Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Eight Years Later

As it does, Facebook sent me an anniversary reminder and today it was to say that eight years ago today I cycled to the last of the 92 clubs. It was West Ham United at their old ground, Upton Park. It made me look back over the years and I took stock. I am delighted to say that I am still in touch with many of the people who made that trip possible. I also have to spare a thought for some who have gone to the Great Stadium in the sky. Thanks to all of you.

Some things never change. I am still as crazy about football as ever. This week I was at Norwegian level 3 and Norwegian level 4 games in Oslo. Gillingham go from bad to worse and I can see this season being a “challenge” ….. as most have been since 1965 when I first watched them. Manchester United, CD Torrevieja and Real Madrid have all dropped points this week and now it’s time to look forward to some exciting games as United travel to West Ham at their new London Stadium, Real Madrid have to bounce back from a 3-0 thumping in the big Madrid derby and Gillingham will hope to get something from the long trip to Shrewsbury.

Whatever happens, I will enjoy the weekend and I hope that you will too.

European Day of Languages: Brentford players teach local pupils French and Spanish

An interesting story just in. Not specifically about shirts but definitely worth sharing ….

Two Brentford stars swapped the dressing room for the classroom as they went back to school this week. Spanish winger Sergi Canós and French defender Yoann Barbet took part in a unique coaching session at Ealing Fields High School yesterday.

To the delight and awe of the pupils, the duo ran the football session entirely in French and Spanish, showcasing their talents as they taught their pupils both new football and language skills. The event was held to mark the European Day of Languages, which celebrates the 200 languages spoken in Europe.

“Dribbler comme Maupey” and “zigzag hasta el otro cono y hacer un pase a su compañero” were just some of the French and Spanish phrases uttered as the championship players coached the youngsters during the football session.

And after the football session, the pupils’ linguistic skills were tested – quizzing the players in a mock bi-lingual press conference. Acting as journalists, the pupils asked the players what food they liked and the cultural differences of living in the UK.

Commenting on the pupils’ language skills, Sergi Canos said:

“I was very impressed with the level of Spanish spoken today; when I was that age I could speak hardly any English.”

Yoann Barbet agreed, he said:

“We are here to show young people the importance of learning another language. It has certainly helped me in my football career and it can help these pupils in the wider world.”

The pupils were also put through their paces as they learnt key football phrases such as ‘red card’ and ‘free kick’ in French and Spanish.

13-year-old Hawa, who took part in the session, felt that learning a foreign language had an important purpose, she said:

“If you go to a foreign country and if you have basic level of French and Spanish it can make such a difference to your visit.”

Ben Bird, Head of Modern Languages at Ealing Fields, said:

“We are delighted that Yoann and Sergi were able to visit us as part of our European Day of Languages celebrations. It is exciting that our students are able to see how foreign languages can really play an integral part in their futures.

“It is often difficult to get students motivated by foreign languages, but an event like this can really inspire pupils.”

The event was part of the wider community work of Brentford FC Community Sports Trust – helping thousands of school children become active and live healthier lifestyles.

Lee Doyle, Chief Executive of Brentford FC Community Sports Trust, said:

“The session at Ealing Fields High School is an example of how we try and be innovative both on and off the field. It was delivered by Trust’s coaches and Brentford players – combining physical activity with languages. Today, we certainly inspired young people to enjoy sport and reach higher levels of educational attainment.”

About Brentford FC CST:

With community work spanning three decades, Brentford FC Community Sports Trust has established itself as a pioneering organisation for the local community. It uses the power of sport to educate, motivate and inspire people from all walks of life.

Working in partnership with Brentford FC, the Trust offers a portfolio of programmes in education, health, sports participation and community engagement.
The Trust has won the ‘Football League Community Club of the Year’ award four times and now employs more than 100 members of staff.

Official Juventus Retro Collection

Today we proudly present to you: our official Juventus retro collection. This first collection is a celebration of the clubs rich history.

We go back to the 1952 scudetto when the Dane, John Hansen, became Serie A topscorer with 30 goals. We also celebrate their first major European title, the UEFA Cup in 1977, with the home and away shirt of that season. During the 1983 – 84 season Platini guided Juve to their 21st scudetto and won the European Cup Winners Cup in a distinctive yellow jersey. The collection is completed with two classic retro jackets and a ‘My First Juventus Shirt’ for the youngest fans.

The official Juventus retro collection can be found online through copafootball.com, in our Flagshipstore in Amsterdam, through the official Juventus fanstores and via selected retailers and online resellers. All the retro items are packaged and dispatched in luxury gift boxes.

West Bromwich Albion

Official West Bromwich Albion Retro Collection

After working with illustrious Championship clubs like Nottingham Forest and Ipswich Town last season, we are happy to show you our first official West Bromwich Albion retro collection. Jointly, we have launched two well-known retro shirts and a retro jacket, to cherish WBA’s rich history.

West Bromwich Albion are one of the oldest and proudest names in English football. The club was formed in 1878 and has played at its home ground, The Hawthorns, since 1900. They are members of a select group of clubs to have won all three major domestic honours and are one of the founding members of the Football League.

The official West Bromwich Albion collection can be found online through copafootball.com, in the official WBA fanstores and via selected retailers and online resellers. All the retro items are packaged and dispatched in luxury gift boxes.

FC Nantes

OFFICIAL FC NANTES RETRO COLLECTION

Now the new football season is in full swing, we are ready to launch multiple new club projects. The first exciting collaboration is our official FC Nantes collection. Today, we have launched three classic retro shirts, a retro jacket and a ‘My First Football Shirt’ for the youngest fans.

The collection captures the essence of the club’s history. Including the famous “Europe 1-shirt”, in which the club celebrated the Ligue 1 title in 1980. There was a musical footnote to this title win, when football-mad Bob Marley was scheduled to perform at the club’s La Beaujoire stadium. The reggae singer donned a Nantes shirt and captained his Wailers team in a 5-a-side pre-concert match against a selection made up of Nantes players.

The official FC Nantes collection can be found online through copafootball.com, in our Flagshipstore in Amsterdam, through the official FC Nantes fanstores and via selected retailers and online resellers. All the retro items are packaged and dispatched in luxury gift boxes.

Tuk Tuk to Turkey

I came across this interesting story today. No, it’s not about football but it is a great example of people doing what others aren’y prepared to do. Good Luck!

What is ‘Tuk Tuk To Turkey’ all about?

*5 YEARS AGO* Emily Sumaria was found dead by her university housemates. At 10:36pm on the 3rd of December, sisters Amy and Emily were joking about their failed fad diets before heading off to Cuba for a family holiday. By 10:36am the next day Emily was dead. She was just 19. Our family now has an enormous dark hole and we hold desperately onto memories and photographs. They are all we have.

It was so completely out of the blue – whilst Emily had epilepsy she was on medication and you could count on one hand the number of seizures she’d had. Her epilepsy was totally controlled and we had never heard of SUDEP: Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy.

Amy had to deal with the immediate aftermath of her sister’s death all on her own as Rachel & Bharat were on an aeroplane on the other side of the world. She had to tell them over the phone that their youngest daughter was dead. It was a long journey home for them and it was four months before we all knew from the coroner why Emily had died.

*TUK TUK TO TURKEY* is our family’s way of taking the tragedy of Emily being stripped of her bright future and turning it into something positive. Over the past 5 years we have seen incredible fundraising efforts from her wonderful friends and Leeds university hockey team. They have inspired and motivated us to do something very much out of our comfort zone. It’s going to be a massive challenge and there is a huge amount to do – from route planning to persuading Bharat there is a genuine need for him to go on a mechanics course to deciding what colour tinsel we need to decorate our trusty Indian Tuk Tuk with! Rachel is not a natural happy camper and needs her scented candles so her expectations will need to be managed! Not to mention poor James who will be spending 6 weeks in a tuk tuk with Amy’s parents!

We’re going to leave in September and start our journey though the UK, France, Belgium…….Macedonia, Albania etc. until we end up, 21 countries (and 6 weeks) later in Istanbul. The tiny tuk tuk has little or no suspension, is exposed to the elements, is noisy and doesn’t go very fast! It will struggle up hills let alone over the Alps. We will be travelling on some very poor roads and will have to locate campsites or cheap hostelries as we go.

*SUDEP Action* is a small well-run charity that punches way above its weight. The £42,000 that will be raised by our efforts will be going towards SUDEP Action’s *PREVENT 21* campaign which will hopefully raise £1m over the next four years and go towards ground-breaking scientific and clinical developments, raising awareness of SUDEP and continue to provide the invaluable support and community that bereaved families desperately need.

21 people a week die from epilepsy and many of those deaths are avoidable. SUDEP can strike at any time and it can shatter lives overnight. Young adults are particularly at risk. People like Emily, who live with epilepsy, are rarely warned of this risk by their doctors. Their families, like ours, have often not heard of it until the coroner’s report. But this doesn’t need to happen. Awareness means that people with epilepsy can manage their risk and reduce their chances of dying.

In addition to the money we raise, we hope our colourful journey through Europe will raise awareness of SUDEP and this great charity and in turn will save lives.

*WHAT YOU CAN DO*:

*DONATE!* Anything you can donate, big or small, would be an incredible help and would really encourage us to get through all the challenges ahead of our final destination.

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/tuktuktoturkey

*SPONSOR ONE OF OUR 21 COUNTRIES!* If your company would like exposure on all our platforms then sponsor country and your logo etc can join our journey

*JOIN US!* If you’d like to join us for a couple of days then please get in touch (tuktuktoturkey@outlook.com)! We’d love some company along the route.

For more information on SUDEP and the incredible work done by SUDEP Action please click through to their website here – www.sudep.org

Much to Bart’s dismay we’re all over SOCIAL MEDIA. Please follow our journey and SHARE SHARE SHARE on:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tuktuktoturkey/?hl=en
Website: tuktuktoturkey.com
Or email us at tuktuktoturkey@outlook.com

#tuktuktoturkey #sumosafari #prevent21

Full details at www.TukTukToTurkey.com

Queen Bee 98 year old Audrey Baker invests in our next generation of fans

Audrey Baker, a Bees fan of 86 years has become the Patron of our “Babees”, “Bee Team” and “Juniors” membership schemes for supporters up to the age of 18. Audrey has very generously invested over the next two years to help the Club develop our offering for younger fans and also to attract new supporters to the Club.

Ealing-born Audrey first came to Griffin Park with her father in the 1930’s and lists Dai Hopkins and the prolific goalscorer Jack Holliday as her favourite players of yesteryear. Danish international Henrik Dalsgaard is her current favourite. In a recent interview with Natalie Sawyer, Audrey told us that the junior fans of the Club “are the future” and she hopes that they will be supporting her Club in the top tier very soon.

Mike Sullivan, Brentford FC Commercial Manager, who has known Audrey and her family for a number of years, said: “Audrey’s offer and investment into the next generation of Brentford fans is incredible and quite unique across the EFL. To have one of our oldest fans supporting and encouraging the next generation of Bees shows what this Club is about as a community club. We are extremely grateful to both Audrey and her family for this.

“The Club will look at ways in which Audrey’s financial support can help us develop our junior offerings to ensure that we continue to evolve and grow. We have a strong focus off the pitch to make the matchday and family experience one of the best in the EFL which naturally compliments the desire of our owner Matthew Benham for affordable football. We are looking forward to some exciting times ahead off the pitch and to have Audrey as Patron of our youngest fans is another positive step in the right direction.”

Mark Devlin, Brentford FC Chief Executive Officer described Audrey’s investment as a “fantastic gesture” and a “wonderful story” as the club looks to grow and develop the junior fan base. You can see more of what Mark had to say and Audrey’s chat with Natalie Sawyer in our video

CLAPTON COMMUNITY FC

We are the Clapton

A truly amazing and heart-warming story is breaking at a tier 12 club in east London.

Somehow we’ve just sold over 2,500 replica shirts and it’s nuts

AUGUST 28, 2018

Clapton CFC have not even kicked a ball in competitive football yet, but we’ve seen an overwhelming demand for our replica shirts, particularly our away strip.

The colourful red, purple and yellow shirt, inspired by the International Brigades and voted for by our members, was formally launched on Saturday at the team’s home friendly against the first FA Cup-winners Wanderers FC, a brilliant occasion in front of 232 fans.

By then members were already overjoyed to have sold over 400 replica shirts, way above our expectations. We are a Step 8 (that is, division 12) club, after all. Before the Bank Holiday weekend was over, however, we had received an amazing 2,600 orders and rising.

To the thousands of you who have bought a shirt, or followed us on social media, or sent us a message, thank you very much.

Our unexpected spot in the limelight has meant lots of frantic planning, working out how on earth we can process so many orders. And we’ve had to rush to register for VAT – we never expected our income to be high enough to need to do so – which has forced a £5 rise in price.

The now-famous shirts did cost £25, but will now be £30 including VAT – still half the cost of many Premier League shirts. They are made in Italy by Rage Sports, a small, ethical manufacturer with material meticulously sourced from companies that pay their workers fairly. Find out more about Rage Sports here.

Most of the demand has come from Spain, due to the design being based upon the colours of the International Brigades, who joined the fight against fascism in Spain during the Civil War of the late 1930s. Over 2,500 men and women from the UK and Ireland travelled to fight, with more than 500 dying for the cause.

“It has been quite the shock for us, as we only expected to sell about 250 shirts in a year,” says kit designer and Clapton CFC member, Thom. “Fans voted from a total of 16 kit designs, but this was by far the most popular. I really wanted to make something that marked the importance of the sacrifice of those who fought against fascism.

“We have always been known as fans who do not accept racism, sexism and homophobia, so it made total sense. We didn’t expect our tiny club to be noticed by Spanish football fans but we’re delighted nonetheless.”

We will use some of the money to help with the running of the club, which is a community benefit society entirely run by volunteers. We also be consulting fully with out members.

However, funds are also earmarked to help the International Brigade Memorial Trust, who work to keep the memory of those who travelled to Spain to fight alive. The IBMT counts actress Maxine Peake and musician Christy Moore among its patrons.

Jim Jump, National Secretary of the International Brigade Memorial Trust, said: “We’re delighted that the shirt highlights the sacrifice made by those who joined the International Brigades, and we are excited that some of the income from the shirts will enable us to work with Clapton CFC on education and memorial initiatives here in the UK.”

Rage Sports are doing their best to cope with the surge in demand, and Clapton CFC members will do our best to send them out as soon as we can. Further details to follow. Shirts are still available to buy at https://www.claptoncfc.co.uk/store/ but please do be patient as we try to process orders.

The club has also gained 20 new members in Spain, swelling our ranks to over 400, just a few months after being founded. All members have a full and equal say on how the club is run, with volunteer committees overseeing day-to-day business. All you have to do to get involved is to join us, for £5 concessions and £10 waged. (Steve’s note …. I am one of the new members!)

Some people are understandably confused, but just to be clear, we are not the Clapton FC which fields a team in the Essex Senior League.

Our club was established by Clapton FC’s life members, who have hundreds of years of supporting the Tons between them, and who can trace their family links to the club as far back as the early 1900s.

We publicly launched in June 2018 after a long, tightly-observed fan boycott of Clapton FC home games, legal disputes over ownership and membership, and that club’s declared owner forcing a charity that he also runs into voluntary liquidation.

This charity, which controlled the lease on the historic Old Spotted Dog Ground in Forest Gate, east London,, is currently under investigation by the Charity Commission and legal action by fans is ongoing in the High Court.

So this will be Clapton CFC’s first season as a club and the team will compete in the Middlesex Counties League Division 1, at our temporary home of The Stray Dog, Wadham Lodge Sports Ground in Walthamstow, east London.

Clapton CFC’s first competitive home game will be a BBC Essex Premier Cup game against Hutton FC at 2pm on September 22.

In Spanish from Marca and AS

Brentford vdoc

Brentford Football Club has continued the growth of its partnership family with the addition of vdoc as Official Healthcare Partner for the 2018/19 season. vdoc is a private healthcare concierge service provider that gives 24/7 access to a doctor via video call or phone for as little as £4 a month. The multi-award-winning healthcare company provides businesses with immediate access to private doctors and prescription services within the workplace with key features including access to 400+ doctors, a secure video platform, confidential appointments, fast prescriptions and specialist referrals.

Although primarily a business to business model, vdoc will be offering Brentford supporters the opportunity to have the service as a feature of the partnership. Bees fans will be able to sign up for £10 for a year, a huge saving on the RRP of £48. More details of the offer will be sent out in the coming weeks. vdoc, a winner at the 2017 West London Business Awards, will sponsor the ball boys at Griffin Park.

Suresh Sivagnanam, Founder and CEO of vdoc, said: “We’re delighted to be getting involved with Brentford, our local team, during a very exciting time in the Club’s history. vdoc’s mission is to become one of the first 24/7, 365 days a year digital healthcare provider globally.”

Adam Ward, Brentford FC Partnership Development Manager, said: “Health and wellbeing is paramount to everyone, so it’s fantastic to have vdoc, who have strong links within West London Businesses, onboard for the exciting season ahead.”

The attached picture features Adam Ward, right centre, and Suresh Sivagnanam with two Brentford FC Ball Boys.