Kilmarnock 0-1 Hearts: Who impressed?
Cammy Devlin. Slim pickings on an afternoon where it seemed most would rather be elsewhere, but the Aussie midfielder nicks it.Still full of beans, he was the most energetic and influential of the Hearts midfield.
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BBC News
11 minutes ago
- BBC News
World Test final: SA 94-2 at tea chasing 282 to beat Australia
Update: Date: 15:26 BST Title: Post Content: However, Aiden Markram could steal Starc's thunder. The South Africa opener is 49 not out (66) and his side need 188 runs to be crowned World Test Championship with eight wickets (and more than two days) in hand. This video can not be played Markram hits Hazlewood for four Update: Date: 15:24 BST Title: Post Content: Mitchell Starc enjoyed himself with the bat earlier today, scoring an unbeaten 58 (136) as Australia advanced from 144-8 overnight to 207. This video can not be played Best shots from Starc's half-century against South Africa Update: Date: 15:22 BST Title: Post Content: Australia picked up two wickets during the afternoon session. Mitchell Starc had Ryan Rickelton caught behind by Alex Carey and Wiaan Mulder caught by Marnus Labuschagne. This video can not be played Rickelton caught at slip off Starc This video can not be played Mulder is caughy by Labuschagne off the bowling of Cummins Update: Date: 15:20 BST Title: Post Content: Thanks Mike. Good luck on your hunt for sweets. I fear you might be disappointed. All I can see is a booklet of post-it notes. Update: Date: 15:18 BST Title: Post Content: A decent session for South Africa on balance, they require 188 runs for victory. Time for the players to take some tea, time for me to see if the tennis team left any sweets hidden behind the back of their monitors. I'll hand you over to Elizabeth Botcherby. Update: Date: 24 overs Title: Tea - SA 94-2 Content: Markram 49, Bavuma 11 Mitchell Starc to bowl the last over before tea. Temba Bavuma opens the face and guides him for a single through backward point, hobbling to the non-striker's end. I think it is a hamstring issue - imagine me running at Sharpham Estate parkrun on New Year's Day 2023 (sorry if you weren't there, alas you won't have another frame of reference). Three more singles, the last of which takes Aiden Markram to 49 going into the interval. Update: Date: 15:12 BST Title: Post Content: Jim MaxwellBBC Test Match Special commentator at Lord's Lyon's doing his usual job, accurate and holding the game together but he hasn't picked up any wickets. Update: Date: 15:11 BST Title: Get Involved Content: #bbccricket, via WhatsApp on 03301231826 or text 81111 (standard network charges apply) Is Markram the first palindromically named player to open the batting at Lord's? Mike Hart Update: Date: 23 overs Title: SA 90-2 Content: We're OK to continue seemingly, and Nathan Lyon sends down a maiden, bowling to Aiden Markam. Update: Date: 15:09 BST Title: Post Content: Jim MaxwellBBC Test Match Special commentator at Lord's It only take a partnership or two and they could come back tomorrow and knock off 50 with another six wickets left Update: Date: 22 overs Title: SA 90-2 Content: Hmm, end of Mitchell Starc's over (five from it) and I'm not sure what's going on here. Temba Bavuma is on the floor, pads and trousers off (he's wearing long shorts underneath - fear not, modesty fans), and the physios seem to be working on his hamstrings. Meanwhile an Australian player is getting a massage on the boundary - Lord's is turning into a giant spa. Update: Date: 14:58 BST Title: Get Involved Content: #bbccricket, via WhatsApp on 03301231826 or text 81111 (standard network charges apply) Balance between bat and ball is perfect - makes for an exciting Test match. Ben, Dorset Can I just say how nice it is to sit and watch a proper Test match in England as a neutral. The tension is usually crushing, but this is a smashing afternoon's viewing! Mark, York Update: Date: 21 overs Title: SA 85-2 Content: 197 more runs needed Three for Temba Bavuma, edging Nathan Lyon past the slips. Usman Khawaja chases the ball down - meanwhile South Africa now need less than 200 as the over goes for five. Update: Date: 14:51 BST Title: Get Involved Content: #bbccricket, via WhatsApp on 03301231826 or text 81111 (standard network charges apply) This Test match is so enthralling. I'm supposed to be going for a run but I'm glued to my TV! Steve, Staplehurst Update: Date: 20 overs Title: SA 80-2 Content: A quieter remainder of the over, with the South African batters working Mitchell Starc around for four more runs. By the way, from the ball prior to that drop, Markram skewed a shot aerially, but it dropped a little way short of the point fielder. Meanwhile Sam Konstas is on for Steve Smith, who went off injured after dropping Temba Bavuma at slip. Update: Date: 14:48 BST Title: Post Content: Sir Alastair CookEx-England captain on BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra He was trying to push it leg-side and that generated even more pace. Update: Date: 19.2 overs Title: Bavuma dropped on two Content: SA 76-2 Put down! A short delivery from Mitchell Starc, angling into the body, which Temba Bavuma tries to drop into the leg side. The ball takes a leading edge and skews into the slips, where it's put down by Steve Smith under the helmet. Smith looks in considerable pain and heads off the field immediately - I'm not quite sure if it's his finger or his shoulder, which he's injured and has had surgery on previously. This video can not be played Smith injures finger as he drops Bavuma Update: Date: 14:44 BST Title: Get Involved Content: #bbccricket, via WhatsApp on 03301231826 or text 81111 (standard network charges apply) South Africa have now got the runs they shouldn't have let the Aussie tail get. Matt, as neutral as an England fan can be when the Aussies are playing, London Update: Date: 14:44 BST Title: Post Content: Sir Alastair CookEx-England captain on BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra This is such an important half an hour before tea, you don't want to lose wickets and the feel like you're two wickets behind Update: Date: 19 overs Title: SA 75-2 Content: Aiden Markram takes three off the first ball of Nathan Lyon's over, cutting a short ball through point. Bavuma faces the remaining five, and edges past his leg stump with a big waft.
Times
18 minutes ago
- Times
Farmer, penalty hero, next England No1? The making of James Trafford
It was night-time in Kobuleti in 2023 and in the Georgian hotel where England's young footballers were still celebrating a first European Under-21 Championship success in four decades, James Trafford was back to being as calm and composed as he had been during the most dramatic of ends to a tournament imaginable. A competition that had promised to be a showcase for the further development of Cole Palmer and Anthony Gordon had been owned by Trafford, the 6ft 6in farmer's son whose desire to not concede a goal had concluded with a stunning, 98th-minute penalty save. The 1-0 victory against Spain in the final sparked scenes of delirium, on the pitch and with his team-mates in the England dressing room afterwards, but back at the hotel where he could be regularly spotted supping his cups of tea, Trafford picked up his phone to call Joe Hart, one of his early mentors at Manchester City, to say thank you. 'It was back at the hotel, with the families, and he was phoning Joe [Hart], because it's someone he looks up to,' says the former Manchester City defender, Joleon Lescott, who was part of the coaching staff that led England to that win in Georgia. Humble, grounded and talented — that is Trafford, 22, who did not concede a single goal in six games in the Under-21 Euros. Clean sheets are now his calling card. This season, the Burnley goalkeeper kept a phenomenal 29 of them on the way to promotion. In a 46-game Championship campaign, only 16 goals went past him. Trafford's hands helped a ewe give birth to a baby lamb on a Cumbrian farm when he was 11. A further 11 years down the line, they are predicted to be the future of England. His story starts in Cockermouth, Cumbria, on a farm close to the Lake District. He still returns there every summer, and challenges his dad to push bales around the fields. Inspiration comes from memories of his parents going through periods of three hours' sleep during lambing. 'You draw on it the most during the tough times,' he said in an interview last summer with Farmers Weekly. 'You know, when it's nailing down outside and you really can't be bothered. You still have to work all day. That sort of upbringing, seeing my mum and dad graft as hard as they can, has always stuck with me.' Though Trafford wore goalkeeper gloves in the garden at family meals, to mess about in, he had a trial at Carlisle United as an outfield player. Twelve of the 18 youngsters got contracts. Trafford was not one of them. Yet his dad's decision to keep those gloves in the car paid off. 'They said, 'The goalie is ill, does anyone want to play in goal?' ' Trafford says. 'My dad used to put my gloves in the car, so I said, 'I'll go in net'. I loved it and they asked me, 'Will you stop tonight and do goalie training with the goalkeepers?' I said 'Yeah, go for it, why not?' 'I must have done all right. I've been in net ever since.' Four years later, aged 13, he signed for City. 'He's a man now but I met him in the academy at City when he was a boy,' Lescott says. 'He was in the academy and I was working on the loans. He was 15 and tall. His frame wasn't as it is now, obviously, but there was a huge belief around him.' At 18, Trafford went on his first loan, to Accrington Stanley, who were in League One at the time. 'It wasn't a bed of roses but that is the learning curve,' John Coleman, then the club's manager, says. 'I liked his physique and there was no nonsense about him. He didn't come from a Prem club with loads of airs and graces about him, as if he was doing us a favour. He wanted to play football. 'The players liked him. He used to take some of the lads to play golf in Manchester.' But the learning curve Coleman referenced was steep. In a run of three games Trafford conceded four against Wigan Athletic, three against Morecambe and five against Oxford United. 'You only learn through pain. Traff went through a little bit of a shaky period where he got a little hesitant going for crosses and he quickly got through that,' Coleman adds. He went back to City and by January was back on loan, at Bolton Wanderers. The difference in confidence was notable. 'To have that confidence at such a young age is brilliant,' says Matt Gilks, who was in the process of hanging up his gloves at Bolton and moving into coaching. 'Some start thinking, 'I hope I don't do this wrong'. He was the other way round.' In his first four games with Bolton, he kept four clean sheets. It was then that Gilks saw how hard Trafford was being pushed by City and Richard Wright and Xabier Mancisidor, their first team goalkeeping coaches. 'I sat in on the meeting with Richard after the first four games and he tore James' game apart,' Gilks says. 'That's their standards and why they're the best.' Trafford would keep another clean sheet in the EFL Trophy final at Wembley in a 4-0 win against Plymouth Argyle. He ended the season with 26 in total for Bolton — a club record. It was not just his hands catching the eye. There were 1,265 successful passes as well. 'Being at City helped a lot,' he says of his ability with his feet. 'We played out from the back from when I was 13.' Then came those Euros. 'What impressed? Just his aura, it's calm,' Lescott says. 'When he's called upon, he does what he's needed to do. In a game against Germany the ball came to him and he was outside the box and he took a touch and they were pressing him and he passed it so calmly that their players were like, 'We can't press him now, it's a waste of energy'. During the Euros, his transfer to Burnley for £15million was announced. Six days later, England were leading the under-21 final against Spain when Levi Colwill conceded a stoppage-time penalty. The prediction from Cole Palmer, on the England bench, that Trafford would save it has been well-watched, but it is the triple action of the goalkeeper that stands out; a great first save to his right from Abel Ruiz, up, then an excellent reflex save from the rebound, and then he is set once more when a third shot is blasted over the bar. 'When it was a penalty, I knew I was going to save it,' he said. Lescott admits Trafford was 'a bit giddy', but soon he was back to his usual calm self and the phone call to Hart. 'When we were away in camp he just wanted his cup of tea,' Lescottt says. 'He's an old young man and he's very good to be around.' Eleven days later, Trafford was announced as a Burnley player. Standing in the picture were his mum Alison, dad James, and sister Charlotte. 'They're why I'm a professional footballer,' he said. 'I moved away from home at 12 but still came home every week.' He celebrated his big move by helping wrap fleeces and clipping sheep on the farm. 'The first time I did lambing was aged 11. I had to put my hand up and pull. That was far too disgusting.' His first touch as a Premier League goalkeeper was to pick the ball out of the net after Erling Haaland had scored. It was a difficult first season. The Burnley manager, Vincent Kompany, maintained that his young goalkeeper would go on to play for England, yet with ten games to go, Trafford was taken out of the first team and did not play for the rest of the season. He would have moved to Newcastle United last summer, with terms agreed between the clubs, but for Newcastle's issues in complying with Premier League financial rules. They are back in talks with Burnley for him now. 'I wanted to move because the club which I was close to going with was a good fit,' he told Ben Foster, the former England goalkeeper, on his podcast Fozcast. 'I wanted to move. I was moody but I still worked extremely hard.' Scott Parker, the Burnley manager, said: 'There's no denying at the beginning of the season, the work we all had to do with Traff and where he was. I've seen someone mature. There's no denying that he's a world-class keeper.' Clean sheets became almost monotonous in their regularity. He went ten games and 910 minutes without conceding a goal. He saved two penalties in one game against Sunderland, while even his seven yellow cards, mostly for time-wasting, gave a growing sense that the next England goalkeeper is emerging. 'The one thing about good England goalkeepers is they tend to be durable,' Coleman says. 'Gordon Banks, Ray Clemence, Peter Shilton, David Seaman and [Jordan] Pickford. It's Traff now, and he looks like he's going to be Jordan Pickford's successor.'
Daily Mail
19 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Fourth-tier Swedish club force global change in offside law after finding genius 'loophole' in rules
The international offside law has been updated after a fourth-tier Swedish club exposed a 'loophole' in the regulations - but the flaw in the rules still exists. Torns IF, a club from the small settlement of Stangby, caught the attention of world football in the summer of 2023 when they released a video revealing the problem. The traditional rules dictated that offsides would be judged based off when the passer first made contact with the ball in their final touch. In the vast majority of scenarios, this is no issue at all because when a player typically kicks a football, the 'first contact' is also their 'last contact'. But Torns demonstated that if a player could scoop up the ball and balance it on their foot, a team-mate could theoretically run well beyond the defence and not count as offside even if they released a pass multiple seconds later in the same 'touch'. It is hard to ever envision that scenario happening in a game due to the pressure players are under, but Torns wrote to IFAB, football's lawmakers, over the issue. Now, almost two years down the line, IFAB have replied to thank the club and reveal that they have updated the rules of the game. Torns IF, from a place with an approximated population of around 2,000 people, have technically helped change the rules of the beautiful game for us all. But not so fast. The problem has not really been solved. IFAB's updated rules read: 'The first point of contact of the 'play' or 'touch' of the ball should still be used; however, when the ball is thrown by the goalkeeper, the last point of contact should be used.' IFAB have only updated the law applying to goalkeepers but theoretically, Torns' 'scoop pass' way of circumventing the law still stands. The club wrote on X: 'We did it. Torns IF changed the rules of football. After the introduction of the Torn pass and lengthy e-mail correspondence with IFAB, the offside law has been amended. We are immensely proud of our contribution to the beautiful game.' But they added in a separate post: 'IFAB's distinction between passes is hard to understand. The clarification of the offside law only applies to keeper throws and not to related passes, e.g. scoop and swivel passes. But, it's a win for us. We changed the rules, and some types of the Torn Pass can still be used.' Writing in 2023, Torns IF proudly revealed their cunning trick: 'Torns IF have developed an ingenious method to create one-on-ones with the goalkeeper. 'It's based on a rule found on page 93 in the Laws of the Game stating that the first point of contact of the 'play' or 'touch' of the ball' should be used when judging offside. Groundbreaking. 'This is amusing and interesting. In terms of the "spirit" of the Law, this is obviously offside and, in terms of the Law itself, the "balancing" of the ball on the foot is a different "play" from the movement which gives the ball momentum to move. 'We will review if the wording of Law 11 needs changing in light of this "theoretical" situation.'
