Category Archives: Editorial

Dan King’s fundraising run this Sunday

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Dan King of The Sun is running the Cambridge Half Marathon this Sunday,  March 3 and, with Ian Ridley’s blessing, has set up a fundraising page for the @royalmarsden in memory of his friend and colleague Vikki Orvice who passed away three weeks ago.

Vikki was a patron for the hospital, whose staff were so helpful to her in her 12-year fight against cancer. Three of them attended Vikki’s funeral earlier this week.

It is a great cause, and if you would like to support Dan in his efforts, please visit

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/daniel-king41

Vikki Orvice – a Celebration of her Life.

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“If anyone comes to my funeral…”

She need not have worried. Vikki Orvice had written those words in the eulogy she had composed for herself, and was read out by her husband Ian Ridley at St Leonard’s Church Flamstead, on a beautiful, unseasonally sunny day in February.

“They came, Vikki, oh they came,” replied Ian later that day on Twitter.

Indeed we did. Hundreds turned up at the tiny church high on a hill in Hertfordshire, sitting and standing inside St Leonard’s and even filling the overflow marquee set up outside, with a live stream of the service.

And what a service it was. Vikki, determined not to let Ian have the last word, had helped plan her own funeral, but she would not have believed how beautifully this celebration of her life would play out.

The village of Flamstead played host for a day to the cream of British sportswriting, superstars of sport and the many, many friends and family who loved Vikki and owed her so much.

Paula Radcliffe, Jessica Ennis-Hill, Adam Gemili and Dina Asher-Smith were among the athletes who came to pay their final respects, as well as footballers Tony Adams and Alan Smith. A special guest, representing Vikki’s beloved Sheffield United, was the great Tony Currie, her ‘first love’ as Ian put it, and an inspirational figure.

Her colleagues from The Sun, past and present, turned out in force, and there were dozens of other friends from the world of journalism. The FWA, SJA, Women in Football, the British Athletics Writers’ Association were among those heavily represented, and we were all treated to a service that was emotional on so many levels – poignant, funny, sad, irreverent, moving and above all, inspirational.

Vikki set the tone with her own words, penned in the days before her death earlier this month, and with her distinctive voice coming through loud and clear. “The control freak in me would not let Ian have the last word,” she wrote, and you could picture her smile.

Ian then delivered his own eulogy, pitch perfect and wrought with emotion. Jacqui Oatley read a loving tribute from Seb Coe, who shared a love of Sheffield and sport with Vikki.

The Desire Gospel Singers performed “O Happy Day”, “I Say a Little Prayer”, and “Something Inside so Strong”, bringing the house down. It was inspirational stuff, and barely a dry eye in the house.

Ian signed off with the words “Goodbye, my Saturday girl,” and a final kiss.

The exit music was “The Way You Look Tonight”, played beautifully by Ian’s daughter Alex, and we all processed through the village to the cemetery where Vikki was laid to rest, with the sun shining, birds singing, and the first daffodils of spring starting to flower around us.

It had been 90 minutes from start to finish – Vikki would have loved that. She would have loved the outpouring of affection and anecdotes that followed over tea and sandwiches, in the village she called home.

Ian summed it up perfectly in a tweet later that night:

“Well, that was emotional. They came, Vikki. Oh, they came. Proud of you, as were the village, your family, friends, colleagues and the sporting good and the great.

“Goodnight my Saturday girl.”

FWA members honoured at SJA Awards night

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FWA members Paul Hayward, Jonathan Liew, James Olley, Danny Taylor and John Richardson collected prizes for their outstanding work at the Sports Journalists’ Association’s annual awards night on Monday.

Hayward of the Telegraph won the Sports Writer of the Year award for the fifth time while last year’s winner, the Guardian’s Taylor, was named Football Writer of the Year for the fourth year running.

The Independent’s Liew, who sits on the FWA National Committee, was voted Sports Columnist of the Year, to follow up on his Young Journalist of the Year award in 2011. Olley of the Evening Standard missed out on the Regional Journalist of the Year award, which he had won in 2015 but then collected the Scoop of the Year trophy for his exclusive story that the FA were considering selling Wembley stadium.

Finally John Richardson was perhaps the most popular winner on the night when he was named Sports News Reporter of the Year for his brilliant work at the Sunday Mirror.

Mark Demuth, head of sport at ITV and another FWA member, also collected the award for ITV’s coverage of Royal Ascot, and the Doug Gardner Award for an outstanding contribution to sports journalism went to Barry Davies, the sports commentator.

The Daily Mail was voted Sports Newspaper of the Year, and the Mail online won the best website award.

More than 600 guests packed the Park Plaza Westminster for the ceremony, and a full list of winners can be found at the SJA website http://www.sportsjournalists.co.uk

Shearer leads North East FWA award-winners

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Alan Shearer led a glittering line-up at the North East FWA’s annual awards dinner, as the former Newcastle and England captain collected the region’s Personality of the Year award, in association with the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation.

Shearer was one of many famous football faces at the Ramside Hall, Durham, for another great evening that was superbly organised as ever by Colin Young, secretary of the North East branch of the FWA.

Newcastle goalkeeper Martin Dubravka collected the Player of the Year award, while Sunderland’s manager Jack Ross picked up the Young Player of the Year award on behalf of the club’s former striker Josh Maja.

Beth Hepple of Durham was voted Womens’ Player of the Year, and presentations were made to Stockton Town, South Shields and Marske United in recognition of their successes in non-league football last season.

There were also special awards for two people who have worked closely with the FWA over the years. Adrian Bevington, former head of communications for Middlesbrough and England who is now Boro’s head of recruitment, was presented with the Bob Cass award for his outstanding contribution to North East football.

And Louise Wanless, who also worked at Boro before becoming head of communications at Sunderland, won the John Fotheringham Award.

Steve Harper spoke wittily about his good friend Shearer, who then gave an insight to his life as a player turned pundit, in a Q and A session with BBC’s Ian Dennis who conducted his Master of Ceremonies duties with superb professionalism.

Shearer has raised over £11m for charities since retiring, and said he gets more satisfaction from his charity work than any of his many achievements on the pitch. The Sir Bobby Robson Foundation, for whom Shearer is a patron, was also represented.

Other former players included Gary Pallister, Kevin Ball, Jim Montgomerie, Craig Hignett, Martin Gray and John Hendrie. The FWA National Committee was represented by former Chairman Steve Bates, Gerry Cox and Paul McCarthy, and the evening was supported superbly by our sponsors William Hill.

“This is always a special night, bringing together the region’s football family and celebrating the best of the game,” said Colin Young, who paid special tribute to the Ramside Hall for hosting the event.

“The focus is often on the Player of the Year awards and we were proud to honour both Martin Dubravka and Beth Hepple.

“However, it’s also very important that we recognise the significant contributions made by dedicated individuals within the game and the wider community, and we were grateful to have the opportunity to do that last night.”

 

Vikki Orvice’s funeral – important notice

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Information on Vikki Orvice’s funeral, Tuesday February 26th, 2pm,

St Leonard’s Church, Flamstead, Herts.

From her husband, Ian Ridley:

It was Vikki’s wish that her funeral be conducted in the parish church where we were married and which she loved dearly, St Leonard’s, in Flamstead, Herts, then buried in the village.

This has produced some logistical challenges as neither of us was expecting the outpouring of love and respect for her, and the number of people wanting to attend. The church holds about 150 people seated and another 125 standing.

As a result, seating is being allocated in the nave of the church in the first instance to family, close friends both in the village and beyond, and to representatives of the organisations and charities that she worked with and for. Other non-allocated seating, and standing in the church, will be on a first-come, first-served basis on the day. 

This is not to keep anyone away. All who want to pay their respects are welcome and I want to accommodate everyone. To that end, there will be a large overspill marquee in the church grounds and the funeral will be live-streamed in to it on big screens.

After the funeral, there will be a procession the few hundred yards to the cemetery for those who wish to join the short burial service, then refreshment in that marquee and the village hall where we can all meet and reminisce and share our memories of Vikki.

Please note that there is parking in the village dotted here and there, and there will be marshals to help ease traffic flow, but spaces are limited and people are asked to park considerately, following the instructions of the marshals. Car sharing would be an idea, if possible.

A better alternative may be a train from King’s Cross to the nearest railway station at Harpenden, which is about a 15-minute, £15/£20 taxi ride away. People might like to share cabs.

It will be marvellous to see all those people who knew, loved and admired Vikki, and I’m sure we will somehow manage to cope with the numbers on what I hope will be both funeral and celebration of her life.

She asked that there be no flowers, but if people do want to make a contribution, donations instead to the Royal Marsden Hospital.

Vikki also requested that people wear black or bright at the service. I will be wearing some of both.

Ian

Clive White funeral details

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Clive White’s funeral service will be this coming Monday February 18th 10.00 at West Hertfordshire Crematorium, High Elms Lane, Gartson, Watford, Herts WD25 0JS.

Afterwards at Aldwickbury Park Golf Club, Piggottshill Lane, Harpenden, Herts, AL5 1AB

Clive’s family have requested no flowers, but donations to cancer research if possible.

Please feel free to wear any colour.  If you are thinking of going, please inform the funeral directors phillips.harpenden@dignityfunerals.co.uk

The Vanarama Column – Wrexham AFC

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The Vanarama column  – Wrexham, by Glenn Moore

Having four managers in a year is not usually associated with success, but Wrexham may prove an exception. The fan-owned club handed the reins to assistant manager Graham Barrow in December after Sam Ricketts, himself only appointed in May, moved to Shrewsbury Town. It seemed a sound choice as Barrow had enjoyed a successful spell as caretaker but it did not take long for the veteran to decide the altered dynamics associated with being No.1 were no longer to his liking.

He stepped down and in has come Bryan Hughes, a 42-year-old of much more limited managerial experience but with a long association to the club. A teenaged Hughes began his career at Wrexham in the mid-Nineties and was a key figure in the club’s 1997 FA Cup run. A busy midfielder he went on to have a decent career, twice winning promotion to the Premier League and playing more than 150 matches in the top flight for Birmingham City, Charlton Athletic and Hull City.

On Saturday his second spell at the Racecourse Ground began with a win over Dagenham & Redbridge that moved the Red Dragons into the top three of the Vanarama National League. More than 5,000 were present to welcome back Hughes and with the club moving within two points of the only automatic promotion slot the promotion dream is back on.

When Hughes played for Wrexham they were the best team in Wales. Indeed, they were as recently as 2001. That season, with Denis Smith in the dug-out, Darren Ferguson leading on the pitch, and a burst of goals from a non-League discovery called Lee Trundle, the Red Dragons finished 10th in what was Division Two and is now League One. Swansea were heading for the fourth tier after relegation, replaced by Cardiff City, promoted from the basement behind Brighton. Newport County were in the Southern League.

However, Wrexham went down in 2002 and while they briefly bounced back to the third tier they soon began a precipitous slide that involved two relegations in four years and a period in administration. They have now been in the Vanarama National League since 2008. They made three trips to the play-offs in the first five seasons plus an FA Trophy win in 2013, but have subsequently been mired in mid-table.

Meanwhile Cardiff are in the Premier League, Swansea, after enjoying seven seasons in the top flight, are in the Championship, and Newport, having climbed out of non-League, are established in League Two and making headlines in the FA Cup.

While football in South Wales has prospered it has been a bitter decade for North Wales, but there are signs of a revival. Average gates are, astonishingly, at their highest in more than 30 years and in March the national team returns to the Racecourse Ground for the first time since 2008.

Hughes, whose only previous managerial experience consists of a few months as joint-boss at Scarborough Athletic, is aware he has been given ‘a wonderful opportunity’. With the Vanarama National League title very much up for grabs it is one he hopes to seize.

for more on Wrexham, visit https://www.wrexhamafc.co.uk/

For more on the Vanarama League, see: http://www.wrexhamafc.co.uk

For great deals on cars and vans lease and hire, see https://www.wrexhamafc.co.uk/

Gordon Banks – The Greatest

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A tribute to Gordon Banks

By Brian Scovell, ex Daily Mail and now FWA Life Vice President

I’ve been lucky to meet many gentlemen footballers – one thinks of the three Bobbies, Moore, Charlton and Robson, Geoff Hurst and Walter Winterbottom – but top of the League of Gentlemen was Gordon Banks.

He never changed, friendly, smiling and cheerful despite his handicaps in life. Born in Sheffield, son of an illegal bookmaker, he left school at fifteen and started work delivering coal. His father’s business had collapsed and his handicapped brother died after he was attacked. In 1972 he was in an accident in 1972 when he lost the sight of one eye and his majestic reign as Britain’s finest goalie was brought to an end.

I first met him during the World Cup in England in 1966 when he was reaching his best. When he collected his winners’ medal in 1966, he held on to it until he boosted his failing income in 2001 and sold it for £124,750.

A cricketing friend named Peter Presence, who ran a company First Features selling sports columns to newspapers all around the world, asked me to approach Gordon and wondered whether if he would be interested. Gordon didn’t have a proper agent and he accepted the modest weekly payment which was slightly higher than his wages as a player.

Every week he would ring me on the dot, and as a struggling goalkeeper myself for the Daily Sketch team I learned from a vast amount of tips from him, like standing up when a forward is bearing down on you and not go down too soon. Too much of that still going on today!

He preached being calm and the great keepers like Pat Jennings, Lev Yashin, Dino Zoff and David Seaman all had that valuable quality. Joe Hart and Jordan Pickford, in particular, still get over-excited.

Over the years I lost contact with him but at the FWA Gala Night at the Savoy I met up with him again in January last year and he was the same but older Gordon. He had kidney cancer and you wouldn’t have guessed it.

His great adversary Pele was supposed to be the speaker but exhausted by attending the World Cup draw in Russia he had to withdraw through illness. Gordon was one of the speakers and, inevitably, he talked about his unbelievable save to deny Pele a goal in the 1970 World Cup in Mexico.

The packed diners of the elegant Lancaster Room of the Savoy were enthralled by hearing him recall his preparation to take on the world’s number one player, saying “The pitch was rock hard like a road, the temperature was 103F and on the last training session before the match I noticed the ground was bumpy and shots were bouncing up higher than you would expect. So I asked the players to shoot from distance so I work out what I had to do.”

No football fan will ever forget when The Greatest keeper foiled The Greatest footballer.

Gordon Banks RIP

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We at the FWA join the rest of the football world in mouring the death of Gordon Banks, our former Footballer of the Year, who has passed away at the age of 81.

Banksy, or the Banks of England as he was nicknamed, will always have a special place in football history as England’s goalkeeper when Sir Alf Ramsey’s side won the World Cup in 1966, but arguably his most famous save came four years later, at the 1970 World Cup finals.

England were playing Brazil in Guadalajara in a group game between the reigning champions and champions-elect, and when Jairzinho crossed from the right and Pele headed the ball towards the far post, the watching world – and the great striker himself – thought it was a goal.

Banks flung himself from one side of goal to the other, dived low and clawed the ball up and over the bar from a seemingly impossible position. It was a stunning save, and although Brazil went on to win the game and win the trophy, Banks’ save is one of the most famous images of that tournament, and has been replayed ever since.

Speaking at the FWA’s tribute to Pele in London last January, Banks said: “He always says to me ‘wherever I go in the world people talk about the goals I scored, but when I come to England, all people talk about is that save you made from me!’”

See the full interview here: https://youtu.be/W-yRFKlGsco

Gordon Banks was born in Sheffield and started his career down the road at Chesterfield, but it was at Leicester City that he first found fame. A year after winning the World Cup, he was surprisingly sold to Stoke City, and played with them until the end of his top-flight career, which ended prematurely when he lost an eye in a car crash in 1972. He played on with Fort Lauderdale Strikers in the US in the late 1970s, had a brief spell as manager of non-league Telford before leaving football in 1980.

He was honoured repeatedly, not least when the FWA voted him Footballer of the Year in 1972. Fifa voted him Goalkeeper of the year five times running from 1966 to 1971, and he was awarded the OBE in 1970.

Having won a battle with cancer in 2015, he continued to watch his beloved Stoke City and attend football events until the end. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Ursula, family and friends.

Gordon Banks 1937-2019.