a third goal in and go first in the table ahead of Hexham, Red Row Welfare and Blyth Spartans Reserves. "Our first clean sheet of the season. Eight games in and we somehow sit top of the league despite not hitting any form," <a href="https://twitter.com/FCWhitburn" target="_blank">they tweet at full time</a>. Football, eh?<br />
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Date: September 7th 2019<br />
Admission: FreeMichaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11492434940865733042noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270443393406345821.post-86936175786747498702017-08-07T20:51:00.000+01:002017-08-07T21:15:12.780+01:00Ground 319: West Close Road, Barnoldswick Town"Who are these we're playing, like? Anyone kna owt about 'em?" asked one of the 12 Jarrow Roofing fans waiting in a social club carpark for their club's first game of the new season. "Wembley warriors," someone joked as the travelling squad packed their holdalls into the boot of the coach. "You still eating nowt but celery?" a teammate asked Lee Kerr, <a href="http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/academy-wembley-glory-bay-ace-1399829" target="_blank">a scorer in three successive Wembley finals for Whitley Bay. </a> "Will we be stopping off on the way back?" a player shouted from the back. "It's just I forgot to bring any bait."<br />
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The bus had leaflets for trips to Berlin and Great War battlefields but today we were bound for Barnoldswick Town and an extra-preliminary round tie in the 2017-18 FA Cup. "Two and a bit hours," a supporter announced, "according to my phone." Joint managers Richie McLoughlin and Mark Collingwood huddled at
the front scribbling their formation in a notebook. "They've already put
their team on their website as a 4-3-2-1," McLoughlin said. "Red
herring," thought first-team coach <a href="http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/mick-mulhern-modern-day-eric-harrison-9536244" target="_blank">Mick Mulhern</a>, who trained half a dozen of the current England women's squad during 15 years in charge at Sunderland Ladies. "They started that way when I saw them but they finished up 3-2-3-2." Richie's wife Janice collected lottery subs and the bus money. "Are you doing <a href="https://twitter.com/TheRoofing" target="_blank">Twitter</a> today?" she asked the student from Sunderland University doing work experience with the club. <br />
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Barnoldswick had gone big on their ninth appearance in the world's oldest football tournament. A replica FA Cup had pride of place on their clubhouse bar and balloons in the shape of the Champions League trophy had been tied to half the tables. The pie and mushy peas was served with proper cutlery and china bowls from a hatch in the corner and the toilet block outside had a choice of soap, hand sanitiser or waterproof suncream. "Bit posh this," a Roofing fan marvelled, "but I divvent think the factor 30 would do much to clean yer hands." The home side had never before won a game in the competition; Roofing had once played at Fleetwood Town and twice made it as far as the second round of qualifying. "It's winnable," a Roofing fan concluded, looking at the line-ups stuck neatly to a wall. "But at this stage of the season you never know what you're going to get."<br />
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The first 20 minutes promised an even contest, <a href="http://www.shieldsgazette.com/sport/football/non-league/former-newcastle-starlet-knight-finding-his-feet-in-northern-league-1-6374648" target="_blank">Dennis Knight</a>, once of Newcastle United, reacting first when his free kick rebounded back from the wall to put Roofing ahead, but the home side responded swiftly, turning the score around with two goals in four minutes just after the half hour. "Too many slack balls," a Roofing fan bemoaned. "We gave the game away," Kerr rued later. You could hear the raised voices in the visitors dressing room at half-time. "I've told him to calm down," Janice McLoughlin said, cocking her head towards the door. <br />
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"Get the ball down, use your heads and play," McLoughlin urged his side in the minutes after half-time. "Got to make this pressure tell," a Barnoldswick fan muttered, the referee's whistle sounding almost simultaneously for a penalty kick. "I didn't know whether it was in or out of the box," Roofing keeper Shaun Newbrook reckoned back on the bus. "Definitely in," said Mulhern, who'd been watching from a gantry above the dugouts. "Wouldn't have made a difference," thought a despondent McLoughlin. "The better team won on the day."<br />
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Two goals behind, Roofing threw giant centre-back Dan Kirkup up alongside Knight but couldn't find a route past Connor King, an England schoolboy international signed on loan from Burnley's under-23s. The home side eased to victory, their first ever in the FA Cup. "They were lively in the first 10 minutes," lamented former Northern League chairman Mike Amos as he looped around the pitch. "History makers," tweeted the <a href="https://twitter.com/barlickfc" target="_blank">Barnoldswick account</a>. For the victors, a preliminary round meeting with Northern League Dunston UTS. The losers made do with post-match pints, a sausage sandwich from the clubhouse and a whip-round for the driver on the journey back home. <br />
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Admission: £5<br />
Date: Saturday August 5th 2017<br />
<br />Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11492434940865733042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270443393406345821.post-72077366284169430072017-08-04T15:54:00.000+01:002017-08-04T15:54:30.727+01:00Ground 318: Clandeboye Park, Bangor"You hoped it couldn't get any worse," a Bangor fan remembered of his club's long descent down the league. "But it did." Relegated once on the pitch and twice off it, the Super Seasiders plummeted three divisions from the Northern Irish Premiership to the Ballymena & Provincial District Football League. "It took a while to sink in. Unimaginable. But maybe the shock was what the club needed."<br />
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Whatever else it was, dropping out of the Football League formed the catalyst for change elsewhere. "Season ticket sales are up, matches and balls sponsored, Friends of Bangor scheme in full flow, new management team, clean up days organised, new website and fans returning in numbers," one forum poster celebrated after five new directors took control at Clandeboye Park. "Bangor is the biggest club I've managed," incoming manager Hugh Sinclair told the <a href="http://bangorfc.com/" target="_blank">club's website</a>. "We have the same vision for Bangor as we did when we set up the Supporters' Steering Group," pledged the new chairman. "We want to take the club into the Premiership within five years and ensure Bangor FC is a community based club. We want to move forward in
an open and transparent manner."<br />
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Half an hour from Belfast Central, Bangor was the end of the line. "Straight down for Eisenhower Pier," the conductor told a couple of elderly Americans as the first of the day's showers blew in off the Irish Sea. There was a single fisherman on the concrete, facing inland with his back to a mural of Eishenhower's send off to the fleet in Bangor Bay. "From here we started the long, hard march to Allied victory," he told cheering crowds in Belfast the following year. Two walkers with golf umbrellas hurried by along the North Down Coastal Path, and a group of kids kicked a football between puddles in a car park nearby. Bangor once produced players like <a href="http://m.tottenhamhotspur.com/news/gerry-armstrong-190702/" target="_blank">Gerry Armstrong</a>, <a href="https://www.arsenal.com/news/features/20170216/terry-neill" target="_blank">Terry Neill</a>, Steve Morrow and the effervescent Tommy Casey, an FA Cup winner with Newcastle United and a man <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/tommy-casey-wing-half-who-won-the-fa-cup-with-newcastle-and-played-in-the-1958-world-cup-for-1644923.html" target="_blank">"whose tackles called to mind a speeding bulldozer".</a> "We got into the UEFA Cup one year and the Cup Winners' Cup another two," the fan told me later. "Finished second in the league and won the Irish Cup and League Cup in the same season. We've been sinking for years, but things feel a lot brighter now."<br />
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The quarter hour walk from the train and bus station took in a kebab shop called Doner Trump and the site of the sixth century Bangor Abbey - smashed up by the Vikings in the town's first brush with continental opposition - before cutting up Church Street past a gospel hall and a house-end mural of a cow keeping goal. There was a wooden table at the entrance and a gloriously quirky ground inside, almost every corner a new and unexpected delight. The TV gantry was made of planks of wood and scaffolding poles, a stepladder strapped to one side with bits of rope. Plastic office seats were scattered inside the dugouts and the main stand had four armchairs in the middle of the disabled section. The curved terrace at the Clandeboye Road end was a reminder of the ground's former use as a go-kart track. On one side there was a corrugated structure with holes in the roof and a fence tacked to the front to keep spectators out. On the other, the club shop was in a portakabin between the grandstand and the toilet blocks, whose only sign of opulence was the bar of Imperial Leather stuck on the side of the sink. A note on the door gave prices for club mugs and bar scarves. Season tickets, sponsored by a fish and chip shop, were just £70.<br />
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Sinclair's new-look side had put six goals past Groomsport, seen off Lower Shankill and Crumlin Star and lost 4-0 to Premiership champions Linfield. Their fifth pre-season opponents, Albert Foundry, were another fourth-tier club, the two matched tackle for tackle and error for error in a full-blooded opening half. Bangor took the lead half an hour in, the returning Johnny Bowers, the closest thing the Ballymena & Provincial District will see to a genuine trequartista this season, swinging a free kick in from the corner flag that clattered back off the post and past the keeper's flailing hand. Seven minutes later, Marcus Beattie bundled in a leveller after Foundry broke clear down the left. The bloke in the next seat sucked air through his teeth while two travelling fans in bobble hats clapped enthusiastically down below. <br />
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The second half was evenly matched but largely uneventful. An unwilling Foundry coach tucked a linesman's flag under his arm, while another ran back to the changing rooms to fetch a substitute a pair of shorts and the right colour socks. The lights came on a lamp at a time. Bangor grazed the crossbar but the game played out at pre-season pace. "Decent workout," the fan next to me reckoned, "but none of this counts for anything if we don't get promoted this year."<br />
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Admission: £2<br />
Date: Tuesday August 1st 2017Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11492434940865733042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270443393406345821.post-79222092519284522062017-07-28T11:26:00.000+01:002017-07-30T11:47:35.967+01:00Lincoln '96<i>When I tell people I've been to places like Bristol, Norwich, Lincoln and Oxford, I usually mean I've seen them in the way teenage football fans do, which is to say that rather than the Bodleian, the Ashmolean Museum or Christ Church Cathedral <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2bPyKKhw8k" target="_blank">I had an open terrace at the Manor Ground, a black-and-white santa hat and the unwanted present of a 4-2 defeat</a> three days after Christmas 1992. While I might not have any photos of Cabot Tower or the Clifton Suspension Bridge, I did watch <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgIPH4zZgqQ" target="_blank">Harry Palmer make a memorable early contribution to the Bristol Sound </a>in a pub by Ashton Gate. Norwich Cathedral was an attempted short cut between beers; in Lincoln, I missed England's oldest inland harbour and what Ruskin called "the most precious piece of architecture in the British Isles" and saw instead a football stand sponsored by the Co-op and a backstreet boozer filled with black and white shirts. Back in the city 21 years later, the road to Sincil Bank had a Polish barber's, a Wetherspoons and a Chinese restaurant called 'Legal Food'. I crossed Scorer Street, birthplace of Leeds and Sheffield Wednesday striker Lee Chapman, and followed a sign pointing left between two rows of terraces to a familiar cantilevered stand...</i><br />
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It's not every day you get to see the world's most expensive footballer make his debut for your team. We were due a bit of a pick-me-up: in the past few months Newcastle United had let slip a 12-point lead to lose the Premier League title to Manchester United and Germany had beaten England on penalties (again) in the semi-final of Euro '96. Football wasn't coming home but the bloke who'd just won the Golden Boot was.<br />
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"This signing shows you the
ambition of Newcastle United," Kevin Keegan told the assembled media in Bangkok. "We are the biggest thinking team in Europe
now." Back home in Newcastle, shops had already run out of letters to put Shearer on the back of black and white shirts<i>. </i>"Can you imagine being Alan Shearer?" posed a disbelieving presenter on Lincolnshire local news. "You're a 25-year-old son of a sheet metal worker and not only are you set to pick up around £1.5 million as your cut of the £15 million paid by Newcastle but apparently if you're Alan Shearer you'll be on £30,000 each and every week." It was just five days after the Magpies had been thrashed in Japan by Gamba Osaka and three since Shearer was presented to a 15,000 crowd in a rain drenched car park outside St James'. "This is your day," Kevin Keegan told the delirious masses. "You've bought the shirts and the tickets and put the money in and I've invested it so we can have the very best on the pitch."<br />
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Around 2,000 more were at Lincoln City's Sincil Bank, with the same number again trying to get inside. Outside the ground, tickets were changing hands for four times their face value. "Every seat in the 11,000 capacity stadium has been sold," Peter Sissons told the nation on the Six O'Clock News. "Lincoln had probably not seen an invasion of its like since the city's castle was stormed in 1644," the <i>Independent</i> reckoned the following day. The game had been arranged as part of Darren Huckerby's £400,000 move to St James' Park; the Imps were losing £10,000 a week and were struggling to find three times that amount to sign Kevin Austin from Leyton Orient. "We'll probably make £80,000 from tonight," Lincoln's grateful managing director told the BBC.<br />
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It took 18 minutes for Shearer to get his opening shot on target and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTCmXaQEEVQ" target="_blank">15 more for his first Newcastle goal, slamming a penalty one way while ex-Cramlington Juniors teammate Barry Richardson leapt the other</a>. "Shearer! Shearer!" we roared unimaginatively as he shook hands with Robert Lee and Peter Beardsley and ambled back to halfway. On the hour, Tino Asprilla played in Philippe Albert for a second. "Ye kna," the bloke in front told his mate, "we'll win the league with Shearer in this team." Veni. Vidi. Vici. <br />
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Two days later we got thumped 4-0 in the Charity Shield at Wembley. World's most expensive player or not, some things never change. Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11492434940865733042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270443393406345821.post-29636561549765796662017-07-26T10:48:00.003+01:002017-07-27T09:48:53.068+01:00Ground 317: Druids Park, West Allotment Celtic Sometimes it pays to stay where you are. Newcastle Blue Star were among the venerable names of north-east non-league football. FA Vase winners in 1978 and Northern League champions in 2006, they had once had the financial clout to fly Trevor Brooking up from London on a £500 fee to <a href="https://northernleagueday.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/why-the-northern-league-matters-to-me-1/" target="_blank">play against Wearside League title rivals Coundon Three Tuns</a>. Just to be on the safe side, they'd tried for George Best too.<br />
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In 2007, Star took up the FA's offer to be one of the founder members of the Unibond First Division North. To meet the Unibond's stadium requirements, new Blue Star chairman Dave Thompson arranged to share the 10,000-capacity Kingston Park with his Newcastle Falcons rugby union team. "My vision for Blue Star is for it to be a community club
for the people of Newcastle," Thompson loftily informed the local press. "Today's announcement comes after a huge amount of planning, and represents a significant day for North East sport." Two years later, Blue Star thrashed Curzon Ashton 4-1 in the First Division North play off final and were promoted to within three divisions of the Football League. It was the final game they ever played.<br />
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A decade of patient work on the club's Wheatsheaf Ground had failed to meet Unibond standards but had left it with a state-of-the-art 4G surface paid out of a Football Stadia Improvement Fund grant. When Blue Star moved to Kingston Park, their former home was used as a training ground for the Falcons and for first team games by Gosforth RFC. The FSIF cited breach of contract as the football club were no longer using the facilities and demanded its grant be repaid. Thompson responded by pulling his funding and the 69-year-old club folded without kicking another ball. “This is a long saga without a simple solution, but you cannot sustain a team on 80 fans turning up every week," Blue Star's former benefactor complained to the <i>Newcastle Evening Chronicle. </i><br />
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With Blue Star just a memory, the Wheatsheaf was used by rugby players and the Newcastle Vikings American Football team, joining the ever lengthening list of lost Northern League grounds. This summer alone Billingham Synthonia's sumptious <a href="http://theaccidentalgroundhopper.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/ground-199-central-avenue-stadium.html" target="_blank">2,000-capacity cantilevered stand </a>closed owing to "unsustainable maintenance and running costs" and West Allotment Celtic moved out of <a href="http://theaccidentalgroundhopper.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/ground-143-blue-flames-sports-ground.html" target="_blank">Blue Flames</a> when the Northumberland FA hiked the rent up by £3,000 a season with £300 more on top for every home game over 25. For a while it looked like West Allotment - just a year short of their 90th anniversary - might go the same way as Blue Star, the club tendering their resignation from the Northern League. "It's a disaster," secretary Ted Ilderton thought. “The people who run the club are all getting old. We don’t want to be
standing around in open fields.” By May, the club had been relegated from the Northern League's top-flight but had managed to secure their existence with a move to the Wheatsheaf, now known as Druids Park. Tonight they were preparing for life in Division Two with a friendly against Blyth Spartans Reserves, formed out of a link up with New Hartley FC and newly admitted to the Northern Football Alliance, three divisions lower than their hosts. <br />
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The artificial surface was flanked by rugby posts, the back end of a Premier Inn, wheelie bins, a conifer hedge, two metal-roofed stands and a car park, where most of the few dozen spectators were congregated within a few metres of their cars. Spartans seized an early lead with an uncontested header. "What did we say before the game?" the Celtic keeper asked rhetorically three times. "Let's learn from it," a defender shouted back. "Fucking hell," said the keeper.<br />
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The visitors played the tidier first half football, clipping the crossbar with an identikit header and several conifer branches with a shot that needed shaking down from the tree. Allotment deservedly levelled with a strike that curved around the goalkeeper's dive, the swish of ball on net lost to the roar of an aeroplane engine at the other end of the ground. "Pick it up again," demanded a Spartan as the floodlights blinked on and two blokes on a picnic bench demolished the last of their half-time chips. With ten minutes left, a crossfield ball was played first time back across the centre and turned in by Peter Murray. "Great goal," the bloke next to me clapped, looking up from his phone. "Quality," someone shouted. "We go again," screamed the beaten keeper, hoofing the ball upfield. Whatever the result, for West Allotment going again is a triumph in itself. <br />
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Admission: Free<br />
Date: Monday July 24th 2017Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11492434940865733042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270443393406345821.post-63378739192699238192017-07-23T19:43:00.002+01:002017-07-25T10:30:03.099+01:00Ground 316: Lobanovskyi Stadium, Olimpik Donetsk "Ukrainian football's just like Ukraine," a cynical Dynamo Kyiv grumbled in one of my classes. "There's no money, it's run by fools and anybody with sense just wants to get out." The European exploits of Shakhtar Donetsk, Dynamo and Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk have managed to keep the Ukrainian Premier League above the likes of <a href="http://www.uefa.com/memberassociations/uefarankings/country/" target="_blank">Belgium, Turkey and the Netherlands in the UEFA rankings</a>, but a truer reflection of the competition's curent state was a regular season average attendance of 4,361 in 2016-17 - a 13% decrease on the already dismal turn out during the previous campaign.<br />
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Crowds aren't all that's going down. Dnipro - Europa League finalists in 2015 - started the 2017-18 season in the third-tier after owner Igor Kolomoyskyi pulled his funding from the club. Metalist Kharkiv made the top-three in eight successive seasons between 2008 and 2014 but finished last season bottom of a regional amateur league, their owner having fled to Russia charged with stealing $180 million from bank investors whole owing another $130 million in unpaid tax. Dynamo Kyiv and Shakhtar Donetsk, the twin behemoths of Ukrainian football, continue to dominate but have also been shrunk by economic reality, the shelling of Shakhtar's 52,000-seater stadium forcing them to play in Lviv and Kharkiv, and Dynamo <a href="http://futbolgrad.com/dynamo-kyiv-financial-problems/" target="_blank">beset by money troubles stemming from the nationalisation of Kolomoyskyi's Privat Bank. </a><br />
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The big two are still doing better than anybody else in the 12-team UPL. Shakhtar's erstwhile city rivals Metalurh fielded Yaya Touré, Henrikh Mkhitaryan<b>, </b>Jordi Cruyff and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/29053600" target="_blank">Darren O'Dea</a> at various points in their nineteen year history but went bankrupt in 2015 and re-emerged in Dnipro, where they now play to meagre crowds as Stal Kamianske. Donetsk's third side, Olimpik, left their home ground behind for a training pitch belonging to the Ukrainian Football Federation and then moved across the capital city to the small but perfectly formed Lobanovskyi Stadium, named in tribute to the legendary coach of Dynamo Kyiv.<br />
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Formed in 2001, Olimpik reached the Premier League in the same year the war forced them out of Donetsk, staying afloat on attendances that barely scrape into four figures thanks to a no-frills recruitment policy, loan signings, academy products and Roman Sanzhar, an Eddie Howe-esque figure who played over 200 times for the club before taking over as manager in 2013. Promoted at the end of Sanzhar's first season, Olimpik made a Ukrainian Cup semi-final in his second and the Europa League at the end of his fourth, the top-flight neophytes bested in the final standings only by the big two and Zorya Luhansk, yet another team playing hundreds of kilometres outside their hometown.<br />
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The third of four meetings between Zorya and Olimpik was played on a April afternoon in central Kyiv "Easily my favourite ground in Ukraine," <a href="https://adecolley.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Adrian Colley</a> reckoned as we walked up to the white-columned entry gates, passing blokes flogging Zorya scraves, wizened babushkas hawking newspaper cones packed with sunflower seeds and <a href="http://theaccidentalgroundhopper.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/football-art.html" target="_blank">a statue of Lobanovskiy</a> leaning forward off a bench with his feet on a giant football. At the ticket window we plumped for the posh seats - the extra 30p getting us armrests and a place in front of the press box while the 16 Zorya ultras slummed it above a spare set of goalposts and a corner flag. The beer was 75p wherever you sat and the programme came free along with a five-minute lecture on Russian incursions into eastern Ukraine. "It's a war no matter what Putin tries to tell you," an Olimpik fan confided. Behind him, a man strolled past in a t-shirt with a picture of a gun and the slogan 'It's an Uzi Life'.<br />
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Olimpik cracked the bar before Zorya took the lead, Ivan Petryak lumbering unopposed down the left and the Brazilian Paulinho (no, not <i>that</i> one) heading into the corner of the net. Almost the entire main stand clapped the scorer back to the halfway line while the ultras stripped to the waist and twirled scarves around their heads. "Black and whites to victory," they chanted but Zorya missed out on a second goal when a striker shot against his own foot and conceded an equaliser from a looping header that prompted celebrations from a few scattered handfuls of the 1,138 crowd. A lone Olimpik fan blew into a vuvuzela, the announcement of the attendance garnered a polite round of applause and Zorya ended up a player short, Artem Gordienko dismissed for protesting about the non-award of a penalty kick in the last minute of the game. "We understood they had more skill and we had to beat them for effort," Sanzhar said later. "It's hard," admitted Zorya's Yuri Koval. "The general trend is that the quality is going down and the financial situation makes it hard for us to attract players."<br />
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The TV cameras packed up and the exiles drifted back towards Kreshchatyk, where thousands of people were going about their Sunday afternoon oblivious to the game next door. "That was alright for a quid," said Liverpool fan Jim, taking one last look at the semi-deserted ground. <br />
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Admission: 40UAH (£1.10)<br />
Date: Sunday April 30th 2017Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11492434940865733042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270443393406345821.post-59024733055115849482016-09-18T10:57:00.001+01:002016-09-19T08:57:48.023+01:00Ground 315: Temple Park, Whitburn AthleticLikeable Whitburn Athletic are a busy groundhopper's dream. In the past three seasons they've played at three different grounds, all within walking distance of my parents' home. From a <a href="http://theaccidentalgroundhopper.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/ground-229-whitburn-academy-whitburn.html" target="_blank">school playing field</a> in their home village to a wind-blown <a href="http://theaccidentalgroundhopper.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/ground-251-jack-clark-park-whitburn.html" target="_blank">municipal pitch formerly used by South Shields</a>, the Northern Alliance Second Division side have now moved to a 4G surface at Temple Park, a dual carriageway's distance from Wearside League neighbours Harton & Westoe Colliery Welfare FC. As with a higher-profile set of summer stadium switchers, the South Tynesiders have struggled for form at their new base, failing to win in three home league games before tonking Wolsingham in a Durham Minor Cup tie played in front of a not quite record crowd of zero. "It's becoming a regular theme with us that we have shocking first halves,
fix it at half time, then say we'll start how we finish from then on," wrote Andy Smith, striker, secretary and club founder when Athletic first entered a team in the 2010-11 Wearside Combination League.<br />
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The fifth visitors of the season are Prudhoe Youth Club Seniors for a game in the Bluefin Sport Amateur Cup. The away side are waiting for kick off when I arrive, the home team traversing the hundred or so metres from the leisure centre changing rooms accompanied by a pair of cyclists, a woman out walking her dog and a group of kids heading to the adjacent skateboard park. Seating is provided on some flat-topped rocks; the only shade comes from a shipping container placed next to a sign announcing the facilities were funded by the Premier League and FA. "Pogba," yells a player, warming up by attempting volleys into the net. "Jonjo Shelvey," says another as he tries to replicate the top-corner goal at QPR. Someone jokingly whistles the Champions League theme as the referee does a head count. "Howay lads," a Prudhoe player shouts. "Challenge!"<br />
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Whitburn start falteringly once again. "Where's the shape?" a defender enquires. "Drop in, drop in," says the substitute tasked with carrying the linesman's flag. Prudhoe miss with two one-on-ones in the space of five seconds before the home side undeservedly go ahead from a corner kick, though the scores are back level when a left-wing foray beats an attempt to play two attackers offside and the cross is turned smartly past the helpless home keeper. "We've gone back in our shells again," a Whitburn player grumbles. "Well on top now," the goalscorer says. Prudhoe's manager is certainly happier at half time. "Just need to put these chances away," he tells his team. On the other side of halfway, a frustrated Ryan Shave is less complimentary. "We need someone, anyone to start organising," he emphasises.<br />
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The attendance climbs to seven at the start of the second half, though it immediately falls back when a Prudhoe substitute dumps the assistant's flag on his dad. "It's just I can't really come on if I'm the liner," he apologises as his replacement slightly unwillingly takes up position wearing sandals and denim shorts. The visitors score a second, Whitburn lose captain and club treasurer Kieren Laverick to injury and then concede a third, Prudhoe stroking the ball around for close on a minute before lashing it into the net from 25 yards. "No pressure," moans a home player. "Been the same from the start." Two goals for the home side sandwich the Northumbrians' fourth. "When are we going to put this to bed, lads?" asks the visiting manager before his team finally kill the tie with two late goals. "West Brom three nowt against West Ham" a spectator is reading off his phone as the players shake hands. "So disjointed, so disharmonious, and absolutely our own worst enemy," is Smith's diagnosis of his team's early season displays, proving there's at least one thing South Tyneside's Temple Park has in common with London's Olympic Stadium.<br />
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Admission: Free<br />
Date: Saturday September 17th 2016Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11492434940865733042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270443393406345821.post-77008092583637677112016-09-12T20:22:00.004+01:002016-09-12T20:54:54.576+01:00Ground 314: Nethermoor Park, GuiseleyAnd then we came to the end. Almost <a href="http://theaccidentalgroundhopper.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/ground-278-new-lane-sports-ground-york.html" target="_blank">a year to the day since relocating to York from Yokohama</a>, eight months after <a href="http://theaccidentalgroundhopper.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/ground-284-manse-lane-knaresborough.html" target="_blank">my spectatorial debut in the Northern Counties East League</a> and nearly two dozen other Yorkshire non-league grounds later, I'm departing once more, this time to help sell academic textbooks in Kyiv and eastern Ukraine. "It'll be different, anyway," as someone recently observed.<br />
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My final weekend trip was to National League Guiseley, who've been around the area a good bit longer than me. Formed in 1909 and based at Nethermoor Park ever since, the 1913 Wharfedale League champions made the 1990 FA Vase semi-final with <a href="http://guiseleyafcmemorabilia.vpweb.co.uk/guiseley-in-the-1990s" target="_blank">Frank Worthington in their side</a>, won it in a replay the following season and lost a second Wembley final, 5-3 to Wimborne, two years later. Having gone out in the Conference North play-offs four times in a row, the Lions finally made the fifth-tier in 2015 but only barely survived their first term in the National League - in the end just a single point splitting them and relegated Halifax - and started this campaign with six defeats and one sacked manager. "We have to take responsibility for what's happening," temporary boss Adam Lockwood told his former teammates before a goalless draw with Braintree delivered the much needed fillip of a first point of the season. The visit of Woking - three points and two places better off but without a single clean sheet in 2016 - raised the prospect of an opening win, Lockwood snapping up Simon Walton, a 28-year-old veteran of 13 professional clubs, to add experience to a team which also includes Alex Purver and Reece Webb-Foster, recently borrowed from neighbours Leeds and Bradford City. "It looked like we'd strengthened in the summer and many people were expecting a more comfortable season this time out," says one concerned Nethermoor regular, "but we seem to have got progressively worse with each game so far. It wasn't entirely surprising that we lost our first three matches, but North Ferriby beating us was a real watershed. A
lot of people thought the club were right to sack Mark Bower but
personally I was in two minds. He'd taken us into a play-off final, got
us promoted and then kept us up last season. For me, we need an
experienced Conference manager as soon as possible. It's only September
and we're already odds on to go down."<br />
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A few minutes' walk from the train station, on the same street as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/the-northerner/2012/may/22/harry-ramsdens-white-cross-guiseley-fish-and-chips" target="_blank">the most famous fish and chip shop in the world, </a>Nethermoor's entrance is shared with a cricket club, the few steps of open terracing behind each goal a reminder of days further down the pyramid. An assortment of covered stands - the impressive main one built in the club's centenary year to replace a rickety structure burnt out by arsonists - some portakabins, a burger van and a pebbledashed toilet block complete the ensemble. "I'll be going mad if we score today," a young Guiseley fan promises. "1-0 to you," predicts a Woking supporter. "Not a chance," a home regular responds.<br />
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"We could win this," the same bloke reckons half an hour in as Woking's Michael Poke flips a shot around the post. The keeper saves from Purver; "Guiseley well on top" tweets the home club's account. Two minutes into the second period, Nicky Clee feeds Adam Boyd, who leathers a shot past Poke from twenty yards. "Told you," the Woking fan says. "He gets the ball and scores a goal," celebrate the home support, prematurely following up with the theme from the Great Escape. Poke denies Jordan Preston before Woking slowly edge their way back into the match. "There's another goal in this," a home fan predicts pessimistically as the visitors move forward down the right. Fabio Saraiva misdirects a header, the ball hits Dennon Lewis' shoulder and leaves Jonny Maxted clawing at thin air. "Still bottom," someone mournfully reflects as the travelling support leap around in front of a breezeblock wall at the other end of the ground. "Two games unbeaten," Lockwood says at full-time, grasping one of the few positives of the day. "It'll be a mountain to stay up from here," a home fan reckons. "We're nine games in and haven't won yet. You don't make that up when you're a part-time
team in a league where most of the competition are full-time or part-timers in name only." The Woking supporter is equally doleful about his side's prospects for the rest of the year. "We used to be the best part-time team in the country," he rues, "but even teams with 5,000 crowds don't automatically get out of this division nowadays. It's going to be a struggle."<br />
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Back in Leeds, there are more glum faces after Huddersfield's win at Elland Road leaves the three-time English champions just two places off the bottom of the Championship. The immediate future looks every bit as bleak for the county's National League clubs, North Ferriby United a point outside the relegation places and York City only four places better off. For Guiseley a midweek trip to fellow strugglers Chester provides another opportunity for an overdue first win. "We fought so hard to get into this division," a Lions fan reckons. "If we go down, I can't see us getting back anytime soon."<br />
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Admission: £15<br />
Date: Saturday September 10thMichaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11492434940865733042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270443393406345821.post-34426383609329376422016-08-27T21:08:00.003+01:002016-08-28T08:33:56.152+01:00Ground 313: Churchill Playing Fields, Monkseaton FCNamed after a Wallsend social club and a firm that sticks company logos on polo shirts, Lindisfarne Custom Planet blasted out of the Tyneside Amateur League with the 2013-14 title and the Bill Gardner Cup, got a second promotion at the first time of asking and settled into the midtable orbit of the 12th-tier Northern Alliance Division One. And then they were gone.<br />
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A summer link up with Monkseaton Juniors brought a change of identity and a brand new place to play, the rechristened Monkseaton FC moving a couple of miles north from the <a href="http://theaccidentalgroundhopper.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/ground-275-rising-sun-sports-ground.html" target="_blank">Rising Sun Sports Ground </a>to Churchill Playing Fields, shared with local league cricketers, a running club and their own reserve team. Renamed and reinvigorated, the red and blacks had won three and drawn the other of their opening four games, though their 13-goal haul was still just half that of Gateshead's all-conquering U19s. The Heed fielded four of their first-team squad in a 6-1 opening day crushing of Gosforth Bohemians and were predictably ensconced at the top of the division with maximum points and a goal difference already up to plus 24. "You've essentially got a league of hairy arsed blokes going up against a squad of kids who've all come through academies, get professional coaching and train five times a week," one veteran Alliance watcher reckoned. "There's a lot of potential," manager Micky Cummins, a veteran of six professional clubs including Middlesbrough, Port Vale and Rotherham United, admitted after his team pummelled Heaton Stannington's reserves 7-0. "But we looked lethargic at the start of the second half. We were slow and sloppy and gave up possession quite easily." Small mercies, you imagine, for the rest of the league.<br />
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It was the weekend of theTall Ships Regatta at Blyth, Newcastle against Brighton in a teatime kick-off and Whitley Bay v North Shields - dubbed <i>El Clasicoast </i>by one set of fans, but "obviously El Coastico" to the other - in the Northern League. "A clash of cultures," one Bay supporter says, "Shields were carrying on like it was Green Street Hooligans last time they came here. Our lot are a bit more Merchant Ivory." A smattering of Bay fans were already out in the town centre pubs, from where I walked the last 15 minutes inland to Monkseaton. Gateshead's team were emerging from a changing block that was doubling as a cricket pavilion, skirting the boundary rope on their way to the pitch. There were four spectators on park benches, a handful more on the rise beneath some trees and a dozen or so reclining in the sun on the opposite touchline. "From the start," shouted Monskeaton boss Anthony Fawcett, standing alongside a pile of holdalls and his two subs. His team gave as good as it got in the first half of the game, discomforting the table-toppers and only denied what looked a clear penalty by the referee's positioning. "Not my half of the pitch," he explained, his assistant having proved little help. "Howay ref, are you gonna give us summat or what?" called a bloke from the rise. It wasn't until the 40th minute that Adam Wrightson - on an 18-month pro contract after playing six times in the Conference last season - laid on Gateshead's 27th goal of the season. "We've done so well up to now," a Monskeaton player moaned.<br />
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The 28th followed five minutes into the second period, Wrightson shimmying between challenges before placing the ball into the corner of the net. "Great goal," said Cummins. "We've got to keep going," a Monkseaton player urged his team. Wrightson scored his second ten minutes later, the home side by now scarcely able to get out of their own half. "One man show," a Gateshead sub applauded as the red shirts stomped back to midway and their reserve team - beaten 6-1 in the Tyneside Amateur - carted goalposts back from the neighbouring pitch. The visitors were reduced to ten, a substitute limping off shortly after coming on, Monkseaton rallying to score a deserved goal of their own before Carl Taylor finished it with a late fourth. "Disappointing day at the office," <a href="https://twitter.com/MonkseatonFc" target="_blank">the home side tweeted</a> but Fawcett's impressive side won't lose many more games this season. <br />
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Admission: Free<br />
Date: Saturday August 27th 2016Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11492434940865733042noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270443393406345821.post-69107451044110007812016-08-22T21:22:00.001+01:002016-08-22T21:22:55.951+01:00Ground 312: Plumpton Park, Bradford City Women's FCFootball, wrote <i>Sporting Females</i> author Jennifer Hargreaves, "has historically unified men and marginalised and trivialised women". It had been that way since the very start. In 1881, 5,000 Glaswegian men turned out to watch what the <i>Nottinghamshire Guardian</i> hoped would be "the first and last exhibition of a female football match in Glasgow", rushing on to the pitch after 55 minutes and forcing the players to "prematurely take refuge in the omnibus which had conveyed them to the ground". Games were played more successfully in Bradford and Blackburn, but the <i>Manchester Guardian </i>deemed the "costumes were neither graceful nor very becoming" and the <i>Leeds Mercury </i>mused that "public feeling has demonstrated against<i> </i>the unseemly exhibition
in such a manner that the authorities are now frowning down the
innovation" when a second pitch invasion occured at Manchester's Cheetham FC. <br />
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Things began to change in the years during and immediately after the Great War. With the Football League suspended in 1915, women's games were staged instead to raise morale and funds for war charities. 22,000 assembled at Middlesbrough's Ayresome Park for the 1918 Munitionette's Cup Final between Blyth Spartans Ladies and a team from Carlisle; on Boxing Day 1920, there were 53,000 inside Goodison Park and 10,000 or more locked out for a game featuring teams from Preston and St Helen's. But the following year, with the male competitions back up and running, the FA peremptorily decreed that "the game of football is quite unsuitable for females and ought not to be discouraged". "It came as a shock and we could only put it down to jealousy," one player recalled. "We were more popular then the men."<br />
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Barred from using FA-affiliated pitches until 1971, women spectators were often made to feel just as unwelcome too. In 1985, there was just a single women's toilet in the whole of Bradford City's Valley Parade, though this was at least one more than there had been during the 1950s. By 1994, three years after the formation of the first national women's league, female fans still made up as little as seven per cent of the crowd at most men's league games and John Williams, of the Centre for Football Research, reported a prevailing view that <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/why-dont-women-like-sport-geraldine-bedell-finds-that-playing-fields-and-football-grounds-are-still-1370599.html" target="_blank">"football is men's space and place; where men go to get away from women".</a><br />
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Modern football, for all its many faults, is generally more diverse and welcoming, though the women's game suffers from the same kind of sneers it did in 1881. "Is it even a sport?" a student asked when I told her I was going to watch Bradford City Women's FC. Formed in 1988, City's fortunes have closely mirrored those of their male counterparts: two seasons in the top-flight, a near miss in the League Cup and back-to-back relegations dropping them as low as the fourth division, though they now play back in the Premier League North (despite the adjective, the third-tier of the women's game). "The ambition is to reach the Super League," chair Sally Thackray told the <i>Bradford Telegraph and Argus</i>. "But that is a whole new ball
game. You have to pay players, you need a much different
infrastructure.
We need more volunteers to run the club, but also investment. We
need to be able to attract better players. You need £175,000 in the bank
to get there.”<br />
<br />
The opening day pitted City against Derby County, last season's early pacesetters before they faded disappointingly away to seventh. The Ewes spent the close season overhauling their starting line-up while the home side were trying to adjust to the departure of Steve Winterburn after a decade in charge. The new boss, Lee Harrison, is partnered by Charlotte Stuart, who also captains the team from the centre of defence. "We haven't really set any targets for the season as we are mostly rebuilding," Harrison reckons before the game. The team are now based at Eccleshill United's Plumpton Park, a ninth-tier stadium with a car park, one previous visitor tells me, "that's like <span class="st">Passchendaele in winter". A single turnstile opens into a ground of blue corrugated metal, tarpaulin covers, signs for Napoleon's Casino and Restaurant and a slate grey portakabin doling out coffee and pies. A chequered Derby County flag hangs from the main stand, whose randomly numbered blue tip-up seats house 50 or so spectators and a travelling support of one. "The pitch slopes a bit, doesn't it?" a bloke says to his daughter, the grass dropping as sharply as Chris Hutchings' dismal West Yorks galacticos did in 2000-01.</span><br />
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<span class="st">"Do what we do," encourages a Bradford player. "Let's win it back, girls," says one of the Derby centre backs. A bloke complains about the quid cost of a programme and two horses potter about in an adjacent field. The Ewes start brightly, thudding a pair of shots into corrugated perimeter boards. "Relax girls," says the City skipper as a clearance clangs against the top of the main stand. The visitors are more composed, Samantha Griffiths expertly curling a free kick over the defensive wall for the opening goal on 15 minutes. The home side respond with a near miss, a shot trundling back off the post. "We go again," their keeper shouts, borrowing a familiar standard of the male non-league lexicon. Her opposite number limps off, replaced in goal by defender Lorna Abbey, but while City get the ball forward quickly they fail to seriously trouble the stand in. Despite the increasing frustration, there's a noticeable lack of shouting aimed at linesmen and only tame admonishment for the referee. "Every time," moans the City right back when a Derby player pulls her back on halfway. </span><br />
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<span class="st">Bradford put a penalty over the crossbar and against the roof a stand before County score a second at the third attempt, Nicole Dale tapping in after the keeper saves twice. "Big push," Harrison urges his team but the best they can manage are a few corner kicks, the game increasingly niggly as Derby close out the win. "Good game," a bloke claps. "In the first half some very good football was played," County's Facebook page says, "and then the second was a battle." </span><br />
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<span class="st">Admission: £3</span><br />
<span class="st">Date: Sunday August 21st 2016</span><br />
<span class="st"><br /></span>
<span class="st">There's an excellent overview of the early years of women's football <a href="http://www.donmouth.co.uk/womens_football/womens_football.html" target="_blank">here. </a></span>Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11492434940865733042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270443393406345821.post-89091544351821196982016-08-16T22:50:00.000+01:002016-08-17T07:13:57.861+01:00Ground 311: Mill Lane, Wigginton GrasshoppersAnd so at last we're off again. Five divisions, 57 teams and over 100 seasons since it was first contested, less than a decade after the founding of the Football League itself, the York and District League gets yet another opening night. The first round of fixtures pits Huntington Rovers - managed by ex-Huddersfield winger and FA Cup semi-finalist Iain Dunn - against Osbaldwick, has F1 Racing motoring to 2014-15 title winners Riccall United and gifts defending champions Old Malton St Mary's a free evening while their Ryedale neighbours, Brooklyn and Malton and Norton FC, go head to head on an old bacon factory recreation ground. Back towards York, Wigginton Grasshoppers, pipped at the last by Old Malton in April, kick off the new seasons against Copmanthorpe. "I'll be disappointed if we're not challenging again," manager, fixture secretary, match reporter and occasional first-team player Graham Ireton told <i>The York Press</i>.<br />
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Ireton moved to Mill Lane as player-coach in 2008, 26 years after John Jeffery established the club. "Simply an extraordinary man who has made a real difference to the lives of so many around him," Ireton says of a man who still combines the roles of president, groundsman and chief kit washer. Among those Jeffery has helped along the way are West Ham's Sam Byram, a Wigginton youth player before he was picked up by Leeds United, and Alfie Beestin, who recently penned a one-year contract with Doncaster Rovers. "He's a good player and he's got great potential," Rovers boss Darren Ferguson reckons. "I'm really pleased to get him onboard." <br />
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"Success through Endeavour" the club's badge says. Last season, the Grasshhoppers fielded 20 teams, all funded by donations and match subs. The senior side, who won 21 of their 26 league games and averaged over four goals a game, now chip in £30 a season each plus £4 a start and a quid if they come off the bench. Twice champions of the York League's second tier and York FA Cup winners in 2004, the green and whites play their home fixtures on a pitch behind the village's squash and sports club. "FA Charter Standard Community Club" announces a sign at the entrance. "Welcome to Wigginton Grasshoppers FC". The pitch is straight ahead, roped off on three sides with a hedge and six advertising hoardings marking out the other. Aside from the breezeblock dugouts, the only cover comes from a couple of open-fronted corrugated sheds with bench seating for six. "Winners!" yells a Copmanthorpe defender plaintively as an early goalkick drops out of the sky. "Let's have a gamble," a midfielder urges. "Don't have a go at the ref," the Wigginton goalkeeper loudly reminds his team. "New rules, remember?"<br />
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Copmanthorpe clank the bar with a header, the rebound unceremoniously booted out of play for a corner. The ball comes back into the box, the keeper can only flip it upwards and when it drops back down an away player heads it over the line. "Shit," says the keeper. "Sorry, lads." A few latecomers turn up with <a href="http://www.yorkmix.com/food-drink/york-fish-chip-shop-celebrates-named-one-countrys-best/" target="_blank">fish and chips</a>, Wigginton boot three shots into the hedge and then turn the game on its head with two goals in a single minute. "Better two-one than nil-nil," a bloke says knowledgeably, turning to his mate.<br />
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There's a five-minute turnaround, the players sitting out on the grass until the officials are beckoned back out of a portakabin. A cockerel crows in a neighbouring field and a game of crown green bowls starts back by the main road. "Second phase," Copmanthorpe's keeper says to his teammates. "Turn and face," a defender implores. "On my shout we go." A player goes down claiming he's been elbowed in the face, there's a dive in the penalty area and a Wigginton player gets yellow carded for screaming "How's that not a fucking foul?" a few metres from the referee's face. An assessor scribbles furiously, propping his clipboard up on the rope. Copmanthorpe's keeper stops taking goalkicks but saves two shots with his knees. "Let's keep it going lads, eh?" he shouts to his team. They do, but the Wigginton - third and second in the last two seasons - score again late on. One game, three points. Is this the season the Grasshoppers finally break their title duck?<br />
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Admission: Free<br />
Date: Tuesday August 16th 2016Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11492434940865733042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270443393406345821.post-48487722237057206292016-08-13T22:00:00.001+01:002016-08-13T22:14:44.862+01:00Ground 310: MDC Community Stadium, Hemsworth Miners Welfare<i>"So you'll stay away from Fitzwilliam, then?" - David Peace '1974'.</i><br />
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Fitzwilliam doesn't get the greatest of press. It's portrayed in David Peace's <i>Red Riding</i> quartet as a "dirty brown mining town", benighted, cheerless and sinister. "The crap town of crap towns," reads one unflattering description, "announced
by nuclear cooling towers and the last layer of West Yorkshire hell." Geoffrey Boycott, that epitome of the dour, obdurate Yorkshireman, grew up there in a Coal Board terraced house, as did <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2000/may/20/mondaymediasection.guardianobituaries" target="_blank">Larry Lamb</a>, a newspaper editor, <i>The Guardian</i> wrote, "of half-suppressed anger...and defiant character". Defiance was stamped right through the village's part in one of the more notorious nights of the miners' strike, a mob-handed police raid on a local pub ending with the station in neighbouring Hemsworth under siege and the officers inside run out of town. “The police came over the bridge, swinging truncheons and
chanting,” a witness remembered. “They knocked one
lad down and kept hitting him. His uncle told them they'd given him
enough, then they knocked him down and gave him the same. Then the
people all came out of their houses. The whole village just erupted. Whatever they
could do to get back, they did it".<br />
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The pits went soon after, the town's football club had gone just before. Hemsworth Colliery was the first team of Cyril Knowles, who started as a 15-year-old miner and blossomed into one of the most accomplished full backs of his generation, with more than 500 professional appearances, four England caps and <a href="http://www.footballandmusic.co.uk/you-know-the-words-part-1/" target="_blank">a song in his honour at number 14 in the charts</a>. His brother, Peter, went to Wolverhampton Wanderers, played for England U23's and quit, aged 24, to become a Jehovah's Witness. "Bill Shankly wanted to sign him for Liverpool but he turned
them down. Of course we all understood why a few weeks later," a teammate recalled. "It's a crying shame. They were saying he might go to Mexico for the World Cup the following summer, but he just gave it all away."<br />
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Founded in 1981, the year before Wolves finally ripped up Knowles' registration and accepted he was never coming back, Hemsworth Miners Welfare have progressed from the Doncaster and District Senior League Division Three to the step five Northern Counties East. Having cantered to last season's NCEL Division One title by a 12-point margin, the Wells announced themselves to the top-flight with two goals in the first eight minutes of an opening night win at Parkgate, capping a week in which the club got its first contracted player and put Runcorn Linnets out of the FA Cup. "We expect to do well," boss Wayne Benn said before the tie. "The club have never had it as good. We are playing at the highest
standard we have ever played at. Attendances are up and there is a
massive feel good factor about the place".<br />
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Optimism was in short supply when the collieries first closed, an ornamental pit wheel in front of the station ramp and a metal sign for the Fitzwilliam Country Park the only visible reminders of an industry that once gave work to thousands of men. Railway Terrace, where police and miners battled in July '84, runs behind the tracks towards the MDC Community Stadium, reached by a circuitous route at the back of a show home and the cricket club. A Carlsberg England flag flutters above the entrance. "Want a programme, mate?" floats a voice through a portakabin hatch. A set of plywood stocks lean incongruously against the clubhouse wall, inside which a framed print of Cyril Knowles in a Spurs shirt faces the bar and kitchen. I take my food to a deckchair outside, the two teams warming up in opposite corners while a pair of fans tie flags to a fence. "POEY IS INNOCENT" proclaims one in reference, apparently, to a Leeds fan convicted of chucking a coin at a game against Leicester; the other, more prosaically, states "Hemsworth Miners Welfare FC". The club's name is also painted across the top of the dugout block, beside a covered stand with three blocks of green seats and one of navy blue. "Fast start, boys," cajoles a Hemsworth defender. "From minute one," Garforth echo. The home team hone in on goal from the off, a shot gets deflected and when the corner's played in Nash Connolly leaps unopposed to head his third goal of the season. "Good start," Benn says laconically. "Hellfire," groans a Garforth fan. "There are still 89 minutes left." Seven later, just seconds after the visitors lump a shot on to the cricket outfield, Connolly turns provider, crossing for Del Pollock to fire in a second goal from close range. "Awful Garforth," the fan shakes his head forlornly. "Just awful."<br />
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The yellows rally, a shot seemingly deflected over the fence but, to much chagrin, a goal kick awarded instead. "Every fucking time," a defender complains from fifty yards away. "No point in you coming, linesman," the fan grumbles softly. "Waste of space, waste of space." Almost straight from the restart Hemsworth net a third, Brice Tiani lifting a pass over the Garforth defence and Connolly running on to score. "Twenty minute," the fan chuckles, turning to look at the rest of the stand. "They're a good team. Hemsworth, but you can't be defending like that."<br />
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The away side are more resilient thereafter, but the hosts are always that bit sharper and more precise in possession, only some profligate finishing and the Garforth keeper's palms preventing Pollock and Sam Jones from extending the lead. "Could've been closer but a fair result," Garforth tweet at full-time. "They'll be up there," reckons a travelling fan. "But it looks like a long season for us." <br />
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Admission: £5<br />
Date: Saturday August 13th 2016Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11492434940865733042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270443393406345821.post-65828128371510739672016-08-09T20:19:00.003+01:002016-08-09T22:30:01.613+01:00Ground 309: Welfare Ground, AFC Emley"I hope you've brought a fleece or something," the driver greets me as we pull away from the bus station in Leeds. "It gets cold up there on Emley Moor." It's the first weekend in August, the opening, extra-preliminary round of the FA Cup and games are already being shifted from 3 o'clock on Saturday to the following afternoon. "I wish it was for the telly," someone tells me, "but the cricket season hasn't finished yet and they have first dibs on the pitch."<br />
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It's not the biggest problem the village side have ever had with their three-sided home. In 2000, twelve years after reaching Wembley in the FA Vase and just two since losing by the odd goal in three at West Ham United in the FA Cup third round, new ground regulations left the 97-year-old club with little choice but to relocate to Wakefield's Belle Vue rugby league stadium. "We'd been losing money at the Welfare and we'd have been chucked out of the Northern Premier League unless we spent a fortune on the ground," a fan remembers. "The first season it was great. Chris Waddle came with Worksop and we beat them 5-3, we got an international player from Lebanon, the crowds doubled to almost 600 a game and we had over 1,700 in when we played Yeovil in the FA Trophy. But then things started going downhill." The club changed its name to Wakefield & Emley and the reserve team - still based at the old village pitch - was disbanded in 2005, leading to a split in which AFC Emley, formed by disgruntled fans and ex-committee members, entered the West Yorkshire League Division One. While Wakefield foundered, folding in 2014 after finishing bottom of the NPL North, Emley are prospering once more in the second-tier of the Northern Counties East. "The team everyone is talking about," opened <a href="http://www.nonleagueyorkshire.com/2016/08/05/new-ncel-season-preview-afc-emley/" target="_blank">Non League Yorkshire's</a> preview of their 2016-17 campaign. "With the players they've got this season, they should walk their division," one spectator confidently predicts. <br />
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They weren't ever likely to walk their opening game of the FA Cup, Athersley Recreation making the short trip from Barnsley a division higher after a mini-flurry of late-season victories sent Pontefract Collieries down instead. While they were staying up, Emley twice lost out to Bottesford Town, a 3-2 home defeat denting their chances of automatic promotion and the second, on penalties in a play-off, consigning the villagers to an 11th season in the NCEL Division One. "The way the season ended is why neutrals love football," manager Darren Hepworth told the first issue of <a href="https://twitter.com/TheBootifulGame" target="_blank">The Bootiful Game magazine</a>. "We were just seconds away from going up. Now we have to move forward going into the new campaign...I can't speak highly enough of the people at the club. Off the field we are making big strides."<br />
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Emley's home - newly christened the Fantastic Media Welfare Ground in a naming rights deal with a marketing agency - is spick and span and freshly painted. There's a hoarding for 'Supporters Club Scotland', a bloke selling tickets to win a breakfast meat tray and a groundsman of the year award on display in the smartened up clubhouse. "They used to have loads of stuff about the West Ham game in here," someone tells me as we stand on a club-crested carpet waiting to get served at the bar. The tea hatch is already running low on steak pie and peas, hoppers roam the main stand in search of spare programmes while a bloke at the front flicks through a paperback as he finishes off his pint. "About 300 here today, do you think?" the driver asks as the teams run out to the closing bars of <i>The Final Countdown</i>.<br />
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Athersley are easily the better side in the opening half of the game. "Hint of pre-season here from Emley," says the fan in the next seat. "The movement's been too good for them," someone else opines. "They're just hanging on." The visitors miss a penalty, Ryan Smith fluffing his initial kick and then heading the rebound straight back at Gary Stevens in the Emley goal. With the stand beginning to empty in anticipation of the break, Kai Hancock wriggles through two challenges, chases in after his own shot and leathers in the opening goal after the luckless Stevens saves once again. "No more than they've deserved," an Emley fan says. "We've done nowt here."<br />
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When the home team do start playing, they find it difficult to break down a stubborn, well-drilled Athersley defence. "Stop messing around," a dad warns his son."It was you who asked to come." "I didn't know I'd be bored," the kid complains. "Can't we go home?" He's barely finished the question when Ruben Jerome dribbles past three players and blatters the ball diagonally past the keeper. "Will that be on YouTube?" the kid excitedly asks. "What a belter!" shouts a gleeful fan. "Only one winner now." Ashley Fynn, scorer of 73 goals last season plus another seven that were expunged from the records when Lincoln Moorlands Railway resigned their place in the league, has a shot that spirals wide off a defender's boot. "It's coming now, at any time," an Emley fan urges his team on. We're almost played out when Flynn takes a pass in his stride and slips a shot past the onrushing keeper with the outside of his boot. Athersley's dejected players drop to the floor, the goalkeeper mutters insensibly and then hoofs the post on his way off the field. Whether at Wembley in May or Emley in August, it hurts to lose in the FA Cup.<br />
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Admission: £6<br />
Date: Sunday August 7th 2016 Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11492434940865733042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270443393406345821.post-82684140477926613692016-08-07T09:47:00.000+01:002016-08-08T19:18:14.143+01:00Ground 308: Station View, Harrogate RailwayWhen workers from Starbeck's LNER loco shed formed a side to play in the 1935-6 Harrogate & District League, they probably never envisaged twice being the televised picks in the world's most famous domestic cup competition. One-time British Railways National Cup winners, the club was hard hit when the sheds closed down and the workers moved elsewhere. "Dr Beeching nearly killed us," Mick Gray, a Station View fixture now for over 40 years, told <i>The Guardian</i> before Bristol City's visit in 2002. "There were 1,000 railway employees in Starbeck during the war and they had a penny a week docked from
their wages. All that went in the 50s. But we've picked up
since."<br />
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Eight games and six victories had brought Railway to the second round proper, Sky forking out £100,000 for live coverage and the ground - built with a £1,500 LNER loan that was taken back from the workers' pay - adorned with portaloos and three temporary stands. "I can't stop smiling," said manager Paul Marshall, who'd very nearly been ousted when the team won just two of his first ten games and were hammered by a combined score of 16-0 in back-to-back matches with Liversedge. "We've just had heaters put in the changing rooms but we'll probably take them back out. We want to make things as uncomfortable as we can." A crowd of 3,500 fans packed the place, there was a Cup Fever beer, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/an-air-of-the-surreal-as-harrogate-depart-smiling-135284.html" target="_blank">inflatable sheep in the goalmouth</a> and a small scale pitch invasion when Steve Davey scored in the midst of a 3-1 defeat to a side that played just the five divisions and 128 places higher up the pyramid. "A team of superstars," hailed the manager post-game. "We can't top this."<br />
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Perhaps not, but five years later they did manage to equal it, beating neighbours Harrogate Town in the final round of qualifying before exiting 3-2 to Mansfield Town in a game that went out live on the BBC. Chairman Rob Northfield, an ex-Orient youth player who'd made his cash giving motivational speeches to businesses, did the pre-match teamtalk. "The manager said it was Churchillian, but I would call it simple common sense," he told the local press. Substitute Danny Davidson scored twice and Scott Ryan hit the bar. "Mansfield nervously booked their place in the third round," thought the BBC. "For the final minutes the professionals were hanging on," <i>The Guardian</i> wrote<i>. </i><br />
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In between their two cup runs, Railway had also gone up to the Northern Premier League, reaching a high of eighth place in 2014-15 before plummeting back into the Northern Counties East. Only a wretched New Mills side - 42 games, three wins and a goal difference of -130 - kept Harrogate off the foot of the division, Lee Ashforth's team shipping 115 goals and finishing 12 points adrift of third bottom Scarborough Athletic. "It hurt. Everyone felt it," one club official admitted. More positively, the summer break saw the return of Northfield - "Great people, great values and we are going to have some fun along the way," he explained - and, while some of last season's team have opted to stay in the NPL, there are five new signings including Jordan Hendrie, who moved from FA Cup opponents and fellow NCEL Premier side Albion Sports. “I’d like to think that this year won’t be another relegation fight and that we’ll be in the top half of the table," Ashforth told <a href="http://www.nonleagueyorkshire.com/2016/08/05/ncel-season-preview-harrogate-rail/" target="_blank"><i>Non League Yorkshire</i></a> pre-game. "I think we have to set our expectations high and take it from there."<br />
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The last time I <a href="http://theaccidentalgroundhopper.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/ground-290-wetherby-road-harrogate-town.html" target="_blank">was in Harrogate it was cold and dank</a> and the queues for the tills at Poundworld matched the bedraggled line of tourists outside Bettys Tearooms. Today it's sizzling in the beer garden of <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/pubs/10457915/Pint-to-pint-Hales-Bar-Harrogate.html" target="_blank">Hales' Bar</a>, whose gas-lit Victorian interior was, topically enough, used for interior shots in the filming of <i>Chariots of Fire</i>. One stop back towards York or a 40-minute stomp across the 200-acre grassland of The Stray, Station View is in the terraced streets of urban Starbeck, next to a level crossing, the eponymous station and a branch of Tesco Express. 'Match Today!' promises a board on a grass verge, attempting to lure passing trade away from the Morrisons down the road. 'The dream that won't fade' and 'Railway live FA Cup dream' read the faded clippings on the clubhouse wall, a signed Bristol City shirt hung across the middle. The pitch slopes from the far touchline to the turnstile block side, where a massive colour picture of captain Danny Stimpson is attached to the gate. There's a corrugated stand with plastic bucket seats, its back painted in the club colours of red and green, placed several metres behind a goal and a smaller, smarter flatpack construction - "Looks nice from here but the views are terrible," a spectator confides as we enter - set back from the dugouts. A few steps of terracing are sheltered by some trees; the Railway Buffet (hotdogs and bottled water already taped off the menu) is in a corner next to a skip, a toilet portakabin and some wrought iron gates that open into a gravel car park. Most of the travelling supporters opt to stand in the sun between the away bench and a TV gantry designed like the base of a scaffold with a hole in its plywood floor. "Beautiful surface," says one as the players jog out from the two-storey clubhouse, built with cash raised by flogging off land to a care home.<br />
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"Come on, boys," claps Kully Sandhu, Albion boss for three decades and several divisions since their days in the Bradford Amateur Sunday League. His side - weakened by six summer departures with four going to neighbouring Eccleshill United alone - still look lively; Danny Facey, capped twice by Grenada and returning after a season in the Evostik with Brighouse Town, shuffles through tackles but can't beat Jake Lofthouse in the Railway goal. Midway through the half, the home number 9 collects a short throw on the turn, accelerates into the middle and slips the ball in front of Harry Brown, who wallops it from 30 yards out off the underside of the bar and straight into the corner of the net. "Corker!" one spectator shouts. "What a belter," claps a second. The tannoy has no sooner finished the slightly belated score announcement when Facey taps in a leveller. "Gotta get tighter," a defender reckons. "Switch on." Moments later, Facey evades a challenge and is felled by Lofthouse, who gets a yellow card and then turns the penalty away with a dive to his left. "He'll learn from that," says an Albion fan at half-time. "Aye, learn how to take penalties hopefully," his mate jokes in reply.<br />
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"Don't know what that routine is all about," grumbles one of three old blokes from the main stand as the Railway players warm back up by running down the side of the pitch. There's someone reading a paperback in the front row while others finish off their pie and chips or chat about Leeds United's prospects in the Sunday game at QPR. "Too wide," yells one of the old men as a pass is hit from one side of the slope to the other. "Get it out wide," shouts his mate simultaneously. Both teams have shots cleared; "A proper cup tie," <a href="https://twitter.com/therailfc?lang=en-gb" target="_blank">tweets the Railway account</a>. Late on, with Albion looking the likelier to score, a forward is pulled to the ground in the penalty area but the ref waves play on. "You're a disgrace to your flag, you knobhead," someone shouts at the linesman. "Does it go to extra time or straight to a replay?" says a bloke taking photos. The whistle blows, the teams congratulate each other and both sets of fans head back to the clubhouse. "Is your dad not here today?" an Albion supporter asks Hendrie, shaking hands as he comes off the pitch. "See you on Wednesday, mate." <br />
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Admission: £5<br />
Date: Saturday August 6th 2016Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11492434940865733042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270443393406345821.post-69012207043813797942016-07-31T09:08:00.002+01:002016-07-31T09:08:23.056+01:00Ground 307: Mallorie Park, Ripon CityWhen you travel the bowels of the football pyramid, bemusement is a
familiar refrain. "Do Ripon even <i>have </i>a team?" asked an incredulous workmate. "I lived there for six months and all I ever saw noticed was the racecourse," wondered another. You could be forgiven for not knowing much about a club that have suffered back-to-back relegations and recently finished rock bottom of a 12th-tier league, but Ripon City have been based at their Mallorie Park ground since the end of the Great War, have a stand that dates back to 1920 and celebrated their one hundredth year in 1998 <a href="http://www.northyorkshirenews.com/news/ripon-football-legend-the-tank-dies-aged-77-1-5292095" target="_blank">with a World Cup scorer as their guest of honour</a>.<br />
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Demoted from the West Yorkshire League Division One after winning just three of their 30 league games, City also lost half a first team to neighbours Boroughbridge Athletic and three committee members plus chairwoman Sue Dennison - selected as one of 150 grassroots heroes by the FA in 2013 - who'd been involved with local football for 47 years and done everything at the club from washing to kit to refereeing games. "I feel like a big weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I can
leave knowing I have done my best and I’ve given everything that I could
have given. We wish the new regime well. They have a very hard task in
front of them,” she told the <i>Harrogate Advertiser.</i><br />
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Things were finally looking brighter after last season's upheaval, City reinstating their reserve team after a half-season break, earning community club status and sprucing up their ground, the main stand painted white with Ripon City AFC neatly printed in red capital letters across the front. The club's second warm-up fixture is against <a href="http://theaccidentalgroundhopper.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/ground-283-st-helens-road-dringhouses.html" target="_blank">Dringhouses</a> in a game shifted to 11am to avoid a clash with the city's St Wilfred's Day parade.<br />
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The bus takes over an hour to travel the 27 miles between the cathedral cities, the journey only enlivened when a bloke with four remaining teeth and a 1993-94 vintage Newcastle United training jacket gets on by the Roman ruins at Boroughbridge. I do a quick lap of the Cathedral and Spa Gardens, recce a handful of pubs and then walk the 10 minutes from the market place to Mallorie Park. Dringhouses are going through their pre-match teamtalk when I arrive, their manager pointing down the wings. The pitch is railed off, nets behind each goal kept upright by scaffolding poles and a whitewashed clubhouse by the entrance with a handwritten sign promising hot and cold drinks. The stand has its back to the rugby club, its corrugated roof sloping upwards over five rows of blistered wooden bench seats. Ripon's subs perch on the front, a pair of spectators sit alone at either end and there are 12 other onlookers dotted around the far side of the pitch.<br />
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"Let's play the ball when we get the chance," claps a Ripon defender. "Good lad," the Dringhouses manager says to each of his players in turn. "Enjoy it, pal." "Pieces," somebody urges. "Runners," another warns."Switch on early," Ripon's manager keeps on telling his team. "Stay tight, stay tight. PRESS 'EM!" City ping one of the scaffolding poles, a coach having to scurry up a stepladder to reattach the net. A few minutes later they go even closer, clattering the crossbar from close range. "I'd have gone low," says the man with the ladder. With half an hour gone everyone comes off for a drink break. "We're playing too fast," a home player diagnoses. "We need to take a few seconds to see what's what." The Dringhouses boss spends much of the remainder of the half making calls, breaking off once in a while to shout "Good touch" and "To feet, to feet." When the whistle blows, he doles out instructions under the trees behind the main stand. "Get in the shade, lads," he orders as a substitute wanders off to refill the water bottles.<br />
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Ripon score soon after the restart and then send a spectator jogging across the carpark to retrieve their next effort on goal. "We've stopped playing, haven't we?" a Dringhouses centre back asks rhetorically. "Do some magic," someone shouts and a home player takes a bouncing ball on his chest and hits in at the keeper's near post. Dringhouses pull a goal back, the home side have a 3-1 lead, and then the visitors score twice in a few minutes either side of having a third attempt smack an ankle on the line. "That Ripon keeper keeps coming out," a fan observes. "They've just signed him," a hopper says. "The secretary had to play there last year." A couple of early floats pass by on the road behind. "They can't really develop this place with the houses over there," the hopper says. "There was talk of them moving to the barracks when it closes next year but I don't think that's imminent." The players hang back to take down the goalnets as I set off on the four-mile walk to Fountains Abbey. "Cracking game," someone says. If you haven't been yet, get there while you can. <br />
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Admission: Free<br />
Date: Saturday July 30thMichaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11492434940865733042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270443393406345821.post-28927725078310510652016-07-26T22:44:00.001+01:002016-07-26T22:44:22.365+01:00Ground 306: Wheatridge Park, Seaton Delaval AmateursSeaton Delaval was never the prettiest place on earth. "A freezing, ugly, uncomfortable Hell of a Hole," the poet Ivor Gurney, posted to a signalling course there after he was gassed in battle at Passchendaele. Built on the coal seams of south-east Northumberland, the village boomed from a population of just 240 in 1820 to a place that employed over 3,000 miners during Gurney's dysphoric stay in the winter of 1917.<br />
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The miners of Seaton Delaval were famously militant, striking twice in the 1840s and rioting when Welsh colliers were brought in to take their place. "At Delaval lines of cable were stretched across underground roadways and the tools of the blacklegs were hurled down the shafts," one contemporary report noted. In 1862, 199 miners at the neighbouring New Hartley pit were buried alive when a fallen beam blocked their only route back to the surface. After a six-day rescue attempt, it took almost 18 hours to winch their bodies up the 600-foot shaft. Conditions improved above and below ground, the colliery owners providing better housing and land for leisure pursuits. The first football pitch in Seaton Delaval was laid out in 1893, the Moor Edge ground described as "splendidly appointed" in a newspaper article of 1906. Ashington's Portland Park opened in 1908, Blyth Spartans' Croft Park a year later and Wheatridge Park became the home ground of the newly formed Seaton Delaval Amateurs when they joined the Northern Alliance for a season in 1920-21. Spectators turned out in their thousands to watch clashes against Carlisle United and the reserve sides of Newcastle, Middlesbrough and Sunderland when the Amateurs switched to the North Eastern League in their second year. "Games at Wheatridge Park relieved tedium. Those who lived in Seaton
Delaval worked in it too, and football alone occasionally took them
elsewhere. Those miners unable to afford the fare or the entrance
admission to St James' or Roker Park went to Wheatridge Park instead,"
Duncan Hamilton wrote in <i>The Footballer Who Could Fly</i>. "Without a match,
most people had nothing to do."<br />
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While the colliers struggled, finishing bottom of the division in 1926 and 1927, the village's footballers were prospering elsewhere. Clem Stephenson lifted three FA Cups with Aston Villa before transferring to Huddersfield, where he won a single England cap, another FA Cup and three successive championships as Herbert Chapman's "general" on the field. Ten years his brother's junior, George Stephenson was capped three times for his country, scoring twice on debut against France in 1928. A third Stephenson, Jimmy, played 195 times for Watford and a spent a season apiece at Sunderland and QPR. The siblings' hometown team joined the Northern Alliance in 1955, folded thirteen years later and were only resurrected in 1983, at the same Swansea City's Ray Kennedy began showing the first symptoms of Parkinson's disease. Rejected by Port Vale, Kennedy had worked in a sweet factory before leaving Seaton Delaval for Arsenal, won a double before he was 20 and then added five titles, three European Cups, a UEFA Cup and an FA Cup during eight seasons at Anfield. "The player of the '70s," Jimmy Greaves called him. "One of Liverpool's greatest players and probably the most under-rated," thought Bob Paisley, a man never given to exaggeration. "Things were built around him and we played according to his abilities, which were recognised throughout Europe."<br />
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Kennedy never played for Seaton Delaval Amateurs, but the 11th-tier side got another ex-Liverpool midfielder when David Thompson, named in two England squads and once signed by Blackburn for £1.5 million joined up to play in the Northern Alliance Premier Division. "He's doing this purely to get involved with the club and because of his friendship with our manager Graeme Redpath," said chairman Dave Holmes. "We’re looking at potentially applying for Northern League promotion for
the 2017-18 season...Him being associated with us can only be good for the club and its profile".<br />
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Thompson made his league bow for Liverpool in front of 38,000 fans at Anfield. His new club finished last season in fourth place, 16 points behind Whitley Bay Reserves and 20 adrift of champions Blyth Town, and play on a pitch tucked between a garden centre, supermarket and Bellway housing estate. The entrance sign is half hidden by weeds and a heap of grass cuttings and there's a bathtub and shed between the gate and the touchline. A net shields parked cars from wayward shots; three steps of decayed, broken-up concrete are held in place with metal poles and roped out-of-bounds. "Nice and tight," says a player when the home team get the game underway. "Plenty of new faces," one of the small group of onlookers reckons. "What's that number 2's name?" Boldon CA's centre forward yells across to his bench. "This is my fifth game this week," a bloke tells me. "Mind, I used to be able to watch these from my window until the trees grew too high on the other side of the pitch."<br />
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The home side get a corner. "Big on big!" Boldon's manager shouts. "Tell you what, they're no mugs these," a spectator says admiringly as the visitors spray the ball about. His mates trade gossip about Bedlington Terriers, Blyth Town - "their pitch has come on. It was just a field last season" - and North Shields before we're all interrupted when a Seaton Delaval player clearly punches the ball out of play. "Liner! You not see that, like?" asks someone on the visiting bench. "It's credibility," the official tries to explain. "I'm too far away. I've told them up there already it's all about credibility," he repeats. "I can only help if he asks me to." "Keep going son," a spectator says sympathetically. "It's only a pre-season friendly."<br />
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Delaval prod in the only goal shortly after the break while I'm still halfway through a bacon sandwich and china mug of tea. "Squeeze on" and "Get your shape" the Boldon bench implore, but not even the tactical assistance of a bloke in sunglasses and a full Newcastle United tracksuit can help them find an equalising goal. The second half stutters and a few people decide to watch through their windscreens instead, others moving under the slanted roof of the clubhouse as the sky threatens rain. "The men hugged the touchline or stood in orderly tiers on the bank," Hamilton wrote of games played during his childhood. Things are quieter at Wheatridge Park today but it remains a classic of its type and well worth a visit. <br />
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Admission: Free<br />
Date: Saturday July 23rd 2016Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11492434940865733042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270443393406345821.post-31649982653245843562016-07-23T08:04:00.001+01:002016-07-23T19:06:43.922+01:00Ground 305: Keepmoat Stadium, DoncasterNorthern cities which prospered on the back of their heavy industrial hinterlands, Newcastle and Doncaster are divided by almost 200 kilometres but indelibly linked through the footballing exploits of a single man. Raised in a house that had no electricty, inside toilet or bathroom, Joseph Kevin Keegan grew up using his younger brother's pram as a goalpost, washed cars to make some extra money and got his first pair of boots when his dad won a bet on the horses. Overlooked by his hometown team, the diminutive teenager flunked a six-week trial with Coventry City and was only finally spotted by Scunthorpe United playing Sunday football while earning £6 a week as an errand boy at Pegler's Brass Works. Signing as an apprentice with the Division Four team meant a 25% drop in pay, 6am starts and a two-bus commute from the family home to training; when he retired as a player 17 years later, Keegan had won three Football League titles, four European trophies, one FA Cup, a Bundesliga title, been twice named European Footballer of the Year and scored 21 times for his country in 63 games, captaining England for six years until the 1982 World Cup. "He never stopped working, never stopped trying to improve both himself and his team," <a href="http://www.theanfieldwrap.com/2015/02/kevin-keegan-unsung-hero/" target="_blank">one admirer wrote of his impact on the Reds. </a>"Without him, Liverpool wouldn't have made the step up from perennial challengers for domestic honours to a team capable of dominating across the continent. Because Kevin Keegan really was that good."<br />
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While the boyhood Rovers fan never made it off the terraces at Doncaster's old Belle Vue ground, he would twice utterly transform the fortunes of the side his father supported. The elder Keegan first left Hetton-le-Hole to fight in Burma and then moved his family south when mining work got scarcer on the County Durham seams. The Keegans didn't stay in the north-east but the north-east stayed in them. "Without ever being to Newcastle I felt this thing inside me...in
my genes," he told the writer Martin Hardy after a third spell at St James' ended acrimoniously in 2008. "I played football for dad," he confided to an earlier biographer. "Your roots are your roots, and there was a tremendous pull, an inevitability about me coming at some stage to Newcastle United."<br />
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Keegan was in the dugout for the Magpies' only other pre-season visit to Rovers' Keepmoat Stadium, 18 months after the 15,000-seat stadium opened its doors in January 2007. Two years later, an Andy Carroll goal moved the visitors three points closer to promotion from the Championship, the fatal undermining of the manager having ended in a dispiriting, self-inflicted relegation the summer before. "The club can never go anywhere under Mike Ashley," Keegan insisted. In the six years that have followed, the owner has yet to prove him wrong, though five new signings and the retention of Rafa Benitez have engendered rare feelings of optimism in a fanbase which had grown disillusioned to the point of near apathy under Pardew, Carver and Steve McClaren.<br />
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Red brick and utilitarian, Doncaster Station faces out over the back end of a supermarket and the side of a main road; the visual equivalent of one of Pardew's latter team selections. "Bit of a shithole, isn't it?" says a Newcastle fan lugging four cans of lager in search of a bus. I walk through a concrete underpass and emerge next to the grim vista of a high rise building with tattered England bunting blowing limply in the wind. There's a bloke in a Doncaster shirt with 'Cardiff '07' written on the back, an industrial estate and then the ground itself, floodlights angled from each corner and lines of black and white shirted away fans already queueing to get in.<br />
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The Newcastle team stroll out to the sound of New Order's 'True Faith'. <i>"I feel so extraordinary, something's got a hold on me," </i>sings Bernard Sumner. It feels prophetic. The sun shines down and the away end keeps filling. "Toon! Toon!" a voice foghorns from a corner. "Black and white army!" two thousand voices reply. The visitors start with two new signings; three of the home side are "without number" and one doesn't even get a name. It doesn't take long for the first tentative judgements of the new season to be made. Matz Sels - Belgian title winner with Gent in 2015 and the Pro League's current Goalkeeper of the Year - only half clears a backpass with his first touch of the game: "Fucking hell! He's shocking him," the bloke behind me wails. "Told you he was garbage," he nods knowingly when the keeper barges into John Marquis 15 minutes later. "Five point five million from somewhere in Belgium and how many kicks has he fluffed already?" he asks as Sels picks Andy Williams' penalty out of the net. "Five and a half million quid," he repeats despairingly during a later lull in play. "What a waste, what a waste."<br />
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If Selz is nervy, Adam Armstrong is a livewire, stretching defenders with his pace and twice stinging the Doncaster keeper's hands. Shelvey tries to push things forward but loses patience and blasts into the stand, Anita and Colback buzz into tackles but there's very little to get excited about until a simple corner routine brings a pair of unopposed headers and Williams' second goal of the game. "Shite again," the voice behind barks. "He's just flapping, man."<br />
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"In the first half, we didn't play at the level I was expecting," Benitez later says. He responds to his team's pedestrian performance with a slew of substitutions for the second, Isaac Hayden - one of seven changes - looping a goal back within five minutes and almost adding another just 20 seconds later. Armstrong smacks the keeper instead of the net, Dwight Gayle - all deft touches and sudden darts - is just inches away from tapping in before the otherwise impressive Shelvey treads on the ball and almost gifts Doncaster a third goal. "Gini Wijnaldum, we want you to stay," the far corner choruses, swiftly followed by a less complimentary rendering of the same song for the wantaway Moussa Sissoko. Wijnaldum comes on to muted boos and mopes around to little effect for the rest of the game. A smoke bomb goes off in the away end; a boisterous cluster of Rovers fans bounce along to a drum. Newcastle get closer and closer, Gayle, Gouffran and Thauvin all narrowly missing the target before Ayoze Perez finally squares the game in the first of seven minutes of time added on. "The feeling from the second half was much better and that is what we have to do," Benitez says. Pre-season doesn't tell you much about a team, but for Rafa's Newcastle there's still work to be done. <br />
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Admission: £10<br />
Date: Wednesday July 20th 2016Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11492434940865733042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270443393406345821.post-85441271850310425102016-06-01T08:07:00.000+01:002016-06-01T18:06:39.300+01:00Ground 304: The Ings, Wetherby AthleticNine and a half months into a season that started all the way back on August 15th the West Yorkshire League Premier Division has finally reached its penultimate round of games. "It's been a good one for us but I think we've all had enough now," Wetherby Athletic boss Mark Forster writes in his pre-match notes. "Football wasn't meant to be played in late-May (and) I'm looking forward to playing a bit of golf and watching some cricket."<br />
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Forster recently completed his 100th game in charge of the eleventh-tier side, his players already guaranteed a best ever league finish to add to victory in the Barkston Ash FA Challenge Cup. Both came despite the club spending four months in exile after their home pitches were submerged under one and a half metres of the swollen River Wharfe. "We've had records broken, cup wins, floods, stunning goals and cup heartbreak," the club's <a href="http://www.wetherbyathletic.com/news/oxenhope-matchday-programme-online-1621630.html" target="_blank">online programme</a> enthuses before their final home game against Oxenhope Recreation. "It's been a campaign we'll look back on and marvel at what happened."<br />
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Formed at a 1949 public meeting called when Wetherby United withdrew from the Harrogate and District League, Athletic were promoted into the West Yorks League in 1997 and now run four senior men's teams, a women's side and a thriving junior section for boys and girls aged five to 18. "There is an amazing focus to get it right,” press officer, photographer and programme editor Pete Arnett told a profile piece in the <a href="http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/sport/football/local-football/team-of-the-week-tangerines-dream-is-bearing-fruit-1-7916546" target="_blank">Yorkshire Evening Post</a>. "We
have a very strong core of dedicated people behind the scenes." Arnett, who started doing media work for Conference North side Harrogate Town in 2007, is also behind for the club's prolific and innovative <a href="https://twitter.com/wetherbyathfc?lang=en-gb" target="_blank">online presence</a>, which includes a Twitter feed, website and more recently a digital programme for each home game. The three-division, 44-team West Yorkshire League itself, in contrast, last maintained a site in 2008, doesn't have a single media account and instead relies on the FA for <a href="http://full-time.thefa.com/ProcessPublicSelect.do?psSelectedSeason=168542626&psSelectedDivision=3617243&psSelectedCompetition=0&psSelectedLeague=7516712" target="_blank">basic table and fixture listings.</a><br />
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A short walk along the riverbank from Wetherby's bus station and 17th century bridge, the Ings has a dozen or so pitches, though only the one used by Athletic is marked out with a metal rail. There's a bloke sitting on a roller, another in a car with the sports news on and the door wide open. A third stands by a notice asking spectators to keep off the pitch, a fourth under a tree and two more, with deckchairs and newspapers, have their backs to the town centre and a set of rugby posts. A bigger group is lingering on the terrace of the Sports Association bar. A few groundhoppers are attempting to track down a programme. "I've seen it on the internet," one reckons, "but if you asked me how to print it off I wouldn't have a clue." His mate's equally perplexed. "Apparently if you go on the website," he says, "and email the programme editor he'll send you something called a PDF."<br />
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"Oxenhope look a bit livelier here," says a hopper a few minutes after the start. "Bit end of season, isn't it?" another sniffs just before James Bailey, formerly of Crosshills and Bronte Wanderers, opens the scoring for the visitors a quarter of an hour in. The match soon sparks to life, Wetherby's defence standing still while they wait for an offside flag, an Oxenhope player running through unchallenged until he's felled by the keeper on the edge of the box. The ref gives a free kick and the everyone braces for the inevitable red card. "He hasn't given one," someone shouts. "Embarrassing," reckons an Oxenhope midfielder. "Eh?" the visiting keeper laughs. "You've caused yourself a problem with that diabolical decision,"a spectator helpfully advises the ref. Harry Marshall scores a second with Oxenhope's next attack. "This is probably my last Saturday," sighs a hopper from Birmingham. "I'm on to Rugby League next week."<br />
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Matt Forster pulls a goal back for Wetherby. "Three of you stood off," moans the keeper. "We haven't come back out," the Oxenhope manager shouts. His central defenders are still apportioning blame when Marshall hits a third. "We've fannied that," says an Athletic player. Midway through the half, a more flowing move ends with Dan Moriarty jinking past the keeper to slot in a fourth. ""Big last 20!" screams a defender in the traditional non-league call to arms. "Good pass from Bailey," a hopper adds more thoughtfully after consulting his spiral-bound notebook. <br />
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The West Yorkshire League season ends on May 31st when Forster's team lose 5-4 at treble winners Beeston St Anthony's, though work carries on for volunteers at the West Riding FA's 2015 Community Club of the Year. There are open trials for Wetherby Ladies to plan, the hosting of a charity game for the British Heart Foundation and a 166-team junior football tournament being held over a single weekend. Small wonder the <i>Evening Post</i>chose the club as its team of the week. "Working wonders on a shoestring budget," they wrote. "The Tangerines are bearing fruit." <br />
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Admission: Free<br />
Date: Saturday May 28th 2016Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11492434940865733042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270443393406345821.post-51757590487102396062016-05-27T19:49:00.001+01:002016-05-29T20:15:07.260+01:00Ground 303: Etihad Stadium, Manchester The last time I paid to see an England team play was in November 1994 when Kevin Keegan - top of the league with Newcastle United - had temporary charge of the U21s. Nicky Butt, Sol Campbell, Steve Watson, Shay Given and Steven Carr all started the game at St James' Park. Sunderland's Martin Smith - to the manager's later fury - had his every touch of the ball noisily booed by many of the 25,000 crowd. While the ordinarily sure footed Keegan was rightly embarrassed, he was for once out of step with the public mood; club sides trumped all. If England didn't leave you indifferent, it was probably because it was another source of the multifarious slights inflicted by outsiders on your region, your city and your team. "Watching England's for lower division fans that don't have any decent away trips to look
forward to," a bloke in a black and white shirt had opined between songs about European qualification and Andy
Cole, whose 41-goal season had mystifyingly failed to earn him a call up, during a 'B' international at Hillsborough earlier the same year. "That and southerners. If there wasn't anyone from Newcastle playing, I wouldn't be here." "It's always felt secondary," a Leeds fan
elaborated in Tom Gibbons' <i>English National Identity and Football Fan Culture.</i>
"International games drift in and out of your life and England's never
felt like my team." Manchester United's support sang for Argentina in response to the barracking of David Beckham after the 1998 World Cup. "Why should I
feel a connection to a country that is arrogant and detestable when it
comes to football?" a Liverpool fan wondered. England, increasingly, was the <i>other</i>: the 'No Surrender' thugs; the coach who never picked your players until they'd transferred somewhere else; the kind of people who give you Tory governments, pay to fly banners from planes or willingly appear on Arsenal Fan TV; Ashley Cole's wage demands; London culturally and economically stomping on your face forever. "Fuck England," a Newcastle season ticket holder once put it. "They don't care about us and I don't give a stuff about them."<br />
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Some things hadn't changed. "If Daniel Sturridge played for us and Jermain
Defoe for Liverpool, then Defoe would be going to France and Sturridge
staying at home," a Sunderland fan raged when Roy Hodgson announced his provisional squad for Euro 2016. The sole north-east presence among the 26 players was Andros Townsend, though that felt more a consequence of the hapless state of the region's two biggest clubs - Sunderland flatlining while Newcastle, fatally holed by incompetent recruitment and the risible Steve McClaren, contrived to relegate themselves for the second time in a decade - than any bias on the part of the England coach. In Manchester city centre, the songs were all about the Second World War. "There were ten German bombers," fans chorused to the bemusement of the Sunday afternoon passersby. "And the RAF from England shot them down."<br />
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The new England was more evident at the ground itself, a thirty-minute walk from Piccadilly Station. There were slickly produced videos and marketing speak, messages from corporate parterns ("Celebrate Responsibly") and fans wearing jester hats and half-and-half scarves. "If we see you on the big screen, we want to hear you as well," the PA droned with all the vacuous excitement of children's TV. "Who. Are. You. Here. To. Support?" Red and white t-shirts had been handed out at one end of the ground, supporters forming a St George's Cross as they took their places behind the goal. A Three Lions flag was passed down the touchline, and while there were muted boos at the start and end of the Turkish national anthem, there were much louder cheers for Vardy and Kane. Such was the depth of confidence in England's attack, not even the opposition's 13-match unbeaten run could dampen the crowd's optimism. "I put a quid on 4-0," said a bloke to his mates. "Easy 2-0 win," another reckoned.<br />
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Vardy had already gone close to opening the scoring when Kane put England ahead with just three minutes played. "Who are ya? Who are ya?" asked the home fans, gleefully anticipating a rout. But then the visitors settled, the hosts began to flounder in defence and the crowd got edgier and edgier once Hakan Calhanoglu had deservedly levelled with the first goal Turkey had ever scored against England. A shoe was hurled from the top of the stand and shouts of "Pass it" alternated with pleas to "Just get it in the box." "Vardy's not been involved," the bloke next to me said to no-one in particular. "He's had a crap game, Rose," he added a few seconds later. "What does Sterling think he's doing?"<br />
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"Stand up if you hate the Turks" a group of fans demanded. The visitors started to boo as the chant half-spread to different sections of the ground. My neighbour was averaging a "That's rubbish" every five seconds as England struggled to re-impose themselves in midfield. "Go back to your kee-bab shops," slurred a bloke with a red and white stetson, tattooed cheeks and a Pompey OK patch on his shirt. Hodgson switched formation, moving the previously ineffective Vardy into the centre of the field. A few minutes later the Leicester forward was felled in the area, but Kane put the penalty wide. "Rubbish," thought the now familiar voice. "The money he's on he should at least be able to get it on target." The miss infuriated the Pompey fan too. "No surrender to the IRA! Scum!" he raged, apropos of nothing that was happening down below. There was an embarrassed silence. "And ISIS scum too!" he finished, swaying alone in the aisle. The minutes ticked by and then, with just seven left and the 44,000 crowd beginning to move towards the exits, Gary Cahill headed a corner at the keeper, a defender prevented anyone from gathering the loose ball and Vardy sidefooted in the winning goal by way of the keeper's nose. "Sunderland 'ere we come," celebrated the bloke in the stetson. At the final whistle a few pissed Manchester United fans were doing their best to smash a soap dispenser. "We're wrecking your toilets," one chanted as he tried and failed to dropkick a door. "Your cubicles are terrified." <br />
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People mixed more happily back in the city centre, where the souvenir scarves had dropped from a fiver to £3 and the songs were all about Vardy's parties and Hodgson's trip to France. "My first England game," said a Leeds supporter on the train back to York. "Way they played today," his mate laughed, "it's probably your last one too." <br />
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Admission: £25<br />
Date: Sunday May 22nd 2016 Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11492434940865733042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-270443393406345821.post-18531783149287624142016-05-21T10:18:00.001+01:002016-05-21T23:00:46.701+01:00Ground 302: Eon Visual Media Stadium, North Ferriby United"Incredible when you think about it," a North Ferriby United fan ponders. "There aren't even 4,000 people in this place, other clubs reckon we're just a glorified pub team and yet we've won a cup at Wembley and are ninety minutes away from a place in the fifth division of English football." It's been a remarkable journey: from humble beginnings in the East Riding Church League, the village team had already been to Wembley once - losing 3-0 to Whitby Town in the 1997 FA Vase - when they ended an 18-year stay in the Northern Counties East by lifting the championship in 2000. It took five years to add another title, eight more to make it out of the seventh-tier Northern Premier League. Just one season later they lost top spot in the Conference North on the final afternoon of the 42-game season and were beaten in the play-offs by Guiseley without scoring a goal. Wembley was the unlikeliest of fillips, the fairtyale story that made North Ferriby headline news: two-nil down to the relative giants of Wrexham with just 14 minutes to play, the Villagers roared back to take the FA Trophy on penalties in front of a 15,000 crowd. "It’s all a bit of a blur," said boss Billy Heath, whose previous visit to the national stadium had been as a ball boy when England played Yugoslavia in 1986. "I never dreamt I'd have a chance to manage team here."<br />
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The victory came at a cost, fixture congestion leaving the team in midtable and Steve and Eman Forster, son-in-law and daughter of Hull City owner Assem Allam, deciding to sell up after two years in charge. "Early talk was of reduced budgets and voluntary relegation to a more sustainable level," wrote Darren Norton, editor of the <a href="https://twitter.com/VFTAE" target="_blank"><i>View from the Allotment End</i> fanzine</a>. "With crowds around the 300 mark on a good day, that level would probably have been back in the Northern Premier League or below." Finances were tightened but the the owners stayed on, United winning one and drawing five of their first seven league games. "We expected just to make up the numbers," Darren Norton recalled. Instead, the Villagers pipped Fylde to second place and then overturned a 2-0 first-leg deficit against Boston United in the play off semi-final. "Another Sunday afternoon comeback," the <i>Hull Daily Mail</i> reported. "They had two thirds of the crowd," a North Ferriby fan says, "but they turned up thinking they'd already won." <br />
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Much like the home team's season, my morning gets off to a bumpy start. Still recovering from a week in Montenegro and a Friday night house party, I'm unexpectedly forced to navigate two barriers to collect a ticket from York Station and a third to reach the platform my train's just pulling away from. I consider going home, head out of the station in search of another route and the very first bus I see has North Ferriby written along the side. "There's one every two hours," the driver says. "Must be your lucky day." An hour and a half later I belatedly reach the north bank of the Humber just as two coaches from Preston are disgorging orange-shirted Fylde fans into the village pub. "The play off should be on a neutral ground," complains a bloke hauling a drum and five balloons. "Their pitch is awful for a final." His mate nods sagely. "The next one up's at Wembley, isn't it?" "Duh, duh, duh, duh," chant a moody gang of teenagers dressed in Stone Island leisurewear. "Just look for the floodlights," a pair of stragglers tell each other as they walk the wrong way past a church. 'Horses, dogs and golf prohibited on the grass' says the sign at the turn off for the ground. "This is it," says an elderly woman with a white Fylde scarf and two orange balloons. "Next stop the National League."<br />
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The ground is hemmed in on three sides, allotments restricting further development at one end and a children's playground and railway line marking the boundary of two others. The carpark is cramped, the club shop's in a portakabin and there's a train trundling past the top of the main stand. The clubhouse isn't selling alcohol after a pitch invasion by Boston fans but is still packed with a couple of hundred people celebrating Hull's second goal at Derby. "It's really mainly people from Hull who come to watch Ferriby," one confides. "The villagers are a bit sniffy about what's going on here. It's not really a football kind of place." The talk outside is of prospective new owners and Hull City scrapping concessionary pricing. "It's like Allam just wants to piss people off," a bloke in a City baseball cap says. "People my age will save a bit of money but he's asking kids and pensioners to pay more. There'll be loads of bad publicity if Premier League teams are visiting next year." <br />
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Unlike disillusionment, money's an issue wherever you go. "We've cut the budget by half this season," a home supporter tells me. "A couple of high earners went and we've only used 18 or 19 players all year. We've been really lucky with injuries because three of those have only come on as subs." The Fylde support begin to fill the space behind the Humber Bridge end of the ground. "Lancashire, Lancashire," they chant, territorially marking out their space with flags and a banner that reads 'In Chally We Trust'. As kick off approaches, nerves set in and the atmosphere's more reflective. "I think Challinor might get the sack at Fylde if they don't win today," someone reckons. "Some of these players will be going up even if the club doesn't." says Darren Norton as his team begin their warm up for the game. "Anyone for a golden goal?" a raffle seller asks.<br />
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Not much happens to get the 1,800 crowd going again until midway through the half, Adam Nicklin opting to come for a cross his defence has covered and Sam Finley squeezing the opening goal in off a post. "Shite defending," rues one supporter. "Haven't got going yet, have we?" says another. All the noise is from the other end of the ground. "When we get promotion, this is what we'll sing," the Fylde fans chant. "Plenty of time yet," a single voice responds. It takes a while for the home side to recover, a shot tipped over and another scrambled away from the line. "Not our day," a fan says despondently. We're three minutes into time added on when Liam King squares the ball across the Fylde penalty box and Wayne Brooksby gleefully hits the equaliser. "His first touch of the game just about," laughs a celebrating fan. "They didn't want to go in and face Billy (Heath) losing. Even the linesman runs away from him."<br />
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The home team look the likelier to score in the early stages of the second half. "They're flagging, Ferriby!" encourages a supporter after a goal's disallowed for a push in the back. He's less confident in the final minutes, Fylde's Dion Charles blasting over with Nicklin exposed once again. "It's not like him," Darren Norton reckons. "He's been brilliant for us in goal. It's been a long season, though." Even longer as the game heads into an extra 30 minutes, Ferriby finally edging ahead for the first time when Danny Hone nods in at the other end of the pitch. "We're the green and white army," a corner of the main stand begins to sing. "Keep talking, keep talking," Billy Heath urges. The fourth official raises his board. "Last minute of Conference North football," someone says nervously. When the whistle blows fans trickle on to the pitch. "Unbelievable," Heath says into an iPhone. "We have an unbelievable team spirit and an unbelievable desire to win." "I grew up with Hull City and I'll always say I'm a fan, but I'd feel a bit of a fraud going to Wembley to see them now," a supporter admits as the play-off trophy is hoisted overhead. "This is my team. North Ferriby United in the National League! It's close on a miracle what's happened here." <br />
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Admission: £12<br />
Date: Saturday May 14th 2016<br />
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Many thanks to <a href="https://twitter.com/pibarrister" target="_blank">Andrew Wilson</a> for the lifts around the Ridings and the lads behind the Allotment end goal for the wit, hospitality and background on the club. The first issue of North Ferriby's fanzine is due out at the start of next season, when the Villagers step out in the English fifth tier... Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11492434940865733042noreply@blogger.com0