Author Archive

INTRODUCING OUR NEW CLUB CREST

Amidst all the controversy about the new Atlético de Madrid club badge, it’s good to see that the Brentford badge above has been accepted rather more positively.

The club write,

“Over the past 18 months we have been consulting with fans, staff, the owner and other stakeholders about our Club crest.

Having heard a wide range of opinions we have made the decision to update it, and now we are excited to reveal our new Brentford FC Club crest to all of our fans.

Although our current crest naturally means a lot to all Brentford fans, it also causes us challenges. There are two fundamental reasons why we are updating it.

Firstly, its complicated design makes it impractical to use, particularly at small sizes. It was designed in 1993 before the digital revolution and does not replicate well in many online media and printed items. We regularly run into difficulties in these areas.

Secondly, there are lots of elements in the design fighting for attention. This contributes to our crest not being nearly as recognisable as other clubs’ crests. In an independent survey of football fans we found our crest to be significantly less recognisable than other London teams – among national and local respondents.

By solving these problems and introducing a much more iconic design, we believe that our new crest will strengthen our identity, help raise our profile and better demonstrate our status as an ambitious, forward-thinking Club. All of which are vital as we aim to build a sustainable future.”

For those who want to learn even more about the design process, there is a comprehensive overview here.

My friends from Copa sent me this today. I thought it deserved more eyeballs.

This BSC Young Boys retro shirt is a throwback to the 1985-86 season where Young Boys travelled to play their title rivals Neuchâtel Xamax and stunned them with a 4-1 win. The Swiss title was secured for the first time in 26 years and remains the most recent the club has won to date.
BSC Young Boys

This retro shirt can be found in the fanstore and webshop of BSC Young Boys, on copafootball.com and via selected retailers and online resellers.

Retro Shirts

My friends at COPA sent this a few days ago. I thought many would like to see some classic shirts!

Pele Good, Maradona Better, George Best!

3 new retro shirts have been added to our George Best collection. The shirts pay tribute to his glorious football career and some of the unique teams he played for. ​

The complete George Best collection can be found via copafootball.com, in our flagshipstore in Amsterdam and via selected retailers and online resellers.

I was delighted to receive this from my friends at Copa today.

“With great pride, we release a retro collection of AS Roma, made and designed in strong collaboration with the club. The collection is made under official license of the Roman powerhouse. ​

The first collection consists of different classic retro shirts and two retro jackets to take you back to the 1940’s up and until the 1980’s, to relive the rich history of the club. An AS Roma captain T-shirt and two My First Football Shirts© for the youngest Roma fans have been added to the collection as well. As a finishing touch, we added a fashionable AS Roma T-shirt.

The collection can be found via copafootball.com, in our flagshipstore in Amsterdam, via selected retailers and online resellers in Europe and overseas markets. In Italy the collection is available exclusively in the official As Roma Stores and the official asroma.com webshop.”

You can read the whole email here

As many will know, I have a soft touch for Roma going back to when John Arne Riise supported Bjørn when he travelled through the city. This is my Roma shirt (Batistuta)

Ajax, Amsterdam

COPA HONOURS OLD & NEW AJAX GROUNDS

The history of Ajax football club can roughly be devided into two periods. From 1934 until 1996, the club played its home games in De Meer in the ‘Betondorp’ district. Betondorp equals Ajax. The legendary Johan Cruyff was born and raised just a few blocks away from the stadium.

In 1996, the Dutch record champions moved to their new ground. The Amsterdam ArenA was, and still is, the largest stadium in the Netherlands. To mark the 20th anniversary of the Amsterdam ArenA and honour the iconic ground De Meer, COPA has recently launched two special T-shirts.

You can find both T-shirts on copafootball.com and in their flagship Store in Amsterdam, near the Amsterdam Central Station.

Amsterdam ArenA

The Amsterdam ArenA, has been the home ground for Ajax since 1996. It was also used during EURO 2000, for the 1998 Champions League Final and the 2013 Europa League Final. Additionally, many famous artists such as Madonna, Michael Jackson, David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, AC/DC and Beyoncé have given concerts in the stadium. This new T-shirt project is an official collaboration between COPA and the Amsterdam ArenA.

De Meer

Photographer Marco Magielse was once strolling through Betondorp looking for inspiration for an Art Academy class about architecture. He could not have imagined that one of the pictures he took that day would many years later make it on to a COPA T-shirt. This iconic stadium was the home of Ajax from 1934 until 1996 and will be remembered forever.

On February 13th this year River Reeves, 19, together with his three band mates from Viola Beach; Kris Leonard, 20, Tomas Lowe, 27 and Jack Dakin, 19 and their manager, Craig Tarry, 32 were killed in a car accident in Sweden. They were travelling home from their first international gig.

River lived in Penzance, Cornwall, before he moved to Warrington in 2007 where he went on to join Viola Beach who’s album went to Number 1 in the album charts posthumously over the summer.

Riv’s Riders is a team of River’s family and friends, who are making the same journey, on our bikes… cycling from Penzance to Warrington to raise money for the River Reeves Foundation. There will also be a donation made by the foundation to The Viola Beach and Craig Tarry Memorial Fund so that a permanent memorial, celebrating the lad’s short lives and all that they achieved in that time, can be erected in the town centre.

The River Reeves Foundation has been set up to support young musicians and those involved in the performing arts, who need financial support to help them overcome the many barriers to fulfilling their dreams and which Viola Beach also faced in their too-short musical careers.
It is a hardship trust that can support all manner of personal causes linked to the performing arts and it is a fantastic legacy for River – who was an all-round performer from when he could walk and talk!

He would be incredibly proud to know this fund in his name will help ease the journey for others like him, and may well help create some more stars of the future.

Riv’s Riders will be covering a distance of 410 miles, averaging approx. 75 miles per day (and around 5000ft daily climb), setting off from the Jubilee Pool in Penzance on Monday 19th September, planning to arrive at the Warrington phone boxes at lunchtime on Saturday 24th September (5.5 days total)

Target £10,000 – Please sponsor us by donating through this crowd-funding page: https://crowdfunding.justgiving.com/RivsRiders2016CycleChallenge

All donations will be collated by JustGiving and a cheque for the total will then be paid to the River Reeves Foundation.

All costs will be covered by the team – every penny donated goes to the charity.

Thank you in advance – your support means a huge amount to us.
If you want to ride in with us on the final day as a River Rainbow Rider (wearing colourful kit!)….itinerary details attached. We’d be thrilled to have you alongside us.

BBC and ITV will be covering our Finish Line arrival.
Cheers
Ben

A Lap of Spain

A Lap of Spain for Charity

The Bull boys are off on another adventure to raise money!

It’s not long now until father and son team, Dave and Mitch Bull, will be off on their epic journey around the coast and borders of Spain on motorbikes, raising money and awareness for the AECC (Cancer research) and the Samaritans in Spain, of which Dave is the patron.
Twenty-three days travelling will see them visit most of Spain’s biggest cities and along the way they’ll be meeting up with groups and local contacts who are going to help them along the way.

The ´challenge´ for the two of them is to cover almost 400 kilometres each day without using motorways and sticking as close as possible to the coast and the borders with France and Portugal. They´ll have just five euros each per day for food and drink because they both want to keep costs to a minimum. Each night they´ll be looking for a friendly campsite where they can pitch their tent for free and, fortunately, with both of them having a passion for cooking, the evening meal should at least be tasty, although a Camping Gaz stove restricts the variety on the plate somewhat!

Following on from last year´s successful challenge to row two kayaks down the River Segura, from Murcia to the coast at Guardamar (52km), which raised over €3,000 for the charities, Dave and Mitch have raised the bar this year to try and cover the 7,500 kilometres in the time allocated and visit some of Spain´s best known places. Their progress will be updated every day on social media with videos and images of the day´s ride. And along the way they plan to meet up with biker groups who will join them on parts of the trip and with local businesses who will show them around the locality.

Both riders are highly experienced on motorbikes having raced on the circuits here in Spain up until a few years ago and with Mitch having sat, and ridden, his first motorcycle at the tender age of five years old the pair are well equipped for what will surely be a test of endurance and conditions as the weather in the north of Spain and in the mountains of the Pyrenees and Granada will be completely different to what they will find in the Southern part of the country.

With both bikes loaded with around 50kg of equipment, and as Dave says, “a few boxers and t-shirts”, the going certainly won’t be swift, especially in the seaside towns and cities that they’ll be passing through every day.

So far all the costs of the trip have been covered by generous sponsors, both businesses and private individuals, which has once again humbled the pair. Said Mitch, “People are just so kind and come up to us handing over cash or requesting the donation page because they all know someone who at some time has been affected by cancer, or has struggled with life at times and has called the Samaritans. We just want to do our bit and with a member of our family being treated for cancer we felt that we needed to do something.”

Follow the boys on their Facebook page: Riding for Cancer or on Twitter and Instagram: davejbull. The website also has all the relevant information too: www.motorbikechallenge.com and there is a donation page at: https://www.gofundme.com/2ggh7wqc where all donations will go straight to the two charities.

Dave and Mitch will be leaving Gran Alacant (town hall car park) on the 27th of September at 12pm and heading up to Alicante Castle before continuing the journey to Valencia where they will camp out for the first night. Barcelona follows on the 28th with an appearance on Simon Harris´s radio show on Barcelona FM. Then they´ll be off to Gerona before heading across the Pyrenees for two days.

It´s a long time on the road but the boys are sure to have some amazing experiences along the way which you´ll be able to see for yourself via the various medias available.
We´ll keep you updated here too so keep an eye out for the ‘Challenge’, and the two of them coming through your town in October. The folks from the shirt will be at the Start and again meeting up with them at the very end when they come through Torrevieja and rest at Coys Rent A Car.

Where will you meet Dave and Mitch?

OK, I know you think I am going to right some drivel about Leicester City going to Cardiff for the Champions League Final in May 2017. No, this is far more important. Please read on.

Two e-buddy colleagues of mine sent me this very important update yesterday. Alan and Elle own www.SpainBuddy.com, a great resource about all things Spain. Like me, Alan is a traveller/adventurer/extreme sport freak etc and needs our support this week. Without editing the press release much, I am rushing it up here.

“You may remember a recent post about our new friend Tasha Lynch, who is a very poorly lady living on the Costa Blanca. Well, can you help?

Can you help?

Tasha is suffering from three incurable diseases: hemiplegic migraines, myasthenic crisis and transverse myelitis. The latter two have caused Tasha major disabilities. If you don’t know Tasha’s story – you can read more about it here: Help Tasha Since that article was posted, Tasha has been through a couple of rounds of chemo and suffered several relapses.

By way of the fantastic fundraising of so many people, a special car has been purchased. The Peugeot Expert is now sat in Leicester… waiting for collection. This Peugeot will enable Tasha to get into the vehicle without having to leave her wheelchair – it will make such a difference to her life – and she’s already got enough to worry about what with her respiration machine and her chemo.

Last night (August 26 2016), Tasha’s Dad (Andy) posted a message on Facebook asking if anyone would be able to drive the new car to Alicante.

Our Alan loves a road trip, and when I mentioned it to him he jumped at the chance. So today, after a good chat with Andy, we have booked him a flight from Alicante to Liverpool (via Edinburgh because it’s that time of year when direct flights to England can be horrifically expensive) where Alan will then be able to get to Leicester. If all goes according to the plans we’ve put in action this afternoon, the new wheels will be in Alicante in early September…. around the 5th or 6th.

We will be providing regular “check ins” via the Spain Buddy Facebook page and the La Marina Gossip Facebook group, so that people can track the new van as it pootles along to Alicante.

But here’s where we need your help.

At the end of the day – Tasha needs this car and she needs it quick. So we wanted to get the ball rolling and make sure it gets where it needs to.

Although fundraising monies have been made available for the trip from Leicester to Alicante – the costs to get Alan to that point are already mounting up. The flight, the fuel from here to Alicante and more… well it soon mounts. This time of year is particularly expensive for flights. We’ve paid it just to ensure the car arrives… but it’s a lot of money. Some money has been made available by Andy – but again, we want to minimise any impact on funds already collected.

If anyone would like to help ease our financial commitment – we’d be thrilled. If we don’t manage to collect enough, that’s okay, we’ll cover it of course. If contributions go over and above our expenses… then any excess will be donated directly to Tasha for any of her ongoing needs. It would be amazing if all costs could be covered without impacting on any funds raised so far!

Andy is giving us a lump of money from the fundraising pot (which pretty much covers the ferry, fuel and tolls through France and Spain). But we really don’t want to use it unless we really have to. It would be wonderful if we can give him that money back!!!

We won’t make any money out of this ourselves – hey, even though it’s taken Alan out of the business for ten days…. I do love a bit of peace and quiet… just me and the dogs. So it’s win win!

If you have a spare €1, €5, €10, €20, or even €50 – please would you send it to us via PayPal. Here’s how.

Go to www.paypal.com and log in as you normally would.

Click on “Money” in the top menu and then on “Send Money”.
Then select “Send money to friends and family” (so we can avoid any surcharges) and enter the email address tasha@spainbuddy.com

Click “Next” and then enter the amount you would like to contribute and follow the steps as normal.

I’ve set up that special PayPal email so that we can accurately trace all contributions and make sure they go to the right place. We operate transparently, so Tasha and her Dad Andy will always know how much money is being donated.

UPDATE: A couple of people have messaged us because they don’t have PayPal. No problem! If you drop a comment with your contact email address at the base of this article, that sends us an email. Nothing gets published unless we tick a box – but then we will have your contact info and can send you bank details. Or you can use the “Contact Us” page link at the top of all pages on this website. Once a bank transfer is done, we will put the money in the right hands on your behalf.

There is more news coming too – which we will share with you as soon as certain conversations have been confirmed. If things go as we hope, then the impact on the funds already collected will be lessened further – enabling even more money to go towards Tasha’s day to day expenses and care.

Already, people have been rallying around to help in practical ways. Special thanks go to:

Andy – who has been wading through my million messages and phone calls for the various bits of information that we need

Alan – for being the best fella a woman could have and not minding one jot when I asked if he would consider doing this to help someone he has never met
.
Alan’s family for already organising ways for him to get from Liverpool to Leicester without worrying about buses or trains… and of course for giving him somewhere to sleep.

Jon Hughes – for supporting and raising extra awareness of Tasha’s situation constantly, and ensuring that Alan and I have also felt supported while planning the journey while also offering to help find Alan a bed in La Marina tonight. Jon (and his good lady Jackie) runs La Marina Gossip Group and it is in there that we first learned about what Tasha is going through.

UPDATE: Stu & Syb Bradley – the owners of Le Chant d’Oiseau who have very kindly offered a bed and a hot shower as Alan travels down from Le Havre through the Loire region of France.

UPDATE: Phil Burch and the team at Exclusive City Breaks have pledged €0,50 from every booking until the end of September. Phil has been our Travel Agent of choice for a number of years now. Top fella!

Tasha – I think she deserves the biggest thanks for driving the rest of us to stop whingeing about minutae, and showing us how ladylike and brave she has been throughout her illness. She doesn’t always feel strong. She doesn’t always feel brave. But by God she won’t let that stop her from fighting. She can also rock a funky hairband like no other.

All the many of you that have already dug deep to help support Tasha… and that continue to do so by making personal donations, organising events and much more. You all know who you are!!!”

Dave Thomas

I was really sad to learn about Dave Thomas this week. To go blind is one of the absolute worst things I can think of. I am sure we all wish him the very best of luck.

Former Middlesbrough, Burnley and QPR star Dave Thomas to auction signed shirt collection for charity

A FORMER international footballer suffering from severe glaucoma is auctioning off highly-coveted memorabilia to raise cash for Guide Dogs for the Blind.

Dave Thomas, 65, who played as a winger for Middlesbrough FC in 1981 and for England eight times between 1974 and 1975 – as well as other top flight clubs including Burnley and QPR – has collected several signed football shirts for an auction at Tennants, Leyburn, on August 5.
Dave has already raised more than £20,000 for the charity and hopes the signed shirts and memorabilia will bring in more cash to help train guide dogs for people who are losing their sight.

“It’s a really good collection including a West Ham shirt from the 1980 winning FA Cup side, and a Tottenham Legends shirt from 1970,” he said.

Dave, who had a long career as a PE teacher after retiring from football, has spent months persuading each of the Premier League clubs to donate a shirt.

He said: “I wanted to do this for Guide Dogs for the Blind because it is not until you have sight problems yourself that you realise how important they are.

“It costs the charity £50,000 per dog, from birth to retirement, and there are around 5,000 dogs in the UK – they do a fantastic job and need to be supported.

“QPR have agreed to sponsor a dog which is brilliant.”

Mr Thomas said while he can see straight in front of him, his peripheral vision is failing – so his wife Brenda has to accompany and drive him everywhere.

The grandfather-of-four said: “With a dog I can be independent and get the bus.”

Guide Dogs fundraiser Susan Robinson said: “We would like to thank Dave for all the hard work he has put in to make this event happen. We would also like to thank Tennants for their generosity in facilitating the auction.

“When someone loses their sight, it shouldn’t mean losing their confidence and independence too. The charity Guide Dogs is here to make sure they don’t lose their freedom as well. It takes around 20 months of specialised training to transform a new born puppy into a confident guide dog, so every penny helps.”

Follow Dave on twitter

Brexit

OK, guys. Here we go again!

I am HUGELY disappointed about the whole the Brexit situation and repercussions and do not try to hide that.#BrexitDebacle

I am now decided to set a website up to support British Expats and our desire to stay in Europe. This will, of course, be Spain-centric

As well as the website. I will also be “cycling” (TBC) from Gibraltar to Westminster to explain our disgust at being sold down the Ebro!

Last year I did a 90 days digital tour through Spain that was (arrogantly!) very successful. Thanks, guys! This time, time is of the essence so it’s thinking caps on time!

My current thinking is to start the journey in Gibraltar, to “cycle” through Andalucia along the Costa del Sol into Malaga up to Granada, into Murcia, along the Levante and up to the French border via Catalonia. From there it will be hot-speed to Westminster via Perpignan, Lyon The Jungle and Paris.

As I go through the various towns, cities and regions I shall meet the local expats and immigrants who will tell me about their lives and how Brexit can/will change it. I am a democrat and will also take content from those who want to exit (if I can find any, but I won’t look hard!!) The expats can tell me how much they love Manilva, what their life is and, of course, pimp their beauty salon or estate agency. (I expect nothing for nothing!)
I am also being encouraged to promote the trip on another large FB remain group.

This is a HOT topic and I am NOT 100% sure how I will “cycle”. More details ASAP.

Many thanks to all who have offered to assist. APPRECIATED.

This event will be a huge media circus and I will be delighted to feature all expats who are concerned that we have been sold down the Thames, Seine, Danube etc!

This is a bare skeleton, if you have any ideas and what your names/businesses more prominently mentioned, just SHOUT. Although this is my 5th/6th similar gig, I am learning every time.

YOUR SUPPORT IS WELCOME.