CaaC (John)

Happy birthday, Rio! Premier League

And from me to all Hindu not mentioned, may the happy celebrations begin.

Emma Clarke: FA backs call to honour first British black female player By Saj Chowdhury BBC Sport 31 October 2018 | Football The Football Association has backed a call to honor Emma Clarke, Britain's first black female footballer. The Bootle-born player first featured for the British Ladies' team in 1895 and went on to appear at stadiums such as St James' Park and Portman Road. Now Anna Kessel, sports writer and co-founder of Women in Football, wants Clarke to receive wider recognition: "A blue plaque on her childhood home would be brilliant. "It would also be lovely to see the ground on which she made her debut recognised. I know English Heritage have rules about where a plaque can be attached - on an existing original building - however, there are no existing buildings left on the pitch in north London where Clarke played. Maybe English Heritage could rethink their criteria. "There could also be a statue of Clarke on Wembley Way. When female fans go to watch football at Wembley, they see the statue of England men's World Cup-winning captain Bobby Moore, which is great - but wouldn't it also be great to see one of the incredible women players we've had in this country? "At the moment there are only two statues of sportswomen in the UK - that's 1% of the total." BBC Black History month Watch: Get Inspired on the dramatisation of Emma Clarke's story The FA has been contacted by Women in Football regarding a statue of Clarke either on Wembley Way or St George's Park, the national football centre. The story of Clarke was discovered only last year by Stuart Gibbs, who was researching the history of women's football for an exhibition. From the subsequent information gathered, parts of her story were dramatised in a production called Offside, which toured the UK in 2017. Who was Emma Clarke? Clarke was born in Bootle, Merseyside in 1875. She lived with 13 other siblings in a terraced house along with her parents - mother Wilhelmina Clarke, believed to be of black Dutch heritage, and father William Clarke, who was a bargeman. It was when Clarke was aged six or seven that the first official women's international football match took place in Scotland in May 1881. Later that year a series of matches took place in Liverpool, which is likely to have influenced her. Her career path saw her transform from a confectioners' assistant, at the age of 15, to playing for the British Ladies' team at 20. Following winter training under the guidance of former Arsenal player Bill Julian during the 1894-95 season, Clarke made her debut on 23 March 1895 in Crouch End, north London. More than 10,000 people paid to watch the match between the teams representing north and south of the country. The Manchester Guardian reported at the time: "Their costumes came in for a good deal of attention... one or two added short skirts over their knickerbockers. When the novelty has worn off, I do not think women's football will attract the crowds." The Sportsman newspaper wrote: "I don't think the lady footballer is to be snuffed out by a number of leading articles written by old men out of sympathy both with football as a game and the aspirations of the young new women. If the lady footballer dies, she will die hard." Clarke represented the British team until around 1903, and also played for Mrs. Graham's XI for their tour of Scotland in 1896. There are few details of what happened to the footballer after 1903. Her life was commemorated at an event held by the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) on Tuesday, which was co-curated by leadership consultant and activist Michelle Moore. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/46042994

Al Ahly's Walid Azaro banned after ripping own shirt 2 hours ago | African Al Ahly's Moroccan striker Walid Azaro will miss the second leg of the African Champions League Al Ahly striker Walid Azaro has been banned for two matches by the Confederation of African Football (Caf) for breaching its disciplinary code. Caf did not elaborate on the exact reasons for banning the Moroccan in the statement it released. However, he was caught on camera ripping his own shirt in Ahly's 3-1 win over Tunisia's Esperance in the first leg of the African Champions League final on 2 November. The ban means he will miss the second leg of the final on Friday. The shirt-ripping incident was not the only controversy to involve Azaro during the first leg. Esperance players were unhappy with the two penalties awarded against them for fouls on Azaro despite the use of video assistant referee technology to confirm both incidents. Ahly have also been fined US$20,000 for the same incident and the club's coach Patrice Carteron has been "invited to appear before the disciplinary board for a hearing regarding allegations of unsporting behavior". https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/46108713

You won't like reading this then Entertainment & Arts Spice Girls reunion tour: Will it be the same without Victoria Beckham? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-46101213

Why do some birds lay colourful eggs? From pale blue to speckled red, they come in every shade and hue. The answer, say, scientists, is that coloured eggs evolved millions of years ago in birds' ancestors, the dinosaurs. The patterns and colours may have served to camouflage eggs from predators as white eggs stand out more against darker backgrounds. Thus, the likes of Oviraptor may have sat on eggs of the darkest blue rather than plain white ones. "The dinosaur nesting world was more colourful than we thought," Dr Jasmina Wiemann of Yale University told BBC News. "We think that camouflage is one of the main drivers." The researchers detected the same two pigments that are present in colourful birds eggs in a group of dinosaurs called eumaniraptorans. Comparisons with the eggs of modern birds suggest the clawed predator Deinonychus laid a blue egg with brown blotches. The birdlike feathered Oviraptor had eggs that were a dark blue-green, like an emu. The research, published in the journal Nature, suggests that egg colour provided an evolutionary advantage to dinosaurs that had nests with exposed eggs, rather than burying them as alligators and turtles do. Modern birds inherited this ability. "We are looking at a single evolutionary origin of egg colour," said Dr Wiemann. "It seems as if egg colour co-evolved with open nesting habits, which is quite neat." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46096317

Barcelona have reopened talks with the representatives of Chelsea and Brazil winger Willian, 30, after the Blues rejected three offers over the summer. (La Sexta, via Metro) Arsenal and France centre-back Laurent Koscielny, 33, is a target for Barcelona, as is Chelsea's Brazil defender David Luiz, 31. (Mundo Deportivo - in Spanish)

Wyatt Earp with Kevin Costner & Dennis Quaid (1994), seen this film a few times before but I do love westerns and it was on the box. I would give this a 7/10, but it would never beat a good Clint Eastwood western.

It can get a boring at OT sometimes nowadays.

Awer Mabil's journey from life as a refugee in a hut built out of mud to scoring on his international debut is the stuff dreams are made of. The 23-year-old grew up in a refugee camp in Kenya, where hunger and cramped conditions were everyday problems for his family. After moving to Australia as part of a humanitarian programme, he was subjected to racism as he tried to make it as a footballer. But he has come through it all and scored on his debut for his adopted nation in a 4-0 win in Kuwait in October. Mabil was born in a refugee camp in Kakuma, Kakuma after his parents fled the civil war in Sudan. Hunger and cramped conditions were just two of the daily challenges faced by his family. "We built a hut out of mud," he tells the BBC's World Football programme."Probably the size of one bedroom in a normal house in the Western world, as you would call it. "But you know it's not your home. There were four of us living in it - me, my mum, my brother and sister. We got food from the UN once a month. "Each person would get 1kg of rice, so we had 4kg in our family, and 3kg of beans. It got tricky because we had to ration it. "We had one meal a day, which was dinner. There was no such thing as breakfast or lunch. You just had to find your way through the day and the little dinner that you had, you really had to appreciate it." Two-hour walk to watch football Mabil, a winger, started playing football in the refugee camp from the age of five, kicking a ball around with his friends "because there was little else to do". But the Manchester United-mad youngster had a long walk if he wanted to watch a football match on television. "I loved playing football. It was the only thing that kept me out of trouble," he says. "I followed Manchester United a lot, but there was only one TV, two hours away, and you had to pay $1 to watch. "If you couldn't go, you just had to make sure that one of your friends who went told you the result." His life changed in 2006 when he and his family were resettled in Australia. "I thought, 'yeah, my chance is now - if I work hard, everything can happen and I can chase my dreams.' That's when it really began. "Thanks to football, I began to speak English and express my feelings. That's when it started to kick in." He was signed by Adelaide United at the age of 16 and had two seasons in the A-League, which included an FFA Cup win in 2014. Racist comments 'normal' The changes in Mabil's life were not all good, though. For the first time, he experienced racism - but he says he does not see Australia as a "racist place". "I've faced it a lot," he says. "Once, when I was 16, I came home and one of my neighbours attacked me," he says. "The first thing I did was shut the front door and hide my siblings. I was talking to these guys while the door was shut. I said: 'Go away.' They kept saying: 'Go back to your own country.' "Apart from that, you experience day-to-day things like when you're walking along the road there are people in cars beeping you and saying things. That's normal." Despite that, he says he's proud to represent the country. "I represent Australia because it's given me and my family the opportunity in life to have a second chance," he says. "I don't judge Australia as a racist place. There are certain people who are racist, but it's a country that belongs to everybody. "It's part of me because I've lived half of my life there. I call it home, so I'm proud to represent Australia." In 2015, he moved to FC Midtjylland in Denmark. Three years later he is still there, and now an Australia international - his debut, on 16 October, capped by an 88th-minute goal. "The reaction has been amazing," says Mabil, who even received a message of congratulations from one of his idols - former Manchester United, Juventus and West Ham defender Patrice Evra. "I grew up watching Evra playing for Manchester United," he says. "To get feedback from these big, big guys means the hard work continues and that I'm on the right path." Giving something back Mabil now has his own foundation - Barefoot to Boots - and regularly returns to Kakuma. "I take boots, football equipment and hospital equipment and donate them to the refugees there," he says. "If I have two weeks' holiday, I'll spend one week there and a week with my family. "It was really tough [living there] but it's something I'm really grateful for and will be grateful for the rest of my life. "It's built some mentality into my head to appreciate the good times and to not give up on my dreams." https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/46016449

InSight: The jeopardy of landing on Mars 2 November 2018 The American space agency has released a video describing the perilous journey its InSight probe will make to the surface of Mars later this month. Fronted by Rob Manning, the chief engineer at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the film describes the various stages of what is termed "entry, descent and landing", or EDL. It is a sequence of high jeopardy. The agency produced a similar video for its Curiosity Mars lander in 2012 called The 7 Minutes of Terror. That became a viral hit. This one isn't quite so showy but is nonetheless very successful in communicating the drama of a landing on Mars. Launched from Earth back in May, Insight is still (Friday) a couple of million km from the Red Planet. The arrival time is fixed, says Tom Hoffman, InSight project manager at JPL. "We're going to land on November 26 at about 11:47 Pacific time (19:47 GMT) regardless of anything. That is, we're on a ballistic entry; we can't change it; we can't go back around," he told reporters this week. InSight is a static probe. In other words, it will sit still in one place; it will not rove around the planet like Curiosity and Nasa's other wheeled robots. It will be the first mission to focus its investigations predominantly on the interior of Mars. It is going to put seismometers on the surface to feel for "Marsquakes". These tremors should reveal how the underground rock is layered - data that can be compared with Earth to shed further light on the formation of the planets 4.6 billion years ago. The seismometer experiment is French-led. The European nation has provided the broadband sensors that will detect low-frequency vibrations of the ground, while the UK has contributed a trio of microseismometers, about the size of a pound coin, that will go after the higher frequencies. The British instrument was developed at Imperial College London and Oxford University. Its principal investigator is Prof Tom Pike. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46074794

I bloody hope so

You get a lot of this nearing Guy Fawkes night every year I am afraid across here in the UK, some people use Guy Fawkes as an excuse to cause mayhem. Five men given curfews over Edinburgh Bonfire Night crimes 2 November 2018 Five men responsible for Bonfire Night crimes in the north east of Edinburgh last year have been banned from leaving their homes overnight for six months. Lewis Park, 20, Dylan Martins, 18, Dylan McArdle, 19, Connor Murray, 18, and Liam Willis, 19, all pleaded guilty to being involved in the incidents in Craigentinny on 5 November 2017. Damage worth more than £40,000 was caused after a gang of 50 youths threw fireworks and burned out cars. One of the cars was put onto a bonfire. Edinburgh Sheriff Court heard how over three hours on 5 November last year fireworks were thrown between the youths, members of the public, property and cars. Frightening experience When the police and fire service were called in, fireworks and rocks were thrown at them and they had to withdraw for safety reasons. Residents were afraid to leave their homes. Defense solicitors appearing for the five men, told sheriff Frank Crowe their clients now appreciated the events must have been a frightening experience for those living there. They said the men accepted that their conduct had shocked the community and was a serious matter. None, however, had been in trouble since then. Sheriff Crowe, who gave the men restriction of liberty orders, told them that what happened on that night had attracted a lot of comment at the time and, more recently, in view of the forthcoming Guy Fawkes' Night celebrations. He added that their actions bore no relation to Guy Fawkes' Night. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-46071843

Health & Safety rules nowadays I am afraid, I can remember doing a tour of duty in Northern Ireland in my army days, Belfast, 1973, we were doing a mobile patrol around a district and people had built a bonfire against the side of a house and was going to light it, we had to stop them and it got a bit scary as they wanted to know what they were doing wrong, our patrol NCO then called in the local Irish Constabulary (police) and let them sort it out, British troops in Northern Ireland in them days were not liked.

I will find the clip yet but you got me going and had to watch some highlights of that match again, I was here in Scotland at the time and watched it on the box when Keane headed in and made it 2-1 Juve the commentator said: "GAME ON!!" I leaped in the air and yelled "YESSSSSSSS"

MARTIAL CROWNED OCTOBER PLAYER OF THE MONTH In-form forward Anthony Martial has thanked Manchester United fans, after claiming the club's Player of the Month award for October. The French forward acquired a whopping 76 percent of our vote, ahead of defender Victor Lindelof (16 percent) and his compatriot Paul Pogba (eight percent), after a stellar month in which he helped United to wins over Newcastle and Everton, plus a creditable draw away at Chelsea... https://www.manutd.com/en/news/detail/anthony-martial-wins-october-player-of-the-month-award

I remember Irwin in the Juve match the year of the treble when we beat them 3-2 compliments of Keane, York & Cole, that could have been 4-2 as Irwin had the ball bought it all the way upfield but fired a shot just wide I think it was, all he did though was just turn around and trotted back to the back line, brilliant footballer that guy.