Brentford lose out on highly-rated coach as first-choice Thomas Frank replacement
Brentford's first-choice replacement for Thomas Frank, who has been appointed Tottenham Hotspur manager, has also departed with the Dane.
First-team assistant coach Justin Cochrane was the Bees' preferred candidate to replace Frank, but has opted to move with him to Spurs.
Frank was appointed Spurs manager on Thursday and will also be joined by head of first-team performance Chris Haslam and first-team analyst Joe Newton.
Cochrane arrived at Brentford in 2022 to become their head of coaching, and in March joined Thomas Tuchel's backroom staff at England.
Had he chosen to stay at Brentford, it would be his first lead role at a senior side.
The former England youth international was previously head of player development at Manchester United and has held numerous coaching roles within youth development at England.
Frank has replaced Ange Postecoglou at Tottenham after the club moved to dismiss the Australian after he won the Europa League but finished 17th in the Premier League.
Frank, 51, was at Brentford for seven years, taking the club from the Championship and establishing themselves as a Premier League side.
Brentford had considered a move for Kieran McKenna after Ipswich's relegation from the Premier League but they believe the 39-year-old has bigger aspirations within the Premier League.
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BBC News
29 minutes ago
- BBC News
'Racing's Ryder Cup' - Scott revels in Ascot aura
"It's such a special meeting, it's like no other week in racing - you could sort of equate it to FA Cup finals, Ryder Cups and things like that."Newmarket trainer George Scott and jockey Callum Shepherd proved a winning combination when Isle Of Jura won the Hardwicke Stakes at last year's Royal Ascot and they can't wait to get back there for this week's expects to saddle nine or 10 runners from his Eve Lodge Stables yard over the course of the four days and is upbeat about the chances of more success."I'm just excited to take a bunch of horses there in this form - this is the first time we've taken a proper team," he told BBC Look East."Of course, that moment with Isle Of Jura is very special but we move on. We'll be looking to try and do it again in some capacity. As long as the horses turn up healthy, then we should be OK." Scott became a trainer 10 years ago and 2024 was his most successful to date with 48 winners at home and abroad, including Isle Of Jura's was an especially sweet moment for Shepherd, whose friend and fellow jockey Stefano Cherchi died after a fall in Australia a couple of months earlier - and who had been replaced as rider of Ambiente Friendly, which finished second, for the 2024 Derby at Epsom."It's the best moment I've ever had on a horse, the best moment I've ever had in sport," said the 27-year-old Shepherd."The buzz was unlike anything I've ever experienced and he set the narrative, set the tone for the second half of the season last year where we were just incredibly successful. That followed into the winter with success in Dubai, Bahrain, the German St Leger, to name just a few. "That day just felt like the start of something big. I can't explain how much we all enjoyed it together. It was magic." 'We understand each other' Former public schoolboy Shepherd has a rival for sporting glory within his own family - his golfing brother Laird won the British Amateur Championship in it is his relationship with Scott which is helping progress his career and it is one that he believes has "grown and got stronger" since they first began working together "four or five years ago"."We really do have an excellent working relationship. We've had success all over the world now and we understand each other very well," he said."He knows how I like to ride and obviously likes that. It suits our horses, suits our approach to racing. Now we don't really need to say a lot to each other before races. He knows I've done my homework and I've got to know the horses as much as I can - it works pretty well." Scott believes there is a "basis of trust" underpinning their working he added: "We knit together nicely. We're lucky to have Callum. It's really been the perfect pair. He's on this upward trajectory for the first time, as am I, and I'm really enjoying the fact that we're doing it together."Callum's hard on himself, he's his own strongest critic and if things haven't gone to plan, if I've prepared the horse wrong or run it in the wrong race, he's not snapping back at me - and similarly, I wouldn't be too critical of him. It's a give-take type of thing." Scott's leading contenders Among Scott's horses for Ascot, he has high hopes for Staya in Wednesday's Queen Mary Stakes, a five-furlong race for two-year-old fillies."She's only run once and won very impressively at Yarmouth. She's by Havana Grey who's doing fantastically [at stud], especially with his two-year-olds. She's one of the favourites [for the Queen Mary], near the head of the market off one run, so we're hoping for a big run from her."He is also keen to see how Gaga Mate will fare in the Windsor Castle Stakes on the same day, having only recently joined the yard."He seems very uncomplicated. You can see with him, he's moving well. Everything's sort of straightforward with him," said Scott."The more horses go into the big meetings, the more pressure. But 10 runners spread over five days is very manageable. It's really amazing when you think about someone like Willie Mullins, who takes 50 or 60 horses to the Cheltenham Festival."Royal Ascot begins on Tuesday, when Scott hopes to have runners in the King Charles III Stakes, Wolferton Stakes and Copper House Handicap."I go into it with a lot of excitement. There's a lot of live chances," said Shepherd."I've got some good rides for other people as well, other than George, and I think the confidence you take from having been there and done it before puts you in a good position to go and do it again."And once you've done it once, you want to do it again, believe me."
BBC News
29 minutes ago
- BBC News
Football commentator Tony Jones retires after 50-year career
The talents of the world's best footballers can often leave those watching for decades, Tony Jones has been putting them into words for audiences around the scrambles, furious bust-ups and matches played in sub-zero temperatures: the veteran TV commentator has seen it career has taken him from cub reporter at the Chester Observer to being the voice behind some of the World Cup, Premier League and FA Cup's most iconic the broadcasters he has worked for are Sky Sports, UEFA and Premier League Productions, which streams the English top flight around the now the 67-year-old from Suffolk has hung up his microphone, having ended on a high covering the UEFA Champions League final on 31 May. While many commentators forensically record the details of each match they cover, Jones does not."How many games have I commentated on? I haven't got a clue," he he does recall is his first football reporting shift: a fixture at Chester City in the came more regularly when he joined Anglia Television, ITV's station in the East of was first deployed as a TV commentator for Ipswich Town's 2-2 draw with Wolverhampton Wanderers in December 1995. For Jones, who spent 40 years living in Norwich, it has all been a blur since."I know some commentators do keep lists of the games they've covered, but I tend to park it and move on to the next one," he says."If you're prepping for Bodø/Glimt and Roma on a Thursday, and then you've got to look at Aston Villa versus Brentford on a Saturday, you can't really spend too much time dwelling on what's gone on before." Some games do live long in the memory, remembers the rush of watching Southampton striker Shane Long score the fastest goal in Premier League history - at 7.69 seconds - in April also recalls Norwich City's remarkable comeback against Middlesbrough in January 2005 as one of the most thrilling games he watched. "There are some players who make you take notice of what they can do, too," adds Jones, a Wrexham fan who moved to Lowestoft in 2021."As a Welshman, certainly Gareth Bale for his outstanding pace."I saw Messi play when he was 17 and you could see then he was an outstanding player."[Cristiano] Ronaldo always had the ability to produce big goals on big days; big occasions." Jones insists commentators are privileged to have "the best seat in the house", but one stadium holds a special place in his heart."I've always loved Goodison Park," he reveals, referencing the stadium that will no longer host senior men's football but will be the new home of Everton's women's ground's TV gantry is notorious for the precarious journey across its roof to access says: "That was an experience in its own right, but it was always such a great position to view from and the atmosphere was always special."These days, the needs of TV probably override everything else and the commentary positions will be discussed between the architects of the new stadium and the TV companies."But clearly for somewhere like Goodison, that was very different. They weren't thinking about that in the 1890s when they built that stand." Jones is less keen on the London Stadium, home of West Ham United since 2016. "It's just not really a football ground," he says. "You tend to be a long way back from the action."I wonder if West Ham will look back and regret the decision to move there. It certainly lacks the atmosphere of the old Upton Park."There have been plenty of other "strange ones" over the years, Jones says."The old Doncaster Rovers ground, Belle Vue: you had to watch from behind the goal."I might as well have been looking at a TV monitor in the studio for the value of watching the game from that angle." Sometimes getting to the ground has been the problem for him, however.A trip to Blackburn Rovers to cover their fixture against West Ham was thrown into chaos when heavy snow caused the cancellation of his flight from Norwich to the elements on the A14 instead, Jones took a call from Premier League officials."They said 'Is this game going to be on?' and I said 'Not a chance,'" he says."But when I got to Ewood Park, it was a green oasis. It was remarkable how the pitch had been cleared."They decided to play it, despite the temperature being -5C (23F)." As for his commentaries, Jones says: "I'm sure there have been numerous occasions when I've got things wrong."When the ball is bouncing around in the penalty area, there might be two or three players on the ball at the same time and you might not know who gets the final touch in."But experience tells you to buy yourself time; to just say the goal has been scored and then wait for the replay."Nothing could have prepared Jones for the challenges of working during the Covid-19 pandemic, however. Grounds were closed to fans as football limped through the end of the 2019-20 says he was fortunate to be among a select few broadcasters who could still attend matches, but that it was a "surreal" environment."It was difficult for us because we need the noise of the stadium," he explains."I'm sure for the players as well it must've been very difficult to find the same motivation that they would've had with a big crowd. "That extra 0.01% that maybe gets them over the line, that gives them the opportunity to take on a defender and beat a defender." Jones insists the role of commentator remains vital, despite the rise of influencers and YouTubers hosting watch-along hopes his work helped listeners around the world understand the value of the job."You occasionally hear people say 'I'd rather watch the game without commentary,'" he sighs. "Well, if you tried doing that I think you'd lose so much."But it is a role Jones is now preparing to walk away could not have ended his stellar career in finer fashion, though, watching Paris St-Germain thrash Inter Milan 5-0 to become champions of Europe for the first is one of many happy memories that he will hold on to in the next chapter of his life, to be spent travelling with his wife and doting on their six insists: "It's not really a job; I've always said this. "It's a fun thing to do and it's even better to be paid for it, certainly for someone who's had a love of football since a child."He is quick to stress the job is not a simple one, though, with "a lot of hard work" going into it."I've had a good career, a long career that I've enjoyed so much of, but the time is right to go on and do other things." Follow East of England news on X, Instagram and Facebook: BBC Beds, Herts & Bucks, BBC Cambridgeshire, BBC Essex, BBC Norfolk, BBC Northamptonshire or BBC Suffolk.
Telegraph
40 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Farokh Engineer: I crashed the car as George Best and I were chatting up a blonde
The difficult part about writing up an interview with Farokh Engineer is choosing where to start. Do you go with one of his stories about George Best, Denis Compton, Sir Donald Bradman, Muhammad Ali or Sir Alex Ferguson, to name just a few of the sporting legends we chat about? Or how about this one. 'You know Pele once slept in that room?' he says pointing at an upstairs window of his detached house in Cheshire. 'I met him at a dinner in Stoke organised by Gordon Banks. He was playing Mere Golf Club the next day, which is right next to my house, so I said: 'Come over and stay.' 'My wife took him up a cup of tea in the morning, he was very nice. Then we played golf with Bobby.' With Bobby? 'Yes, Bobby Charlton.' It was a throwaway anecdote at the end of nearly two hours packed full of stories tumbling out of the 87-year-old Engineer, fuelled by regular cups of coffee brought to us in the garden by his wife Julie, and with their toddler grandson running around, playing at our feet in the warm sunshine with the family dog. Engineer made the north-west of England his home almost 60 years ago when he joined Lancashire as one of county cricket's pioneering overseas players and the dash and twinkle in the eye have not dimmed with age. True, two new knees and an upcoming heart-valve operation would make hooking Wes Hall off his nostrils a little more difficult these days than in 1967 when he almost made a hundred before lunch for India against West Indies. 'No helmet and just a pink plastic box that wasn't going to do anything,' he says about that innings. 'I loved fast bowling. The quicker they came, the quicker they went, that was my theory.' Indian players were paid 50 rupees a day back then for facing Hall and Charlie Griffith. The mind boggles at what Engineer, the first Indian poster boy of cricket who oozed flair and panache, would earn now in the IPL as an opening bat and keeper. 'Sachin Tendulkar once told me: 'If you were playing today, you would be by far the highest earner.'' Engineer played 46 Tests between 1961 and 1975 and appeared twice in the Rest of the World XI series against England in 1970 that later had Test status withdrawn. He was at Lancashire between 1968 and 1976, signing alongside his great friend Clive Lloyd. In a golden era of domestic one-day cricket, Engineer won the Gillette Cup four times and the Sunday League twice. 'I know he wears glasses but sign him and you won't regret it' 'I recommended a player called Clive Hubert Lloyd, actually I was talking to him only yesterday, and Cyril Washbrook was the chairman of cricket at Lancashire and he said: 'But Farokh, he wears glasses.' I just said: 'Mr Washbrook, I know he wears glasses but you sign him and you won't regret it.' And he was my room-mate for over 10 years and we had a great partnership. We travelled everywhere together and, oh, gosh, I don't know how we're still alive; we were both party animals. 'My friendship with George Best grew at that time too because he had just come over from Ireland.' George Best, was he a star by then? 'No, nor was I really. Time and again I used to leave him at midnight and say, 'George, come on, time to go' and he would say 'Rooky', that was my nickname because Farokh was too difficult for an Irishman to say. He would say: 'No, you go home.' He would go to bed at 2-3am and the next day score goals; genius. 'My best story with him was that I had this car sponsored by Quicks, a Ford garage near Old Trafford. I had a red Ford Escort – Lancashire colours. After training, I said: 'Come on, George, I will give you a lift in my new car.' We were passing through Stretford and stopped at the traffic lights. George started chatting up this blonde next to the traffic lights. He was Rogue No 1, I was Rogue No 2. We were having a giggle and then I started the car and went straight up the arse of the car in front. I had taken my eyes off the road. I said to the driver: 'Sorry my fault, but after all you don't see many blondes in Bombay.'' A hearty laugh follows that one. Despite the stories of a life that belongs to a different era, you just know Engineer would love playing now. Not once does he imply it was better in his day and he is hugely complimentary towards the current India team, now in England and preparing for the first Test at Headingley on June 20. But despite his allegiance to India, Lancashire is in his blood, and he speaks with as much pride about the Red Rose as playing for his country of birth. 'The club have been great to me. They have named a suite at the ground after me, what an honour. The people of Lancashire have been so kind, too. I was caught speeding twice by this young cop, and both times he let me go. 'My dad would kill me if I gave you a ticket,' he said. 'I'm feeling great for 87 but so many of my colleagues have been dropping like ninepins. Peter Lever just died and so I'm very grateful to God for life. I've always lived my life. I've always enjoyed my life. I've never just existed, and even at this age I'm active.' 'I was a bloody lunatic' Engineer ran a textile business in Manchester after retirement and was an ICC match referee for a while and briefly worked for Test Match Special, where he thinks he encountered racism for the only time in his long life in England. 'I thought I was doing well. Fred Trueman, Brian Johnston and Christopher Martin-Jenkins were really for me but there was one person who always put me down. And I just wondered, was it racism? I never experienced any racism on the field. 'I don't know the ins and outs of what happened at Yorkshire but Bumble [David Lloyd] was accused of being a racist in all that. I'm telling you, there's not a racist bone in Bumble's body. I know, because he was my team-mate for many years.' Engineer is an ambassador for Veterans Cricket India, run by his businessman friend Anand Nair, that holds tournaments all over the world for age groups from over-40s upwards. The Brylcreem boy of India in the 1960s can still pull in a commercial deal. 'They used to like it because I batted in a cap and so my hair was out. Palmolive and other companies offered much better money, but my contract was with Brylcreem and it was prestigious because of its history with Compton and Keith Miller.' There is a symmetry to the Compton association. A seven-year-old Engineer was in the stands at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai when Compton played in a Ranji Trophy match in 1945. 'He had just taken a fresh pack of chewing gum out and he saw me among the huge crowd, and he said: 'Would you like a chewing gum?' I was too nervous to say yes or no, and he just tossed it to me, and I caught it. 'Oh', he said, 'good catch.' And when I got to know Compo later, I said: 'I used to worship you.' That was one of the advantages of coming to England and playing county cricket. I met all my heroes. I was a voracious reader of cricket books and I used to read all their life stories – Compton, Godfrey Evans, Len Hutton.' Engineer was a keeper who would go for every catch, and dive around despite his size, which was bigger than the average keeper at the time. He kept to the great Indian spin quartet of Bishan Bedi, Erapalli Prasanna, Bhagwath Chandrasekhar and Srinivas Venkataraghavan, and to Brian Statham at Lancashire. 'I was a bloody lunatic. I used to go for second-slip catches. I just thought, whatever a wicket-keeper can reach with his gloves on is the wicket-keeper's catch. When Jack Bond was captain at Lancs, the first slip was called Butlin's, you know, you go to Butlin's for a holiday because you never got a ball. 'I covered a huge area, and I enjoyed it. That was my domain. I wanted to keep wicket to Brian Statham, such a nice man. He said publicly if I was behind the stumps throughout his career he would have finished with twice as many victims. I said: 'George [Statham's nickname], you must have been drunk when you said that.' Because he had Godfrey Evans, who was my hero. 'In those days English bowlers used to pick the seam, it was almost allowed, with the result that Statham's inswinger when it pitched middle and off, coming in, I used to charge down the leg side because I would get so many leg-slip catches which were four runs before that. I got a couple of stumpings off him down the leg side. When the ball was not carrying I would stand up to the stumps. 'We were in the Cayman Islands once with Fred Trueman. It was past his time.' Engineer now breaks into his very good Trueman impression. ''I'm the quickest bowler in t'world.' And anyway I got a couple of stumpings off him. 'Stop it', Fred said. 'People will think I'm a slow bowler'. Legends of the game 'These people, just legends of the game. I'm so lucky… Chandrasekhar, Prasanna, Bedi, Venkat. The other three were pretty easy to keep to but Chandrasekhar was very interesting to keep to because he bowled about 62mph. Normally he spun the ball viciously both ways, without knowing himself which way the ball was going three quarters of the time because he was a polio victim, his wrist bent a bit further. 'Time and again he bowled a batsman with a googly and I said: 'Chandra, you tried to bowl a leg-spinner there, didn't you?' And he'd say: 'Yeah, yeah.' He was a very humble man. And I think he was the greatest spinner in the world. I could read him because I saw him grip the ball and saw the way it left his fingers. I saw it in the air and off the pitch. For me, it was like a split-second computerised effect because I could read him.' Engineer feels that '99 per cent' of modern keepers have technical problems. 'In T20 you can get away with a batsman who can keep but not in Test cricket. You've got to have a proper keeper, not a backstop. I've watched modern keepers and they get up too soon. They snatch the ball, which is OK standing back. Some people only half-squat. I found you had to be right down, so it was much easier to stay low to go for diving catches or catches that don't carry. It is much easier to come up than to come up and go down again – you lose a fraction of a second. So when they are playing [in the] sub-continent and the ball is lower and slower, they struggle.' Keeping was in Engineer's blood. He describes his childhood growing up in Bombay with his older brother Darius, who was a good club cricketer, and how keeping to him for the first time opened up his path in life. In the evenings after school he would throw a soft ball against a corrugated wall so it could bounce in any direction, and try to catch it. 'I went to Don Bosco School and my best friend was Shashi Kapoor, who would go on to be one of the great Bollywood actors. We were sitting on a bench in class yapping away one day when suddenly I saw this huge wooden duster hurled 100 miles per hour at us by the teacher. I'm telling you, he should have been a cover point for India. I think he would have hit the stumps every time. 'Instead of getting the hero roles he would have ended up in horror movies' 'Anyway, I saw this duster hurtling straight toward his [Kapoor's] face, and suddenly my sixth sense kicked in, I just stretched my hand out and caught the duster literally an inch from his face. I used to tease him that instead of getting the hero roles in films he would have ended up in horror movies if I hadn't caught that duster.' Engineer is still celebrated when he goes back to India every year, often when a birthday party is held in his honour. He was presented with a lifetime achievement award by the BCCI during the first England Test in Hyderabad last year but his links to Mumbai have faded. He sold his house on trendy Cuffe Parade years ago. 'I sold it for tuppence, and today it is probably worth about £40 million. The Ambanis live next door. I never imagined property would just go sky high all of a sudden. So, yeah, whenever I see that property, I feel a bit sick.' While we are chatting, Engineer's wife is searching for a Baggy Green cap given to him as a gift by Bradman, which excites the photographer but is somewhere in storage. Instead he poses with a silver bat awarded for being top run scorer in a series against England. There is a quote from Bradman on the back of Engineer's autobiography that describes him as one of the 'game's great ambassadors on and off the field'. The respect was formed during a tour to Australia. 'We were playing in Adelaide and I slipped over wearing rubber-soled shoes. Sir Don Bradman came into our dressing room and gave me a big telling off but invited me to his house for dinner. I had a date with Miss Adelaide that night, so I gave her number to one of my team-mates and told him to have a good time. 'I went to the Bradmans' house and just wanted a beer and a steak but they gave me carrot juice and a vegetarian meal, thinking that's what Indians ate and drank. Anyway, Sir Don gets out a projector and we start watching films of his innings. It is a bit odd, but he's Don Bradman. What do you say? He told me about this shot and that shot he played and said I was too flamboyant. As I left I gave him a gift and he went away and came back with a cap, his baggy green.' Engineer will be at Old Trafford for the India Test match in July. The struggles of his club this summer – coach and captain sacked and the team languishing in division two – have upset him. 'My heart bleeds. I can't bear to even open the papers. There is something radically wrong that needs to be rectified because Lancs are a great club. Bottom of the second division, I just can't believe it.' He thinks the retirement of Virat Kohli will help England but describes this India team as among the best to tour this country. 'They could probably pick two teams that would give England a run for their money.' A couple of weeks after our interview, I call to check on how the heart operation went. 'Yes, all good,' he laughs. 'I'm still alive and kicking.' The storyteller still has more tales to tell.
