logo
Northern Ireland international faces anxious wait as Championship club hit by cash crisis

Northern Ireland international faces anxious wait as Championship club hit by cash crisis

Blackburn finished 10th in this season's Women's Championship, avoiding relegation by five points.
However, the Lancashire club look set to dumped out of the second tier for financial reasons after the club failed to offer the league the required financial guarantees ahead of Monday's deadline.
It's a painful blow for Dugdale, who faced a similar situation this time last year. She was a member of the Reading team when the Berkshire club demoted to the fifth tier when the club's takeover collapsed.
The 28 year-old has earned 18 caps for Northern Ireland since making her international debut in 2016.
Former Sion Swifts star Tyler Toland is another Blackburn star with an uncertain future. The Republic of Ireland international hails from Raphoe in Donegal.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Earley MP Yuan Yang praises school's money-saving solar panels
Earley MP Yuan Yang praises school's money-saving solar panels

BBC News

time2 hours ago

  • BBC News

Earley MP Yuan Yang praises school's money-saving solar panels

A school will have more money to spend on education thanks to government-funded solar panels, an MP has government announced in March that it was investing £180m installing solar panels in schools and hospitals across the first 11 schools have now had them put in - including Whiteknights Primary School in Reading, which is expected to save around £4,500 a year as a result."Overall that means less money spent on energy and heating bills [and] more money to for the school to actually spend on students' education," said MP for Earley and Woodley Yuan Yang. The Labour MP visited the school on Monday, alongside climate minister Kerry McCarthy. She said she spoke to schoolchildren about climate change and how it should be tackled. "They wanted to talk about all sorts of things, from saving energy to transport," she said."It's often the children who asked the most incitive questions about climate change and the future."Climate minister Kerry McCarthy said the fact schools could save money on their bills was proof that the transition to green power could directly benefit communitiesGreat British Energy is a new publicly owned company set up by the Labour Yang said the solar panels, which would continue generating electricity throughout the weekends and school holidays to be sold back to the national grid, were "a really key investment"."All of this together is part of a diverse energy mix and the more different sources of renewable generation then the more robust - the more secure - an energy system is," she said. You can follow BBC Berkshire on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.

'I wore Chelsea's No. 9 shirt before Liam Delap – friends laughed when I got it'
'I wore Chelsea's No. 9 shirt before Liam Delap – friends laughed when I got it'

Daily Mirror

time17 hours ago

  • Daily Mirror

'I wore Chelsea's No. 9 shirt before Liam Delap – friends laughed when I got it'

Liam Delap is the latest Chelsea signing to take on the No. 9 shirt for the Blues and one former player has opened up on his strange stint with the iconic jersey while at Stamford Bridge Chelsea's new recruit Liam Delap has chosen to wear the No. 9 shirt for the Blues, however, the shirt carries a burden. The £30 million striker is the first Chelsea player to take on the iconic jersey since Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang left the club two years ago. The shirt has been worn by international superstars such as Gonzalo Higuain, Romelu Lukaku, Alvara Morata, Radamel Falcao and Fernando Torres, albeit with varying degrees of success at the club. Bizarrely, it was also once worn by Steve Sidwell, much to his friends' and family's amusement. ‌ Sidwell, a midfielder, made the move to Stamford Bridge from Reading in 2007. In an unexpected twist, he was given the prestigious number, which is typically reserved for strikers. ‌ While Sidwell's free transfer was seen as a smart move at the time, his being given the number nine shirt puzzled fans and pundits alike. The mystery was finally solved when Sidwell, 42, explained how he ended up with the shirt on That Peter Crouch Podcast in October 2023, reports Football London. "When you sign for a club, you always see who's leaving, what shirt numbers are available so you pick it before you kind of get there," Sidwell began. "So when I signed, Geremi left to go to Newcastle and [Khalid] Boulahrouz, who was the defender who wore number nine as well, he left." 'So we (Chelsea) signed me and Claudio Pizarro – striker, midfielder – so I thought I'll have the 14, I've worn that before, and he'll have the number nine. First day of pre-season we fly to LA (Los Angeles) we get on the coach going to the airport, as we get on Jose [Mourinho] was at the front, he pulls me and says, 'You've got the number nine shirt this season.' 'So now I'm thinking, mind games, straight away this is mind games. So I was like, 'Alright, okay, no worries,' like he's just testing me, see if I want it. Sat down and the kitman sat next to me and I was like, 'I haven't got the number nine though, have I?' And he went, 'I'll tell you later on.' 'We landed and he done the shirt and it was already printed up, so big Tel (kitman) said it was already printed up, it was already done and I'm standing there (with the No.9 shirt). My mates at home going, 'What shirt you got?' 'I've only got the f*****g nine shirt.' And they were cracking up. How can I say I don't want it?' ‌ In a 2020 interview with The Athletic, Sidwell speculated that his unexpected shirt number might have been Mourinho's subtle signal to former Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich during a time when funds for new signings were low. "Obviously the number has a lot of history relating to top centre-forwards and that wasn't me. I went on to score one goal for Chelsea," Sidwell said. ‌ "Reflecting on why he might have made that decision, I believe he was sending a message to the board. That summer he had wanted more funds for transfers – but he's brought in me, Tal Ben Haim and Claudio Pizarro on free transfers. "The only significant purchase was Florent Malouda. Why didn't he give Pizarro – a striker – the No. 9? I suspect he was making a point by giving it to a free transfer from Reading." Sidwell became another victim of the number as left Chelsea in 2008 after just one season and 25 appearances to sign for Aston Villa. While there have been several successes with the shirt, including Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, even Thomas Tuchel, former Chelsea boss and current England manager, once suggested that the shirt is "cursed." Delap, who scored 12 goals in 40 matches for Ipswich last season, will now have to grapple with the hype and pressure of a jersey that has simply proved too much for some of modern football's biggest names.

County cricket: Northants and Somerset keep winning in T20 Blast
County cricket: Northants and Somerset keep winning in T20 Blast

The Guardian

time17 hours ago

  • The Guardian

County cricket: Northants and Somerset keep winning in T20 Blast

On the field and off, things move very quickly in the T20 Blast, as illustrated in Sunday's top-of-the-table clash between Lancashire and Northamptonshire in the North Group at Old Trafford. Lancashire had suffered their first defeat of the campaign earlier in the week to Leicestershire but had the chance to retain top spot with a home win. Northamptonshire, having elected to bat, never really got going, the home side's England men, James Anderson and Liam Livingstone, sharing five wickets as David Willey top scored with 37. With a gettable 181 to chase, Lancashire's reply was curiously similar, no partnership realising more than the 34 between top scorer Michael Jones and Jack Blatherwick for the seventh wicket. Australian leg-spinner Lloyd Pope and pacer George Scrimshaw were the key men, taking six for 46 from their eight overs as the home side toiled in vain. Northamptonshire are top of the group with a 100% record after five matches. Lancashire are still handily placed in second, but need to arrest their mini slide. Leicestershire, with three wins from four, travelled to Headingley to face winless Yorkshire and … got hammered. The stuffing was knocked out of the visitors by a 132-run partnership between Dawid Malan and William Luxton as the home side piled up 213 for seven. Luxton seems to have been around for ages, but he turned 22 last month and must hope that his 62, from No 3, can get his season off to a belated start. It's easy to crash and burn when chasing more than 10 an over and Leicestershire, with Shan Masood the ex-White Rose skipper in their ranks, were all out after scoring just half of their target. Of the four spinners Malan used, the most impressive was another 22-year-old, Jafer Chohan, whose four for 27 underlined his potential. He has played four matches in Australia's Big Bash and, after three wicketless outings in the Blast, has now repaid the faith shown in him by his captain. Despite suffering a first defeat to Kent, Hampshire head the group of three teams with 12 points at the top of the South Group. That can happen when you win two matches on consecutive days, as they did on Thursday and Friday, The second of those was a pasting of Gloucestershire at the Utilita Bowl (as ugly a name as the Rose Bowl is lovely), the visitors subsiding from 90 for three to 119 all out from which the champions could find no way back. A fine effort by the bowling unit was led by John Turner, who has four England caps in white-ball cricket but had to go on loan earlier this season to play first-class cricket. Like Shoaib Bashir, he's a highly promising prospect who, despite the fact that we're always being told that there's too much cricket, doesn't play enough. Two months into the season, despite his best efforts, he has bowled just 114 overs. He holds an England development contract – surely that can manage workloads up as well as down? Somerset beat their fellow 12-pointers, Sussex, to maintain their 100% record in the South Group, nestling just behind their vanquished hosts on net run rate having played a game fewer. Each of their four international seamers (Craig Overton, Matt Henry, Lewis Gregory, back bowling again, and Riley Meredith) chipped in with a wicket, and the four Toms (Lammonby, Kohler-Cadmore, Abell and Rew) mowed down the target with 12 balls to spare. Cricket, especially T20 cricket when you can run into a hot batter or bowler who can win a match on their own, seldom grants dominance to a simple formula, but Somerset are making a compelling case against that assertion. With three batters averaging over 34 at strike rates over 140, and three bowlers with economy rates under seven, it can be an easy game. They will take some stopping. The stars of T20 tend to be batters. They get the big hits, the big cheers from the crowds and the big posters advertising future attractions. It's no surprise really – the game is set up for them, bowlers restricted so much in where and how they can bowl. Not Ben Sanderson, not this week anyway. At New Road, he returned the John Player Sunday League-esque figures of 4-0-8-6, including a hat-trick as Worcestershire lost four wickets in the 19th over. Not to be outdone, just a couple of days later another canny pacer, Hasan Ali, also picked up a six-wicket haul for the Birmingham Bears to deliver a win over hapless Derbyshire, also bagging a hat-trick en route. After such a dry April and May, it's June that has brought a little rain and some much-needed assistance to the medium pacers tiring of looking for a smidgeon of green on those brownish fields of spring. Sky Sports' coverage of the match between Nottinghamshire and Worcestershire at Trent Bridge struck a jolly tone, with not too many stats but plenty of boys' banter from Corky and Croft complemented by Lydia Greenway's schoolteacher-letting-her-hair-down vibe. That won't be to everyone's taste but, allied to the always fantastic camerawork, it's an approach that works for cricket that is professional but not glum; the bursts of music are unnecessarily intrusive though. There was, however, an incident that jarred. As Adam Hose and Kashif Ali were teeing off on the way to setting a winning target for the home side, a youngish bloke was picked out, very briefly, in the crowd with 'claret' (it's always 'claret') spilling from a head wound. He was attended to and was soon back in his seat and cavorting for the camera. The commentators reminded us of the importance of keeping your eye on the ball. Is that enough though? The Blast is a cavalcade of distractions, anxiety about allowing a second's worth of dead air as prevalent in T20 cricket as it is in any other form of entertainment these days. Moreover, and I accept that this may be confirmation bias, there seems to be more flat hits spearing into crowds sitting on short boundaries this season than ever. I'm not sure much can be done, but a serious incident is not a zero chance risk and I'm unconvinced that all the necessary mitigation is in place, cricket shouldn't be leaving the answer to that conjecture for future lawyers. This article is from The 99.94 Cricket Blog

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store