Rafa The Gaffer Benitez has urged Keith Telly Topping's beloved, though unsellable, Newcastle to be 'more competitive' in the summer transfer market after they took a big step towards retaining their Premier League status with victory at Leicester City on Friday evening. Ayoze Pérez scored his first away league goal of the season with a glancing header as The Magpies recovered from back-to-back defeats to move ten points clear of the relegation zone. Newcastle spent just over twenty million knicker last summer - plus a further twenty million notes in January, albeit, om one player - and manager Benitez, whose contract is set to expire at the end of the season, says they can 'compete' with teams in the top half of the league by 'doing the right things. You can do everything right with your tactics, but the other team has one player that can make the difference,' Benitez, whose side have moved up to thirteenth place, told Sky Sports. 'You'd have to pay thirty million pounds to buy a Leicester player.' The Foxes started confidently, having won their previous four matches under Brendan Rodgers, but they struggled to play through their disciplined visitors. Salomón Rondón almost handed the visitors a spectacular lead when he struck the crossbar with a powerful free-kick from thirty five yards. Newcastle remained resolute and were rewarded when Pérez scored with over half-an-hour played. The Spaniard rose well inside The Foxes' box to meet Matt Ritchie's pinpoint cross and nod the ball over Kasper Schmeichel. A narrow miss by Miguel Almirón on the hour after a fabulous solo run by Fabian Schär then heralded City's best period of the game. The Magpies sat deep, allowing Leicester possession in the midfield but making it tough for them to play between the lines. When Jamie Vardy's chance eventually came in the final ten minutes - as Youri Tielemans slid him through on goal - he appeared to rush his effort and lifted the ball high over the crossbar. Rodgers' first home defeat as Leicester boss saw his side remain in seventh, though eighth-placed Wolves are level on points with two games in hand. Leicester dominated the ball with more than seventy per cent possession but Newcastle restricted them to a mere five shots on target in the entire match. Martin Dúbravka saved well after a solo run by Harvey Barnes and a right-footed strike by Ben Chilwell as Leicester tried to force the initiative early on, but it was the visitors who posed the greater threat on the counter attack - and Rondón's fifteenth-minute free-kick almost brought spectacular reward. Benitez' side were rigid in their shape and targeted Leicester midfielder Wilfred Ndidi, who lost the ball nine times in the first-half, before springing clear in attack. Ritchie whipped in two testing crosses with his excellent left foot before Newcastle took the lead, as Leicester failed to heed the warning. The visitors pinched the ball deep in the Leicester half once more before Ritchie delivered an accurate cross for Pérez to convert for his seventh Premier League goal of the season - securing Newcastle's third win on the road. Over three thousand travelling Toonies made a Hell of a racket all night, with the players and manager saluting their contribution at full time. It was Newcastle's first back-to-back league wins on visits to Leicester in the top flight since September 1959 under then manager Charlie Mitten.
Cardiff City's relegation fears increased with a controversial two-nil defeat by relegation rivals Burnley on Saturday, while Southampton also took a big step towards safety. Burnley beat The Bluebirds with two goals from Chris Wood but at one-nil Cardiff were awarded a penalty for handball, only for referee Mike Dean to reverse his decision. Which, as you'd except, left Cardiff manager Neil Wazzcock with a face like a smacked arse. So, no change there, then. Cardiff remain eighteenth after the defeat but the three points for Burnley took them up to fourteenth, eleven points clear of their opponents. Southampton beat Wolves three-one at St Mary's Stadium with two goals from Nathan Redmond and one from Shane Long to move eight points ahead of Cardiff in sixteenth. Brighton & Hove Albinos are now seventeenth, five points clear of safety, after they were thrashed five-nil at home by Bournemouth. Albinos next game is against Cardiff on Tuesday in what could be the very definition of a 'six-pointer'. Lucas Moura scored a hat-trick for Stottingtot Hotshots in the Saturday lunchtime kick-off as his side beat already relegated Huddersfield Town four-nil. Elsewhere, Fulham, whose relegation is also already confirmed, won for the first time since January by beating Everton two-nil at Craven Cottage.
Police are reportedly investigating an incident in the tunnel after Barnsley's League One match against Fleetwood at Oakwell. Barnsley striker Cauley Woodrow tweeted that Fleetwood manager - and arch nutter - Joey Barton 'confronted' Tykes boss Daniel Stendel. And blood was, allegedly, spilled. Woodrow tweeted that Stendel had been left with some claret 'pouring from his face' before deleting the post soon afterwards. Sky Sports News subsequently showed footage of Barton attempting to leave the ground in a car - at speed - but being stopped from doing so by The Fuzz. A South Yorkshire Police spokesman confirmed: 'We are aware of something that has taken place in the tunnel after the game and we are investigating.' Barnsley said they were 'assisting the police with its enquiries.' BBC Radio Lancashire reports that Fleetwood have 'declined to comment' on the incident and no member of coaching or playing staff from either side was made available for a post-match interview. Barnsley had earlier moved back into the automatic promotion places in League One with four-two victory over ten-man Fleetwood who had Harry Souttar sent off for elbowing Cameron McGeehan in the mush during an aerial challenge. Barnsley leap-frogged Blunderland after The Mackem Filth were beaten by Coventry City in a nine-goal thriller at The Stadium of Plight. Luton Town remain at the top of the League One table despite their first loss in twenty eight games, a three-one defeat at fifth placed Charlton Not Very Athletic.
One of Luton, Barnsley, Blunderland, Portsmouth or Charlton will be replacing Ipswich Town in The Championship next season as The Tractor Boys became the first team to be relegated in the Football League this season after they drew with Birmingham City. The hosts went into the game knowing that anything less than a win would see their seventeen-year stay in the second tier come to an end, but they fell behind after just seven minutes when Lukas Jutkiewicz hammered home from close range. Gwion Edwards levelled for Ipswich straight after the break before Alan Judge hit the post for the home side. Judge's effort was as close to a winner as Paul Lambert's side came, as their relegation to League One was confirmed with four games of the season to go. It has been a dire campaign for the Suffolk side, who sacked boss Paul Hurst after just one league win from his fourteen games in charge. Replacement Lambert has been unable to turn the club's fortunes around and admitted before Saturday's game that relegation to the third tier, for the first time since 1957, had been hanging over the club's head 'for months.' The thoughts of former boss, Mick McCarthy, who left the club at the end of last season after Ipswich fans protested that, basically, they hated him and everything he stood for are not known at this time. But, they probably include the word 'bastards'.
League Two leaders Lincoln City became the first club to win promotion in the Football League this season after drawing with Cheltenham Town. The Imps, who have not played in the third tier of English football since 1999, now need just three points from their remaining four games to secure the title. Shay McCartan gave the hosts the lead with a powerful shot that beat Robins goalkeeper Scott Flinders at his near post. George Lloyd headed in a Chris Hussey cross to level for the visitors, but Mansfield's draw at Northampton and MK Dons' defeat at Tranmere meant that a point was enough for Lincoln to clinch one of the promotion places. Boss Danny Cowley has now guided the Sincil Bank side to two promotions in his three seasons at the club, as well as winning the Checkatrade Trophy at Wembley last season.
Atletico Madrid striker Diego Costa has been banned for eight games after being found guilty of abusing a referee. The former Moscow Chelski FC player was sent off by official Jesus Gil Manzano during Atletico's two-nil loss to Barcelona in La Liga. Manzano said in his match report that the Spanish international had 'insulted his mother,' a claim which Costa denied. The Spanish Football Federation did not buy his denial, however and the ban rules him out of Atletico's remaining La Liga fixtures this season. It will also extend one game into next season. Costa, who can appeal against the ban, received a four game suspension for insults to the referee and a further four for grabbing the official's arm. 'I asked the referee and he told me Costa said something to him,' Atletico manager Diego Simeone said after the game. 'Other players have said things and not been sent off but that does not justify what Costa did.'
A Fulham fan - albeit, one living in California rather than South London - is suing a state agency after he was banned from having the letters 'COYW' on a personalised car number plate, as they feared the slogan 'Come on you whites' had 'racist connotations.' Which, in some circumstances it could have but, in this particular case, it very definitely does not. University professor Jonathan Kotler that said he was 'shocked' and 'stunned' at the decision. Launching his legal case, he claimed the decision by the California Department of Motor Vehicles 'violated his right to freedom of speech.' And, his right to support a football club based eight thousand miles away from his gaff. Obviously. 'It's just a shirt colour,' he said. 'The people at the DMV are either extra thick or very PC.' Professor Kotler applied for a plate that would read 'COY-W' - an abbreviation of the slogan commonly used by relegation-bound Fulham football fans - and a hashtag seen every weekend on many Twitter posts about the club. The seventy three-year-old, who was born in New Jersey and now lives in Calabasas, has been a fan of Fulham FC for 'decades,' after watching a match 'by happenchance' during a visit to London. He claimed that he was, originally, a fan of both The Scum and Fulham, but chose his current allegiance in 2006 when both teams were in the Premier League. That, obviously, won't be a problem for the professor next season when Fulham won't be in the Premier League. So, he can go back to being a Red as well if he wants. Particularly as, given that he lives in California, that makes him virtually a local boy compared to the majority of The Scum's worldwide support. Professor Kotler, who teaches media law at the University of Southern California, put in his application for the number plate last year and had to include the reasons for his choice of letters, but it was turned down. The Department of Motor Vehicles said the 'COYW' slogan 'could be considered hostile, insulting, or racially degrading,' according to the US federal legal case. 'I sent them tons of material,' Professor Kotler whinged to the BBC. 'Press releases, stories from the British media, letters from the chairman who uses "come on you whites." I pointed out that many clubs in Britain are known by their colour - the Blues, the Clarets. Nobody thought the Liverpool Reds were Communists.' Well, as far as we know, anyway. He added: 'Even when I did it, it was the furthest thing from my mind that anyone would object to it. I was shocked, absolutely.' He said the club's owner, Shahid Khan, 'uses the phrase all the time. Half of the team are non-white. And it's just a shirt colour. It's got nothing to do with anything other than that. I decided this is crazy, this is enough. I can take it up to a point but this became personal.' Professor Kotler said that he travels to watch Fulham play in Britain on average around eight to ten times a season, often taking the eleven-hour flight on a Thursday and returning back in the US by Tuesday ready to teach his students. In his legal complaint, he is asking the court to declare the DMV's criteria for personalised licence plates 'unconstitutional.' He claims he has been deprived of his right to freedom of speech. The Department of Motor Vehicles says that it does not comment on pending legal cases. Particularly indefensible ones such as this. Licence plates in California will be refused if they carry any configuration deemed 'offensive to good taste and decency.' Albeit, 'deemed' by whom and usual what criteria, the DMV don't say. These 'deemed offensive' items include: sexual connotations, or terms of lust or depravity; vulgar terms, terms of contempt, prejudice or hostility, insulting or degrading terms and racially or ethnically degrading terms; swear words or terms considered profane, obscene or repulsive; configurations with a negative connotation to a specific group; configurations misrepresenting a law enforcement entity and foreign or slang words, or phonetic spellings or mirror images of words falling into the above categories. The number 'sixty nine' is reserved for cars made in 1969.
How many people can say they got their first international call-up at the age of forty nine? And of those - if there are any - how many can say they were spotted while playing a match on billionaire businessman Sir Richard Branson's Caribbean holiday island of Mosquito? Martin Smith, a plumber from Ipswich, would seem to be the only one. After playing in that charity game, he was thrust into the British Virgin Islands squad for their CONCACAF Nations League qualifiers against Bonaire and the Turks & Caicos Islands last month in Anguilla. Selected as reserve goalkeeper in those games he is yet to win a cap, but if he did it would make him the second-oldest international player in the world. 'I enjoyed playing but hadn't played for fifteen or twenty years,' Smith told BBC Sport. 'There were players there that played for the BVI national team and a week before this first game in Anguilla I had a call from the head coach. One of the English-based goalkeepers that flies in to play for the BVI had broken his shoulder and he asked if I would be interested in being back-up goalkeeper and maybe do a bit of coaching. It took me all of about twelve seconds to say yes,' added Smith, who played at a decent standard of non-league football in his native Suffolk. The British Virgin Islands is a British Overseas Territory, so people living there are classed as British citizens and anyone with a British passport is eligible to play for them - provided they meet residency requirements. Life away from the UK has always appealed to Smith - he worked as a holiday rep in places such as Tenerife and Majorca and did ski seasons in France and the USA. He moved to the Bahamas to work with his cousin five years ago, before getting a job a couple of years later as the plumbing supervisor on Branson's exclusive island. 'I'm still pinching myself now that I was involved with an international football squad,' he says. 'The week in Anguilla was an eye-opener. We were getting police escorts to the games, we had stands full of people and I had friends back in the UK who were watching it being live streamed. It was quite bizarre when we played the Turks and Caicos because we sung our national anthem, 'God Save The Queen', then they sung theirs and it was 'God Save The Queen' as well!' Though, probably not The Sex Pistols' version, one suspects. George Weah's final appearance for Liberia, against Nigeria last September, aged fifty one years and three hundred and forty five days, beat the previous record for the oldest international player held by Greece's Yorghos Koudas, who was forty eight when he played his last game in 1995. Smith said that his first day's training with the BVI squad was 'an eye-opener' as he chased men more than two decades his junior along the Caribbean sands. 'They say goalkeepers don't have to be fit and that was a lucky thing because after I tried to keep up with these guys on the beach for the first day, the next day was quite a painful twenty four hours for me,' he said. But that has not stopped Smith eyeing up a chance to stay involved in some capacity when they face Bonaire and the Bahamas in Group C of the third tier of the CONCACAF Nations League starting in September. 'They're very winnable games,' he says. 'If the other young goalkeeper's shoulder is repaired, I'll be seeing if they wouldn't mind me still being the international goalkeeper coach and be back-up.'
Guadalajara under-seventeen player Diego Campillo scored one of the luckiest penalties you will ever see during a shootout against Lobos BUAP in Mexico on Saturday. 'Incredible!'
Mind you, this isn't the first such occurrence. Take this similar 'look out, it's behind you' moment from 2017 when Bangkok Sports Club beat Satri Angthong twenty-nineteen in a dramatic penalty shootout which ended thus.
And then, of course, there was this one. What about that, Kammy?
Just one day after the news of the death of Liverpool legend Tommy Smith was announced, former England international Ivor Broadis has also died, aged ninety six. Ivor won fourteen caps for his country and scored twice in three appearances in the 1954 World Cup. Christened Ivan, the Londoner first made his name during the war guesting for Spurs, Millwall and Carlisle while a serving officer in the RAF. During his post-war club career, Ivor played as an inside-forward for Carlisle United (in two spells), Blunderland, Manchester City, this blogger's beloved Newcastle United and Queen Of The South. In a Twitter tribute, Carlisle described him as 'a true gentleman, a fantastic athlete and sportsman and a top quality journalist' whilst Newcastle also paid Ivor a moving online tribute. Posted to RAF Crosby-on-Eden after the war, Ivor signed for Carlisle in 1946. Although he was only twenty three years old, he was offered the player-manager's job and remains the youngest man to have held such a position in Football League history. He subsequently sold himself to Blunderland for eighteen thousand pounds, arguing that the sale was in the best interests of the club. Ivor worked as a football reporter in the city following his retirement and was England's oldest surviving international footballer. He lived with his family in the village of Linstock, near Carlisle. Last year he was made a freeman of the city. As well as his sporting achievements, Ivor was also recognised for his five hundred flying hours during the war. He helped return hundreds of troops home to Britain in his role as a navigator.
Mike Ashley's Sports Direct has whinged that the takeover of Debenhams by its lenders as part of an administration process is 'nothing short of a national scandal.' A bit like Ashley's own zero-hour contract malarkey at Sports Direct or, indeed, his outrageous mismanagement of this blogger's beloved (though unsellable) Newcastle United. The store chain rejected two last-ditch takeover offers from Sports Direct. Under Tuesday's deal, all stores will remain open for the time being, although some have been earmarked for closure. Ashley whinged that politicians and regulators had been 'as effective as a chocolate teapot.' Or, as effective as Steve McClaren was when Ashey appointed him at this blogger's beloved (though unsellable) Newcastle United. Point very much taken, sir. He also called for the administration process to be 'reversed.' Which, it won't be. Debenhams is the biggest department store chain in the UK with one hundred and sixty six stores. It employs about twenty five thousand people. Its lenders are made up of High Street banks and US hedge funds. Ashley whinged that reversing the administration process would mean 'a full, better and appropriate solvent solution can be found.' He added: 'This solution would include allowing myself and appropriate senior Sports Direct management access to detailed information to save the business for all stakeholders. The board of Debenhams and its advisers have sought to stifle and exclude us from their so-called process and have undermined and blocked our various offers of assistance as they carried out their underhand plan to steal from shareholders.' Sports Direct said that it had 'formally registered' its interest in buying Debenhams from its new owners. However, Chris Wootton, Sports Direct's deputy chief financial officer told the BBC he believed Debenhams lenders 'may already have a plan' in place: 'It's a case of the deal being done with a third party that keeps us locked out of it.' Oh, the tragedy. He said the firm was 'considering legal action' against Debenhams' board over shareholders' losses. Debenhams has passed through a pre-pack administration process. This lets a company sell itself, or its assets, as a going concern, without affecting the operation of the business. The lenders now take control of the business and will look to sell it on, while shareholders lose their investments. It means that Ashley's near-thirty per cent stake in the company, which cost about one hundred and fifty million notes to build up, is wiped out. On Monday, Debenhams rejected a one hundred and fifty million knicker rescue offer from Sports Direct, which was increased to two hundred million quid in the early hours of Tuesday. The higher offer was rejected because Ashley wanted to be chief executive. All Debenhams' stores will initially continue to trade, although about fifty branches had already been earmarked for closure in the future. Its lenders include Barclays and Bank of Ireland, as well as Silver Point and GoldenTree. As well as the planned closures, it has also been renegotiating rents with landlords to tackle its funding problems. It has not released a list of which shops may be shut. In February, it was revealed that the closure of twenty stores could be brought forward if the retailer took out a company voluntary arrangement, a form of insolvency that can enable firms to seek rent cuts and close unwanted stores. The company explained that its restructuring plans would continue and that, if approved, they would 'result in a significant overall reduction in the group's rent burden and underpin a sustainable future.' The stores will continue to trade as normal and administrators have confirmed to the BBC that customers will be able to spend any gift cards that they already have. Debenhams chairman Terry Duddy said: 'We remain focused on protecting as many stores and jobs as possible, consistent with establishing a sustainable store portfolio in line with our previous guidance. In the meantime, our customers, colleagues, pension holders, suppliers and landlords can be reassured that Debenhams will now be able to move forward on a stable footing.' A spokesman for the company's pension schemes said the schemes had been transferred to the newly incorporated company. 'Members can therefore be reassured that the schemes are carrying on as usual.' One major sticking point was that Ashley wanted to become chief executive. The hostilities became ever more acrimonious. At one point, he suggested two board members take lie detector tests. The lenders were also - rightly - suspicious of Ashley's intentions. 'If we give him the keys to the castle, he might change the locks,' one person allegedly 'familiar with the situation' allegedly snitched to the BBC. The new owners are already looking for a buyer, willing to take on the huge debts and liabilities of this household name. Debenhams has been struggling for a while and issued three profit warnings in 2018. It also has a debt pile of six hundred and twenty two million knicker. Last year, it reported a record pre-tax loss of four hundred and ninety one million quid. It later reported that its sales had 'fallen sharply' over Christmas. The scale and high cost of running stores as well as the investments needed to run a company in the modern retailing environment also put the company under financial pressure.
