Category Archives: Features

Taking Pride in my work: Football writing and being LGBT+

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By Jon Holmes

I’d been a football writer for more than 13 years before I felt confident enough to write about someone in the game who I knew was, like me, a gay man.

At the time, I didn’t mention the personal significance of getting that article published. It was a feature for the Sky Sports website about ‘Coming Out To Play’, the autobiography of Robbie Rogers who had come out publicly soon after his mutually-agreed exit from Leeds United.

The book was being released just before Rogers and his LA Galaxy team-mates would play in the MLS Cup in December 2014. It resonated with me immensely.

I quoted a passage: “Keeping such a tight lid on myself because of my sexuality made it impossible to feel the whole range of emotions that people normally feel… I wound up feeling isolated whether I was around people or not.”

That had been my experience too, throughout my 20s and early 30s. I’ve always thought the culture of a football newsroom in the 2000s would have likely mirrored that of a football dressing room of the time – male-dominated, laddish, competitive, with emotions often conveyed through the medium of the sport we all loved and covered.

Work nights out were bonding rituals, and anyone who didn’t quite fit in for whatever reason ended up feeling awkward and wary. For me, career-driven and closeted, my prevailing thought was – don’t give the game away.

Constantly checking and editing myself put enormous pressure on my mental health. I got increasingly low and lonely. I now feel immensely fortunate that before my unhappiness took a serious hold, I met a funny, handsome 28-year-old and fell in love.

Chris had none of the emotional hang-ups that I was carrying. Seeing in him and his friends what a liberated life could be like was all I needed. I rushed out of my closet in a hurry, telling all my close family and friends that I was gay in just a matter of weeks.

Some people said they weren’t that surprised and were pleased for me, which was well-meant but a little unhelpful – I wished they’d taken the time to suggest to me, however subtly, that I would be accepted. Others went out of their way to be supportive.

My parents struggled when I told them the news, confirming to me why I’d carried such heavy caution around with me for far too long. However, by that stage I was so elated to be free of the weight that I could handle their disappointment.

This all happened in the time between Rogers first sharing his truth publicly in a personal blog post in February 2013 and his book coming out late the following year. Subconsciously, I needed a real-life ‘gay footballer’ success story – and the way that the Galaxy welcomed him into their family showed you could be out and be respected in this sport I loved.

We hear a lot about ‘LGBT+ role models’ these days but the representation they provide in sport is particularly valuable. For anyone who is not yet ready to accept themselves or be visible, athletes like Robbie give you reason to believe.

As for that feature I’d written, a more experienced newsroom colleague who I respected generously told me that it was a very good article, and that I should write more.

Over the next 18 months, I took the time to educate myself by learning about different LGBT+ experiences and getting involved with our own LGBT+ network at Sky. By 2016, I was writing more frequently on the topic. It meant that when the charity Stonewall was looking for a media partner to help amplify the message of its reinvented Rainbow Laces campaign, Sky Sports was well placed to sign up. I’d found my niche – since then, I’ve written well over 100 related articles, giving a voice and a platform to people across sport who are either LGBT+ themselves or active allies.

In summer 2017, I convened a pub meet-up of other sports journalists and people working in media and comms who were interested in setting up a network group. Soon after, we launched Sports Media LGBT+ – it quickly developed further into advocacy, consultancy and digital publishing, and we now have around 35 core members and a sizeable wider community across sport, with a combined social following of over 10,000.

The support of the Sports Journalists’ Association has been invaluable and it’s exciting to now be partnering in a similar way with the Football Writers’ Association.

The aim of the partnership is simple – to ensure everyone in football media who happens to be LGBT+ is reassured that they’re not alone, and that they can find solidarity and support when and where it’s needed from within our two organisations. For all those who are allies, our link-up will hopefully encourage a more active engagement on this aspect of inclusion and a knowledge base to tap into if and when any stories or opportunities arise that may require advice or additional connections.

As I reflect on getting to this point, I appreciate that even before my Robbie Rogers article in 2017, I’d almost certainly written about several gay or bi male footballers among the hundreds of match reports and transfer lines down the years – it’s just that those players weren’t out publicly. Now of course, we have many who are out in women’s football as well as those in roles in officiating, administration, player care, and associated parts of the game. When it’s the right time for others – and we can all contribute towards the cultural shift that will help to bring that day sooner for them personally – they can arrive at that moment of authenticity too.

Whether you’re playing, coaching, supporting or writing, inclusion is a team effort with a shared goal. Let’s all take Pride in the part we play so that everyone in football can achieve their very best.

Ivan Sharpe – the FWA’s Founding Father

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 MIKE COLLETT, FWA member and resident historian, has done more than most to revive the name of Ivan Sharpe, one of our founding fathers, back to prominence in the history of the game. Now that the National Football Museum have taken over Ivan’s personal collection of memorabilia from over 60 years as player and journalist, Ivan’s remarkable story and lasting legacy to the beautiful game can be told.  This article by Mike first appeared in BackPass magazine. Our thanks for permission to reprint it: http://www.backpassmagazine.co.uk/

THE LONG journey to restore the name of Ivan Sharpe to its rightful place in the history of English football, after his phenomenal contribution to the game in the first half of the 20th century, started with a fire at the home of the late Ken Montgomery, the former Sunday Mirror journalist.

At the time the avuncular Scot was the executive secretary of the Football Writers’ Association and had the entire history of the FWA – all of it on paper and none of it backed up on a computer – in a suitcase at his house.

Thankfully, Ken survived the blaze, but the FWA’s historical archive, dating back to the organisation’s foundation in 1947, did not. All the minutes of committee meetings, annual general meetings, members records, past chairmen, photographs, Footballer of the Year dinner menu cards, treasures and trivia went up in smoke.

And remarkably, to all intents and purposes, in terms of the FWA and the wider game in general, so did the name of Ivan Sharpe. The former England amateur international and Olympic gold medal winner was one of the most important figures in the English game as an amateur player, later as an influential journalist and also as the first chairman of the FWA. He was the man who presented Stanley Matthews with the first Footballer of the Year Award in 1948.

But we will come to that later.

Today though, his name is back in the limelight. The National Football Museum in Manchester is collating his own personal archive with a view to a future permanent exhibition and new life members of the FWA are now recipients of the Ivan Sharpe Life Membership Award with his name writ large on their handsome commemorative certificates.

The game may have changed considerably since he was playing it 100 years ago and then writing about it for the next 50 years but the standards he set on and off the field, for both players and journalists, are as valid today as they were then. And Sharpe’s past included tangible links to the very beginning of League football in England, as well as a direct connection to one of the game’s greatest-ever managers.

Born in St Albans in 1889, he was the fifth son of a boot-maker. His father, noticing he was a natural right-footed player, made the young Ivan a football attached to a ten-foot cord which he then tied to his left ankle and sent him out to the backyard to kick it back and forth, again and again for hours on end.

As a result, he ended up with a left foot as strong as his right and went on to play for Watford, Glossop North End, Derby County, Leeds City and Leeds United – one of only two players to play for the two Leeds clubs. He also played a combined 12 times for England and Great Britain’s amateur sides between 1910 and 1914 and in 1912 won the Second Division title with Derby and was part of the British team that won the football gold medal at the Stockholm Olympics, scoring once in the 4-0 semi-final win over Finland.

At 18, he was working as an apprentice journalist covering sport for the Herts Advertiser newspaper as well as the St Albans Times and had been playing locally for the juniors of St Albans Abbey when his talent and speed as a winger came to the attention of Southern League Watford and so impressed player-manager John Goodall that in 1907 he signed him.

Goodall was a member of the ‘Proud’ Preston North End Invincibles who won the double in the League’s inaugural season in 1888-89, lifting the title without losing a match and the FA Cup without conceding a goal, so Sharpe’s association with Goodall provides a path straight back to the very beginning of English League history.

His career as a player continued after the First World War with more than 60 appearances for Leeds City (17 goals) and one for Leeds United and it was while at City that he came into contact with a man destined to have a huge impact on the game in the 1920s and 1930s and beyond, manager Herbert Chapman.

As an amateur at Leeds, Sharpe managed his time playing League football on a Saturday and writing for an evening paper during the week and so by the time his playing days ended his credentials for a journalistic career were well established.

He edited the influential Athletic News and later worked for Kemsley Newspapers and the Sunday Chronicle, editing the pocket bible Football Annual for more than 30 years as well as contributing other articles to magazines and newspapers throughout his life.

He was a man of his time and ahead of his time too. He covered the first Wembley FA Cup final between Bolton and West Ham in 1923, interviewed Benito Mussolini – with a photo signed by Italy’s fascist dictator in his archive – and, according to one source, “had an interview with Adolf Hitler lined up but the Fuhrer chickened out.”

Years before UEFA introduced their goal-line assistants, he wrote in the Athletic News in April 1930 that “a goal judge should be stationed at each goal. The goal judge’s duty is to watch all incidents inside the penalty area at his end and to advise the referee concerning all doubts. The referee, as now, to be supreme.”

I’d suggest we can forgive him if he didn’t actually come up with the idea of VAR at that time as well.

He knew everyone in the game from Stanley Rous to Stanley Matthews, from England team-mate Vivian Woodward, another outstanding amateur of the early part of the century, to the legendary great scorer of old Steve Bloomer, a team-mate at Derby.

In 1958, in recognition of his contribution to the game the Football League bestowed a rare honour by presenting him with an inscribed silver salver as a token of their appreciation of his 50 years involvement with the League.

And as a journalist he rarely toed the party line. He often set the agenda. Even towards the end of his career he had his own view of things. For example, when Spurs won the double in 1961 they were widely acclaimed as the ‘Team of the Century’ but Sharpe saw it differently.

In an article for his old friend Charlie Buchan in his Football Monthly in July 1961, he posited that perhaps the Huddersfield Town team that won a hat-trick of titles in the 1920s, or the Arsenal team that achieved the same feat in the 1930s might deserve the honour more. But could there have been a little bias here perhaps? After all, both were managed by his old Leeds City boss, Herbert Chapman!

“The players of the past may not look so good because of their old-fashioned equipment, but would you judge Alex James because of his long pants? These are matters of opinion of course, but age and experience have given me the advantage of having seen these pre-war teams – half a dozen times or more each season.”

One man who has fond memories of Sharpe as both a child and adult is his grandson, the acclaimed Sunday Times journalist and author Anthony Holden, whose middle name is Ivan, as is that of his eldest son Sam.

“Ivan’s wife Ada died in 1941 six years before l was born, so he lived with us in Southport throughout my childhood and I was very close to him indeed,” he recalls. “When l was still a pre-teen kid, he would take me with him to the games he was covering in the north- west. To keep me quiet in the press box, he would give me pencil and paper to keep count of the fouls, corners, bookings etc.

“l loved hearing him make the transfer- charge calls to file his report within minutes of the game ending – and in that pre-stats era, l would see my very own numbers in the next day’s Sunday Times, which I’m sure is why I too eventually became a journalist – which was not at all what my middle-class parents had in mind for me! His colleagues and friends would also feed me sweets to keep me quiet. Many of them were to die in the Manchester United air crash at Munich, which Ivan missed because he had flu.”

Sharpe produced two hugely influential and popular books, the first a fabulous memoir 40 Years in Football published in 1954, followed by Soccer Top Ten in 1962, detailing his ten favourite players in the positions of goalkeeper, full-backs, wing half- backs, centre half-backs, outside-forwards, inside-forwards and centre-forwards. They are a window to another era, another world of football and they still make for wonderful reading today. He also compiled the Football League Jubilee Book to mark the League’s 75th anniversary in 1963 and was the natural choice to oversee that official publication as the leading football journalist of the day.

As the old scribe Walter Pilkington wrote in his review of Soccer Top Ten for the Evening Post in November 1962: “The agile mind behind this well-stocked memory box has produced a fascinating cavalcade of the English scene covering half a century spent in football at home and abroad. You start reading and before you realise it, the time is 1.00am.”

Sharpe’s agile mind was still active at the 1966 World Cup finals, the last major event he attended and his press card for the finals (below) remains in the archive. Tony Holden remembers going with Ivan to Goodison Park to see the momentous Portugal v North Korea quarter-final, which Portugal won 5-3 with four goals from Eusebio after North Korea stunned the world by going 3-0 up after 24 minutes.

Above – Ivan Sharpe’s press card for the 1966 World Cup

“But he never went to the final because he thought he might have ‘a bloody heart attack’,” recalls Holden. “At times he couldn’t bear to watch and left 18-year-old me to keep an eye on developments at Wembley while he paced tensely around the garden.” England’s subsequent victory over West Germany on that historic July afternoon was the first major tournament success for these islands since Sharpe’s own Olympic triumph with Great Britain 54 years previously.

Great Britain team that won the 1912 Olympic football tournament. Back (left to right): Joe Dines, Ron Brebner, Arthur Berry, Harry Walden, Viv Woodward, Gordon Hoare, Ivan Sharpe, Arthur Knight. Front: Douglas McWhirter, Tom Burn, Henry Littlewort . (Backpass)

He continued writing a column for the Wolves magazine until his death at the age of 78 in February 1968. And inevitably, with his voice stilled as the years passed, so Sharpe’s name and achievements slipped further from public view and deeper into the past. His experiences and writings belonged to another era. The devastation of Ken Montgomery’s fire had extinguished his proud record with the FWA and may well have been lost forever until the winter of 2012 when I was invited to attend the annual Rugby Union Writers’ Club dinner in London.

At some point in the evening I glanced at the dinner menu card and noticed not only were the names of the Rugby Writers’ Players of the Year listed, but also those of their chairmen dating back to their foundation in 1960 and a thought popped into my head. The FWA only ever listed the names of the Footballer of the Year at our dinners, but surely we should also recognise the names of the great journalists of the past who have chaired the world’s oldest football writers’ association. As a member of the National Committee, I raised the matter at our next meeting.

“Its an impossible task” said a colleague, “all the records were lost in the fire at Ken Montgomery’s house. They have all disappeared. There is no way of ever finding the names of all the old chairmen, certainly not from the 1940s and 1950s. Where would you even start to look?”

I thanked him for his advice and completely ignored it. The search was on.

The decision to form the FWA was made on a cross-Channel ferry on September 22, 1947 by a group of journalists on their way home from reporting on England’s 5-2 victory over Belgium in Brussels the day before.

Sharpe was not among them, but Charles Buchan of the News Chronicle, Frank Coles of the Daily Telegraph, Roy Peskett of the Daily Mail and Archie Quick agreed to form the FWA and when they reconvened in London a month later, Sharpe, who was working for the Sunday Chronicle, was appointed chairman. That much was well documented and Sharpe duly presented Stanley Matthews with the first

Footballer of the Year trophy the following May at the long-gone Hungaria Restaurant in London on the eve of Blackpool’s FA Cup final defeat to Manchester United the following day.

Having established Sharpe as the first chairman and being able to talk to many colleagues and friends, it was relatively easy to list every chairman from the late 1970s through to the present day.

All that was now left was to fill in the 30 missing years from the late 1940s onwards. But where to start? Unlike today, the chairman of the FWA, while a leading and highly respected journalist, was rarely quoted in the papers, even when the Footballer of the Year was announced.

However, the chairman’s name was always on the menu cards for the FWA dinners, so I searched for old

menu cards on football trivia sites and eBay – and went to the British Library in London to see if perhaps the chairman was quoted at the time the announcement was made. I couldn’t find any. I looked in old yearbooks, looked everywhere, and gradually the gaps started to be filled in … 1948 Ivan Sharpe, 1949 Ivan Sharpe, 1950 Ivan Sharpe, 1951 Ivan Sharpe, 1953 Ivan Sharpe, 1960 Ivan Sharpe, 1961 … yes, Ivan Sharpe.

There were many others too – 1954 Bernard Joy, 1963 Geoffrey Green, 1964 Alan Hoby, 1967 Sam Leitch, 1968 Frank McGhee, 1970 Peter Lorenzo, 1971 Reg Drury, 1974 Mike Langley and on to the already known chairmen like Ken Jones, Jeff Powell, Dennis Signy and Brian Scovell. The list was coming alive!

By the April of 2017 I had found every past chairman’s name except for one year … 1952. Paddy Barclay, who has just stepped down after three years as FWA chairman, mentioned that he knew Sharpe’s grandson, Anthony Holden, and perhaps he could help and after making contact, Tony said he was in possession of all of Sharpe’s memorabilia going back over 100 years. We duly met at Tony’s flat in London and inside an ancient and battered, but handsome, liner-style suitcase containing Sharpe’s remarkable treasure trove was a newspaper cutting with a photo of him presenting the 1952 Footballer of the Year award to Arsenal’s Joe Mercer.

The Eureka moment! The final piece of the jigsaw – found in Sharpe’s very own suitcase and proving that he was chairman of the FWA for the first six years of its existence from 1947 until 1953, before two more stints in 1960 and 1961. He was chairman eight times in all. No one else comes close.

Norman Giller, resident golden oldie columnist for BACKPASS, remembers Sharpe well too. “I was chief football writer on the Daily Express when Ivan was coming to the close of his exceptional career. I used to bow the knee to him and listen in awe to his kaleidoscopic memories. There is no football writer from my generation who was not influenced by Ivan’s prolific chronicling of the Beautiful Game, whether by his prose or maze of facts and stats. He deserves to be in the same hall of fame as his hero Sir Stanley Matthews. Come to think of it, why on earth was he never knighted? His services to football on all fronts was phenomenal.”

In recognition of Sharpe’s outstanding contribution to the FWA and his involvement for the first seven decades of the 20th century, the FWA marked its 70th anniversary in 2017 by inaugurating the Ivan Sharpe Life Membership Award and included the list of all the previous FWA chairman on its menu card at the Footballer of the Year dinner for the first time. And the archive has now been gifted to the National Football Museum.

Tim Desmond, the museum’s chief executive, told BACKPASS Magazine: “The museum is all about exploring the Game of our Lives, and we were delighted to be approached by the FWA to become custodians of the Ivan Sharpe collection. Our aim now is to conserve and research his fascinating life in football for the benefit of future generations.”

Rising like a phoenix from the flames, Ivan Sharpe’s name will never be forgotten again.

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The Vanarama Column – Eastleigh Football Club

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The Vanarama Column – Eastleigh Football Club, by Glenn Moore

When Eastleigh owner-chairman Stewart Donald quit the club to take over Sunderland in the summer Spitfires supporters could have been forgiven for fearing the future. The insurance tycoon had bankrolled their push to make the Football League, transforming the Silverlake Stadium in the process. However, ownership rules meant he would have to wind up his investment in the Vanarama National League club and non-League history is full of meteors who crashed to earth after a benefactor departed.

However, there was no sudden firesale of players and the team began the season well, allaying concerns. Until, that is, there was further disruption in October when manager Andy Hessenthaler left to return to Dover and three directors, including Mark Jewell, the chairman, stood down, Jewell due to ill health. Worries increased when, despite there being more than 70 applicants to replace Hessenthaler, the club appeared to have taken the cut-price option by appointing his assistant Ben Strevens.

Strevens played more than 600 senior matches, nearly half of them in the Football League for Barnet, Dagenham & Redbridge, Brentford, Wycombe and Gillingham. He was subsequently part of Eastleigh’s 2014 promotion into the Vanarama National League and had a couple of brief spells as a caretaker manager. However, this was the 38-year-old’s first full managerial role.

It may, or may not, have been a cost-conscious decision – the club suggested the salary had attracted several notable candidates. More importantly it has proved the right one. Strevens has not just been a steady hand on the tiller, he has built on Hessenthaler’s foundations so well the Spitfires have soared into the play-off places.

Saturday’s 2-0 victory at Salford, which enabled Eastleigh to leapfrog their much-fancied hosts into fifth, was their fifth successive win. After losing their first league match under Strevens the Hampshire club has lost just three of the subsequent 18, two of them to Wrexham and Solihull Moors, the top two.

Although Eastleigh continue to rely heavily on seasoned ex-Football League pros, including Chris Zebroski, Oscar Gobern and Mark Yeates, they do not have the high-profile names of the team that reached the FA Cup third round in 2016, such as James Constable and Dan Harding. While chief executive Kenny Amor recently told Solent Sport ‘the budget is quite large’, he added ‘we have managed on a shoestring compared to before with a much smaller squad’. Paul McCallum, 25, has emerged as a key player scoring 21 goals in what is easily the most prolific season of a slow-burning career.

Amor said “in our wildest dreams we could not have imagined making the play-offs”, but now there is more than just ambition on the line for a team that was in the Wessex League as recently as 2003. Promotion brings extra costs but also significantly greater income, which would make a big difference to a club facing, indicated Amor recently, further adjustments without Donald’s largesse. It is likely the club will move towards a squad based more on young, hungry, local players rather than former Football League veterans.

Vikki Orvice RIP – by Steve Howard

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Vikki Orvice, the FWA’s vice-chair and a long-standing National Committee member, lost her long battle with cancer today at the age of 56. She was a much-loved colleague to many of us at the FWA and especially at The Sun, where she covered athletics and football.

Former SunSport chief sports writer and FWA member Steven Howard paid tribute to his colleague on the Sun’s website, and we are honoured to reproduce it here:

Article below via The Sun website.

Images courtesy of News UK.

IT was Saturday August 4, 2012, and London’s Olympic Stadium was a crucible of bubbling, patriotic fervour.

Jess Ennis-Hill had just won gold in the heptathlon and Vikki Orvice and I were furiously putting over our copy knowing Mo Farah was due to start the 10,000metres in under half an hour.

Then from the other side of the stadium came a huge roar.

“What the **** was that?” I yelled at Vikki alongside me.

“Greg Rutherford has only gone and won the flipping long jump,” she shouted back over the din.

Not long after, Farah would make it triple gold – three inside an astonishing 44 minutes.

It was the greatest night in British athletics, perhaps the greatest night in Olympic history.

Certainly, neither Vikki nor I had known anything like it.

At the time, Vikki was in remission from the cancer that had first struck in 2007 – and which, devastatingly, would return in 2014.

For the last four years she fought valiantly – and with no lack of humour – against the odds, her life a strength-sapping treadmill of chemotherapy at London’s Marsden Hospital sandwiched inbetween her jobs as athletics correspondent and football writer for The Sun.

All three Olympic gold medallists later sent message of encouragement and support during her cancer battle.

Fittingly, for a daughter of Sheffield, she had a core of steel.

 

But the long, unequal struggle ended this morning when Vikki died aged 56.

The grief engulfing her sportswriter husband Ian Ridley, her family and her many admiring friends is only partially mitigated by the relief it is finally all over.

If she was a fundraiser, arch supporter and poster girl – her own words – for the Marsden, she was also a massive source of encouragement for every young girl who wondered whether they, too, could make it in what was the very male enclave of sports journalism.

Yes, Julie Welch was the first to start breaking down the barriers on The Observer in the Seventies.

And there were other sports journalists like Hazel Irvine and Kate Battersby when Vikki first arrived in Fleet Street in the Nineties.

But they were few and far between.

The difference with Vikki, though, was she was the first woman to be appointed as a football writer on a red top.

It may have been a decade or so after the worst male excesses of the Life on Mars generation but the profession was still top-heavy with men behaving badly and contemptuous of women in the pressbox.

Working at the coal face of sports journalism, she was not just a pioneer but a suffragette on the slow, back-breaking march towards equality.

At the end, she would stand at the pinnacle, a vociferous defender of women’s rights and ceaseless promoter of their abilities – a director of Women in Football and a significant figure at both the Sports Journalists Association and the Football Writers Association.

At the age of ten, she entered a Daily Express competition, saying she wanted to be a sportswriter.

Her subject? Her beloved Sheffield United.

She would finally achieve her ambition in the face of constant prejudice but it was a long journey.

Recalling her early days on national newspapers, she said: “I went to Arsenal v Norwich on the opening afternoon of the season.

“The main stand at Arsenal had a mural on it and I was basically sent along to write about that because, you know, it was a bit girly and stuff.

“But it actually turned into a good story because Norwich won.

“I remember somebody came over to the sports desk on the Monday morning saying ‘Why did you give that match to HER? I should have been there instead’.

“I would later have lunch with the sports editor who said a woman could never do the job full-time. In those days, you didn’t even question it.”

Then in the summer of 1995 came her mould-breaking move to The Sun.

Her all-round talent was quickly recognised and she would soon become the paper’s athletics correspondent, a role which she relished – covering all of Usain Bolt’s world records – and in which she would prosper.

She would also strike up enduring relationships with many of the sport’s leading lights – chief among them Paula Radcliffe, Ennis and Farah.

She did so because these people trusted her. Many times she was given information she couldn’t write about and didn’t – her scrupulousness being rewarded later with bigger stories she COULD write about.

As such, she produced a series of old-fashioned scoops during the golden age of British athletics. An era that saw the GB team go from one gold medal at Atlanta in 1996 to an astonishing 27 in Rio in 2016, second only to the USA.

Nor was there anyone more excited about the new crop of outstanding home athletes like Dina Asher-Smith than Vikki.

During all this, she was a sounding board for other members of her profession unfortunate enough to themselves be afflicted by cancer.

She was also fundraising – one reference to a charity event with Radcliffe showing both her unquenchable spirit and humour.

She tweeted: “I am walking 5k with Paula in the Race for Life. She has a personal best for the event of 14 minutes 29.11 seconds but is recovering from a broken toe and hence is not running.

“I have a personal best of 19 months in remission from secondary cancer – hence not running, either!”

I met Vikki twice for lunch in the last few months with former Sun sports editor Paul Ridley, the man who not only brought her to Fleet Street but also gave her the athletics job.

Once when, complete in black wig and showbiz sunglasses, she looked a million dollars – despite the chemo.

Then again just before Christmas in Soho when she was obviously struggling a bit.

Dressed in a stunning, full-length, camel overcoat and carrying an elegant black walking-stick, she climbed into a black cab that was to take her to see a concerned Sebastian Coe.

Noticing the anguish in my face, she said: “Don’t worry, Steve.”

What style. What class. Still thinking about other people to the end.

Vanarama Column – Salford

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Vanarama Column December 6th – Salford City, by Glenn Moore

Since automatic promotion was introduced 31 years ago no club has won back-to-back promotions into the Football League. Even meteors such as Fleetwood and AFC Wimbledon required a season acclimatising to the fifth tier before climbing out of non-League. This season Salford aim to break the mould.

Since being taken over by the five former Manchester United players from the ‘Class of 92’, as their youth team generation has become known, Salford City have raced from the eighth to fifth tier. As the busy Christmas programme approaches in the Vanarama National League they sit a point and a place off the summit and the promotion spot it brings. This after a slow start in which they took eight points from their opening six matches leaving them in the bottom half of the table.

“We are delighted with where we are,” said Gary Neville, co-owner and in many respects the driving force behind the project. “At present we’re maybe slightly ahead of expectations. We expected a tough start but with the investment we have made, and the managerial appointment [former Scunthorpe manager and Scotland international Graham Alexander] we thought we would be up there challenging.  Our approach has always been to be in contention going into the New Year. We have a tough run of fixtures coming up and if we’re in touching distance in mid-January we’re on course.”

Neville added: “We are well ahead of our initial plans. We have won three promotions in four years, we thought it would be one every two years. The initial aspiration was to get into the Football League because the original idea was to have an academy, to give young players a chance. We realised we needed a team for them to move into, and to have a proper academy you need to be a Football League club.”

Thus the rush, which has provoked resentment from less well-funded clubs. Besides Neville, his brother Phil, Ryan Giggs, Nicky Butt and Paul Scholes Salford are also owned by Singaporean billionaire Peter Lim. Neville points out “until this season we’ve matched Peter 50-50, we’ve put millions into the club. We could have used that money to buy houses, or cars, or leave it in the bank, we didn’t need to do it. We chose to come into Salford. We could have gone into a League One or League Two club, but we wanted to stay close to our roots. I find it hard to understand the negativity about ex-footballers using their own money to invest in a football club.”

Salford have formed an academy, a women’s team and are developing community and education programmes. Moor Lane has been transformed into a covered 5,000-capacity venue. Crowds have gone from 220 to 2,000+ with an emphasis on making it an affordable fun day out – Neville said his family recently chose  a match at the Peninsula Stadium rather than Old Trafford.

The former England international added: “We have retained the original people who ran the club, who made sacrifices and subsidised it. We have the cheapest tickets [£10] and season-tickets, we bring interest to the league and to games, we’re respectful of opponents. How is that ruining non-League?”

Sir Alex Ferguson unveils a plaque to commemorate the announcement that Salford City’s new stadium is named The Peninsula Stadium with Payl Scholes (left), Gary Neville (2nd left) Ryan Giggs (3rd left) and Peter Done (right) Pic PA images.

FWA student member lands dream job at Fulham

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FWA Student member’s remarkable story – by Brendan McLoughlin

Adam Micklewright, an FWA student member, has landed his dream job at Fulham – less than a year after being in a coma fighting for his life.

The University of Gloucestershire BA Sports Journalism graduate recently landed the role of academy communications executive with the Cottagers – just weeks after securing a first-class degree on his course.

It is an all the more remarkable achievement given the serious medical condition he found himself in only last autumn.

While socialising with friends, he suffered a blackout, collapsed and cracked his head on the corner of a pavement. It left him with a triple fracture to his skull and a severe bleed to the brain.

Medical staff put him into an induced coma for two weeks and, miraculously, he was discharged from from hospital just four days after waking up.

After a period of rehabilitation, Adam resumed his studies four months later and went on to pass his course with flying colours.

He is now pinching himself after beating off fierce competition for a job with Premier League Fulham – the club he has supported since he was a boy.

Adam said: “My first few months at Fulham have been fantastic. I’m learning a lot about the industry. There is always a new challenge to take on every day which suits me perfectly. I’m learning something new most days whether that’s technically or personally – I’m loving the job.

“I have several match days under my belt now, which filled me with a lot more confidence with new systems and styles. The hotels we stay in at away games aren’t bad either!

“The accident did hit me hard, although I didn’t really know too much of what was going on, it’s like being trapped in your own brain. The hospital staff in Bristol were great with me and I can’t thank them enough from getting me through a potentially life-threatening injury.

“The only side-effect I’m having is slight concentration issues, which considering the extent of my injury is something I’ll take every time.”

Adam was selected to represent his course at the Midlands FWA Lunch last spring and was among students invited to attend an FWA Live event in London in May. He has also received mentoring from FWA chairman Paddy Barclay.

“Paddy and the FWA have been more than accommodating with me,” Adam added. “Whenever there have been events or guidance opportunities they have offered them up to me.

“My time at uni has put me in fantastic stead to fit in seamlessly through video, interview, reports etc. The lecturers have been great in easing me back into studying as well as guiding me through industry practices.

“It seems surreal when you’re walking around the training ground, saying hello to Tom Cairney and Aleksandar Mitrovic, but it’s something you get used to and certainly with the U23s, they become your colleagues.

“As a first job out of uni, it is demanding. To be in charge of the academy coverage alone is a big task, but very rewarding which is something I’ve picked up even as early as now.”

Follow Adam on Twitter: @AMMicklewright

ENDS

Vanarama column – Dagenham & Redbridge

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October 10: Dagenham & Redbridge – By Glenn Moore

The cavalry are coming, the only question is whether they have arrived at Victoria Road in time. A fourth successive Vanarama National League defeat on Saturday, by 2-0 at Gateshead, left Dagenham & Redbridge 22nd, already four points from safety.

Relegated from League Two in 2016 the Daggers have had a tumultuous period back in non-League, twice facing financial difficulties and now twice rescued. Local car dealer Glyn Hopkin kept them afloat for a year, during which John Still’s team missed out on an instant return when they lost to Forest Green Rovers in the play-offs. However, amid disputes with supporters Hopkins ceased covering the losses midway through last season prompting a firesale of players and the dissipation of a promotion bid.

At the end of the campaign the veteran Still, having said it was his hardest season in management, quit to join Barnet. The peripatetic Peter Taylor, once an England manager, five times a Football League promotion winner, took over.

The popular Taylor has had some tough jobs but few like this. The budget was cut by a third meaning fixtures like Saturday’s 560-mile round-trip to Gateshead are done without an overnight stay and the players packing their own lunch. For the next away game, at Dover, players will be driving themselves.

“People think I am mad doing this at my age,” said Taylor, now 65. “but I love the challenge. The only frustrating part is matchdays. We have a very young team – we did not have the budget to bring in players with experience at this level – and this is a tough league. They are getting better but they make mistakes.”

However, there is hope on the horizon. Somewhat improbably the Daggers have been acquired by an American consortium fronted by Tim Howard, the former Everton, Manchester United and United States goalkeeper. While the focus is on Howard the key figures are Peter B Freund and Craig Unger. Each have a record of investing in sports franchises with both involved with Memphis 901, a new club in the US second-tier United Soccer League, and minor league baseball team Memphis Redbirds. Freund has become executive chairman with Unger also on the board.

The pair flew over for a meet-and-greet with fans this week and have promised Taylor they will back him. There will not, however, be a quick fix. Taylor said: “They are serious and want to help but as I told the meeting, it is a shame they did not come in in June, then we could have recruited differently. The experienced players we need are either not available – or available for a reason.”

Taylor, a well-regarded coach, will thus focus on improving the youngsters he has, and adding experienced players of the right calibre if and when he can find them. “I’m used to coming into a club and aiming for promotion, but the target this year is to finish fifth from bottom. We’d take that. Then give it a real go for promotion next season.”

ends

Vanarama Column Feb 21 – Highs, Lows and Winning Goals

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Highs and Lows and Winning Goals

By Luke Coulson, FWA and Ebbsfleet United

Throughout my childhood, misbehaviour was greeted with the usual disheartening punishment of spending a weekend behind closed doors. Those miserable days were spent peering out of an upstairs window watching my brothers and friends play football; the ultimate torture.  

Similarly, sat on the bench at 3pm on a Saturday watching my team mates play brings those feelings of frustration flooding back.

Two weeks ago, I was dropped from the starting eleven and forced, once more, to feel those disappointing emotions as I watched my team mates face an in-form Solihull Moors side. However, with 30 minutes to go and the game finely balanced at 0-0, I got the nod from my manager to get my shirt on. Taking my disappointment and frustration on to the pitch, I attacked the opposition full back at every opportunity to hopefully make an impact and prove a point.

That relentless and positive mindset had its desired effect and with 15 minutes to go, I scored the winning goal. Collecting the ball on the left side of the penalty area, I cut inside on to my right foot and bent a fierce shot into the far corner. I don’t write these blogs to promote myself but I have to say the goalkeeper had absolutely no chance.

Scoring the winning goal of a football match is exhilarating. The elation and passion that overcomes you as you celebrate in front of thousands of applauding fans is unforgettable. Yet, the ecstasy extends even deeper than that when you see what it means to your fellow team mates who have worked hard every day with you to be in that position.

Subsequently, that positive cameo performance and winning goal was enough to get my name back into the starting eleven for our following match against Halifax. For the long journey up North, there was a new face amongst us with the club announcing the signing of Corey Whitely from Dagenham and Redbridge, and he made an immediate impact.

Despite us being own top, a dubious penalty decision for the home side meant we ended the first half trailing 1-0. However, after coming on as a substitute, Whitely opened his Ebbsfleet account and started the comeback with a close range finish at the back post.

The equaliser gave us all the momentum and with 58 minutes on the clock, I was able to score the winning goal again, my second in two games. However, the joy of scoring that winning goal was delayed as it came early in the second half and for all we knew; it may not have been the last. Yet, when I heard the sound of the full time whistle and my goal separated the teams, that unforgettable feeling washed over me again. 

For more about the Vanarama National League visit: http://www.thenationalleague.org.uk/

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Vanarama National League column

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Financial reality checks . by Glenn Moore

The collecting buckets are still shaken, with fans implored to throw in their loose change, but like everything else in football fund-raising has moved on. It was a supporter’s JustGiving page which raised the cash to pay off Hartlepool’s tax bill. The deed, announced on Facebook, staved off a High Court winding up order.

Pools are still in trouble though, and they are not alone in the Vanarama National League. At Chester they are preparing for Thursday’s celebrity match with Michael Owen and Colin Murray involved. At Dagenham & Redbridge there is a firesale of players. At Macclesfield the immediate crisis is over, with delayed wages paid, but Moss Rose is rarely flush with cash.

The crowds and headlines may be smaller but non-League football attracts just as much devotion as the Premier League – and without another fat TV deal to attract potential saviours the pain is greater when things go wrong as the likelihood of rescue is more remote. With four clubs facing problems this week’s The Non-League paper had echoes of the London Gazette, where insolvencies are traditionally listed.

It would be wrong, however, to deduce that the fifth tier’s financial model is inherently unstable. As in every division there are clubs living beyond their means as they ‘chase the dream’ of a place in the Football League (or a return to it) but in recent years the league has generally been in reasonable financial health.

Indeed, it can be argued each of the current quartet are a special case, rather than symptomatic of a wider malaise. Hartlepool, the most seriously threatened, are freshly relegated from the Football League. They thus receive parachute payments for two years totalling around £700,000 with two-thirds paid in the first season. That would normally ameliorate the impact but Pools came down carrying a debt burden reported by the local media to be £1.8m. That is more than a year’s turnover in this league and new investment has been elusive.

Chester are fan-owned having re-formed after going bust eight years ago. With the initial rush of triple promotions replaced by an annual slog against relegation interest had tapered away leading to a drop in membership and attendance. That seems to have caused cash flow issues, perhaps exacerbated by management decisions.

At Dagenham the owner, quoting anger at fans campaigning against his managing director, has stopped putting his hand in his pocket. This is not the place to debate the rights and wrongs, just to record the consequence which has a slashing of the squad to cut the wage bill by three-quarters to meet the club’s unsubsidised income. At Macclesfield the owner blamed ‘technical problems’ at his bank, which were resolved after players confronted the club chairman at a local country club.

Macclesfield’s budget is tight at the best of times yet the Silkmen are top of the Vanarama National League. It is some achievement by John Askew and his players. With the wages paid they resumed their winning ways. The dream that drives all these clubs was back on.

 

Vanarama National League Column

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Glenn Moore looks at Kent’s place in the Vanarama National League 

Kent, the home of hops, apples, and the Channel Tunnel, has never been regarded as a hotbed of football. The Royal Engineers, the first FA Cup runners-up, came from the Chatham Dockyard; Chris Smalling, Tony Cascarino and Jon Harley grew up in the Garden of England; but in sporting terms the white horse county is best known for cricket. Excluding Charlton Athletic, never officially part of Kent since the club’s formation, Gillingham are the county’s only representatives in the Football League. They always have been, aside from three seasons a quarter-century ago when Maidstone United joined them before going bankrupt.

In non-League football, however, it is a different story. Kent has long had a busy non-League scene, perhaps because of the lack of Football League clubs. In 1979 the original Alliance Premier League, the forerunner of today’s Vanamara National League, included Maidstone United and Gravesend & Northfleet, and within two seasons they were joined by Dartford. 

These days the Vanarama National League has a strong Kentish flavour. Dover Athletic, thriving since the return of Chris Kinnear despite a huge turnover of players, are the surprise leaders. A trio of local rivals are in close pursuit. Re-formed Maidstone United are fifth, two places ahead of Bromley (now a London borough, but part of Kent until 1965). Ebbsfleet, as Gravesend & Northfleet are now known, are three points further back. Hoping to join them are Dartford and Welling United, respectively first and third in Vanarama National League South.

What is notable about these clubs is the sense of progress and ambition with most playing at new, or refurbished stadia in front of rising crowds. Dover last year opened a new £1.3m stand at their historic Crabble home. Ebbsfleet’s own £5m stand at Stonebridge Road is nearing conclusion. Bromley, prospering in only their third season at this level, put down a 3G pitch in the summer and a new stand is to be erected next year. 

Dartford, meanwhile, have one of the most ecologically-advanced grounds in the country at 12-year-old Princes’ Park, with features including a sedum roof, floodlights powered by solar panels and water recycling. Welling are the smallest of the sextet, but with Mark Goldberg, once Crystal Palace owner, more recently Bromley manager, chairman, do not lack for ambition.

The most extraordinary tale is that of Maidstone. The Stones had to start again in the Kent County League’s fourth division, step 12 of the pyramid, after going bust in 1992. Playing on their former reserve team pitch they climbed into the Kent League (step 5) by 2001, but then had to ground-share in Sittingbourne and Ashford before returning to the county town, at a new ground, in 2012. At this stage they were in the Isthmian League (South) but inspired by having their own home, one which has become a community hub built around the 3G pitch, they won three further promotions in four seasons. Their 4-2 FA Cup win at League Two Cheltenham on Saturday confirmed the Stones are rolling again, as are their rivals in Kent’s fertile non-League garden. The Gills’ proud boast of being ‘Kent’s only Football League club’ is at risk again.

For more on the Vanarama National League visit: http://www.thenationalleague.org.uk/

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