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Tag Archives: football
Forgotten Liberal heroes: Richard Lillicrap
Richard Lillicrap was probably too little known in Lib Dem circles in the first place to be forgotten, but for hundreds (if not thousands) of committed football fans who are closely involved in running supporters’ trusts or indeed football clubs themselves – like AFC Wimbledon – he was an inspiration.
Richard was a key player in the supporters’ movement, helping dozens of football (and other sports) supporters to organise themselves and take action in their communities to protect their teams from avaricious and uninterested owners.
Richard was also a committed Liberal and saw fan and community ownership of football as the obvious expression of liberalism and community politics in the sporting sphere. He was also a Liberal Democrat councillor for Canbury Ward in Kingston from 1994-98 and a key part of the first ever majority Lib Dem administration that devolved its decisions to seven neighbourhood committees – even thought it meant giving up control in four of these to opposition parties.
BBC: Nick Clegg hails England’s ‘unbeatable’ World Cup bid
The BBC reports:
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has told Fifa inspectors England’s bid for the 2018 World Cup is “unbeatable”. The Fifa delegation, which will write a report on England’s bid to host the World Cup, began their four-day visit with a reception at Downing Street. Mr Clegg said: “I believe this is an exceptionally strong, unbeatable bid. We in this government believe in it, we hope that you will believe in it.”
You can see Nick welcome the Fifa delegation here:
No, 1980s hairstyles haven’t made a comeback at Southampton Football Club
Latest news in the ongoing saga of Southampton Football Club’s attempts to ban photographers from its matches, and instead insist the media buys official photographs from itself, is that the Bournemouth Daily Echo has joined the Plymouth Herald in refusing to play ball.
The Herald is using a cartoonist instead of using photographs, but the Echo has decided to take another route – and is using photographs from the 1980s instead. Footballers’ hair has never looked so good if you ask me.
Southampton bans photographs; newspaper employs cartoonist
Southampton football club have joined the long list of clubs that ban or want to ban the media from their matches as it suits. Back in November it was Portsmouth FC banning a journalist whose coverage it didn’t like and Alex Ferguson for a long time did not allow the BBC to interview him, again because he didn’t like the tone of its coverage.
This time it is photographers in the firing line as Southampton has banned them from its matches, wanting people instead to buy official photographs for use in media coverage. This has at least been good news for …
How Clegg switched sides at half-time
No, not more revelations from the memoirs of New Labour’s svengali, Lord (Peter) Mandelson – rather a diary piece by Hugh Muir in the Guardian.
LDV readers may recall Nick Clegg’s conflicted loyalties in deciding whether to support Holland or Spain in Sunday’s World Cup final. It appears he found out a way to resolve them:
… at a cross-party reception for the Lib Dem thinktank Centre Forum, the deputy prime minister admitted that while he began watching the World Cup final supporting Holland, as the Diary said he would, he switched sides halfway through and began rooting for
…
The coalition agreement: culture, Olympics, media and sport
Welcome to the fifth in a series of posts going through the full coalition agreement section by section. You can read the full coalition document here.
It’s rather a mouthful of a title for this section, but it reflects the diverse remit of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Almost inevitably it is made up of a disparate shopping list of policies without any clear thread running through them.
The list includes the not exactly controversial (Make a success of the Olympics! Make a success of other sports events! Try to get more sports events!) through supporting the status quo …
Don Foster MP: Standing at football grounds
Football fans are getting a raw deal. 1.4 million who want to play football can’t due to scant facilities. Season tickets for top clubs are a rip-off; costing 5 times more than in Spain and Italy. Disabled fans are treated shamefully. Only two Premiership Clubs meet the recommended level of number of spaces specially designed for wheelchair users. The game is disappearing from free-to-air TV.
And fans can’t stand at matches, though many want to. According to the Football Fans’ Census, 91% of fans think they should be able to choose to stand.
Of course, none of us can forget …
Alex Ferguson forced to unban BBC
A follow-up to my post When is it ok to ban a journalist?, about the habit in football of clubs banning journalists who say things they don’t like (can you imagine the uproar if a public sector body tried to do the same?):
Sir Alex Ferguson will have to end his six-year ban on giving interviews to BBC reporters under newly agreed rules coming into force next season.
A motion was passed at a Premier League board meeting last week which made post-match interviews with all media rights holders mandatory for league managers, reports The Daily Telegraph.
Manchester United supremo Ferguson has not
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When is it ok to ban a journalist?
Portsmouth FC have banned a local newspaper journalist from their ground after taking dislike to a piece that he wrote. Although the club has neither suggested the article broke any law nor is libellous, it has decided to ban Neil Allen for an “indefinite period” from home matches, press conferences, speaking to the players and coaching staff or visiting the club’s training ground.
As Hold The Front Page reports,
News sports editor Howard Frost told HTFP: “It seems a bit petty. If (manager) Paul Hart wants to take exception, that’s his prerogative.
“It’s generally normal for managers and journalists to fall out
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Foster on online pay-per-view for England World Cup match: football’s “making a fast buck” at fans’ expense
Well, the good news for Lib Dems is that it should be safe to go knocking on doors on Saturday afternoon knowing you’re not going to interrupt an England World Cup qualifier on the telly. The bad news – if you’re a football supporter without home access to the Internet – is that you can’t watch England take on Ukraine.
The BBC explains:
England’s World Cup qualifier in Ukraine on Saturday will be shown exclusively live to subscribers on the internet who will pay at least £4.99. All previously broadcast England matches have been available on TV.
CommentIsLinked@LDV: Vince Cable – Arthur, Delia and another rotten bubble
Over at the Daily Mail, Lib Dem deputy leader Vince Cable examines the disconnect between the have-nots and the ‘haves and have-yachts’ in the sporting world, and asks if ‘The Storm’ will close the gap:
First it was debt, then property. Now I sense another bubble waiting to burst. While some of Britain’s key wealth-generating activities – construction, manufacturing, finance – are in terrible shape, one industry sails serenely on apparently oblivious to the recession: football’s Premier League. Britain’s leading banks may have bitten the dust but our top clubs dominate Europe and, arguably, the world. …
I can’t see this party
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