| Football transfer rumours: Emmanuel Adebayor to Roma? Today's jive can jostle for England tooWhenever Fernando Llorente lurches into view of an English commentator, said commentator tends to blurt something along the lines of "he's not your typical Spanish centre-forward, he's more an English-style front man." Such shameless self-flattery.Having watched Wayne Rooney, Peter Crouch and Kevin Davies in action last night, the Mill can only deduce that this means Llorente leaps for balls while making dangerous mid-air rowing movements, mopes around like a teenage goth and is basically nothing more than a specialist jostler who is physically incapable of shooting without falling over. But Llorente isn't like that at all, which is why José Mourinho wants to lure him to Real Madrid.That means that Karim Benzema will be shunted out of the Bernabéu, and Sir Alex Ferguson would dearly love to give the Frenchman a new home. Unfortunately for him, Manchester United are going to be outbid by Tottenham Hotspur. There's a sign of the time right there. Ferguson also fancies the other player who scored for France last night, but again money could be the problem, as Yoann Gourcuff joined Lyon only this summer and that's one French club who don't let players go on the cheap.United do at least retain enough financial muscle to prise the goalkeeper Anders Lindegaard from Norwegian minnows Aaleshund (whose name, the Mill hopefully believes, can be translated as beerdog). United insisers have apparently described the 26-year-old as "the new Peter Schmeichel". Will he be as successful as "the new Ole Gunnar Solskjaer", who's been offloaded to Blackburn?Emmanuel Adebayor has seen enough of Roberto Mancini, who in turn has seen too much of Adebayor lumbering around the pitch like a jaded mule. The pair will part, with Adebayor heading to Roma, where he may immediately begin preparations for a demented post-goal charge towards his former fans just in case Roma meet City some time soon.To sustain their promotion bid Brighton and Hove Albion desperately need a goalscorer to put the finishing touches to all their patient build-ups, so Gus Poyet is going to relieve Sunderland of David Healy, whose predatory skills are so fearsome at the moment that he was dropped for the clash with Faroe Islands.Genoa and Fiorentina want to wheel and deal with Tottenham in order to secure the services of Giovano dos Santos. West Ham United are also going to make Tottenham an offer for Jamie O'Hara, which will at least remind them that he's on their books.Meanwhile, Roberto di Matteo wants to bring Kenny Miller to West Bromwich Albion, where supporters may or may not welcome the Scottish – and former Wolverhampton Wanderers – striker by turning up to matches with Baggypipes.Manchester CityRomaPaul Doyleguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Italy-Serbia European qualifier called off due to fan violence Italy's European Championship qualifier against Serbia in Genoa was abandoned after just seven minutes on Tuesday because of crowd trouble. rssfeeds.usatoday.com |
Sports Of the Times: A Loss, and a Farewell, for the Red Bulls The veteran Juan Pablo Angel, who scored the Red Bulls’ only goal in a 3-1 loss to the Earthquakes on Thursday, is not likely to be back. feeds.nytimes.com |
Stanley Williamson obituary Radio producer known for his Trial By Inquiry programme on the 1958 Munich air crashStanley Williamson, who has died aged 89, was a Londoner who fell in love with the north. Although his first home was within earshot of the roar from the Den, home of Millwall football club, he devoted almost his entire life to the north of England, whose people, industries and landscapes he probed and celebrated in three decades of outstanding radio programmes (and some television) made for the BBC in Manchester.After a year at Cambridge, reading modern languages at Gonville and Caius, he was rejected for military service on account of his poor eyesight and went to work on the land, and then for the BBC during the blitz. He emerged as a fully fledged radio producer in the mid-1940s, meeting and marrying Bettie Emerson, a BBC colleague, in 1948.In that less specialised era, he was responsible for programmes on topics as diverse as Wordsworth, Vaughan Williams, modern Japan and farming in the Yorkshire Dales. He was equally at home producing, directing, scriptwriting or presenting. This capacity for different subjects and different roles in the process of broadcasting is almost unknown today. Nor did these all-round skills imply superficiality.Stanley did his research meticulously. In the radio series Trial By Inquiry, he first encountered Captain James Thain, the pilot of the plane that crashed at Munich in 1958 killing 23, of whom eight were Manchester United footballers. This ultimately resulted in Stanley's book The Munich Air Disaster: Captain Thain's Ordeal (1972), which cleared the pilot of blame.Stanley loved walking in the Lake District. Aged about 30, he began rock climbing, tutored by Colonel Horace "Rusty" Westmorland, founder of the region's first mountain rescue team, with whom he had made a programme about safety on the hills. With Rusty leading and while still very much a novice, Stanley made the first live broadcast commentary from a rock face (Shepherd's Crag in Borrowdale).Neither foresaw that the cables linking Stanley to the engineers at the foot of the crag and the studio in Manchester would get heavier as they paid out behind him. At a neat crux, the cables threatened to pull him off the rock. "Rusty would have held me," wrote Stanley later, "and it might have made entertaining broadcasting, but enough was enough." He abandoned the climb, leaving listeners to telephone anxiously for news of his fate.He also walked and climbed with his brother Roy and friends in Austria, accomplishing serious ascents, for example Wildspitze, at 3,774m the highest peak in the Tyrol, with the simple equipment – a single rope and carabiners – of the day. In the early years of this century, he helped the Ramblers Association survey land for possible public access under the right-to-roam legislation in Cheshire and the Peak District.In retirement he wrote two scholarly books, Gresford: The Anatomy of a Disaster (1997), an account of the pit explosion that killed 266 colliers in north Wales in 1934, and The Vaccination Controversy: The Rise and Fall of Compulsory Vaccination (2007). Both combine Stanley's elegant writing with scholarly research.Michael Green, who as network editor for Northern Region (later controller of Radio 4) was his boss for a time, said: "The word was all for Stanley; the simplicity of radio appealed to him. He was a sole trader who liked to work by himself," which is why he did relatively little in television. He never suffered fools gladly and studio managers were in awe of his rigorous methods. There is an unsubstantiated rumour that he once threw a typewriter at an incompetent secretary. This can be discounted given his slight stature, the weight of the Adler machines then used by the BBC and the admiration in which he was held by his colleagues.Stanley is survived by Bettie and their daughter, Elisabeth.• Stanley Williamson, broadcaster, born 20 August 1921; died 19 October 2010BBCRadio 4RadioManchester UnitedMountaineeringguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Villa scores twice, Barcelona routs Mourinho's Madrid 5-0 David Villa scored twice as Barcelona ripped apart Jose Mourinho's Real Madrid in a 5-0 rout Monday to go top of the league thanks to a record ... rssfeeds.usatoday.com |