Dundee United 'still in the early stages' of transfer business
Manager Jim Goodwin confirmed Dundee United are "not finished" in the transfer market after he praised the "great business" the club have done already.United kicked-off their pre-season with a 3-0 win against Highland League side Brechin City on Saturday."We felt it was really worthwhile," Goodwin told club media."Obviously, the players have only been back training for about 10 days, they've been working extremely hard and the plan was always just to get everybody in the group 45 minutes at least and we managed to do that."I thought the first half was really good, really good tempo in the game and scored some good goals. The second half was a little bit slow in possession. We didn't really create enough clear goalscoring opportunities, albeit we had two or three good half chances."The whole thing about these pre-season fixtures is the application and the professionalism of the players. We don't want to lose any games. We want the defenders to get in good habits early, keeping clean sheets, doing the basics well."We want the forward players and the attacking players to be creative and to get some end product out of the game. So, I thought overall it was a really good end to a really positive week for us."We're a very new group and obviously, we're not finished in terms of the recruitment process either. "I think we've done some great business up to now, managed to get some really good quality players in but we know that we are at the early stage of that still."It sometimes doesn't happen quite as quickly as what we would like but when you're speaking to good quality players, they tend to have good options as well. "Delighted with what we've managed to do up to now, really pleased with how the players have returned to pre-season, looking really fit, looking really sharp and we'll just gradually build on this as we go forward.
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The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
‘I was angry at the world': Damon Hill on pain of his father's death and how it fuelled his rise
'It was awful and to this day I feel the tension that I experienced,' Damon Hill says of the moment he heard on television in November 1975 that his father, Graham, the two-time Formula One world champion, had died in a plane accident. Hill had to leave the living room to find his mother and tell her what had happened. 'It was like having a nuclear bomb and I dropped it on my mum. Of course it was accentuated by the fact I was 15, which is when you haven't got the defences to deal with it.' The extent of Hill's devastation is captured in a moving new Sky documentary which tracks his decision to follow his father into motor racing and eventually match him by winning the F1 championship in 1996. Early on in the film his wife, Georgie, remembers how he seemed to be one of the saddest people she had ever met. 'I was angry at the world,' Hill tells me. 'I was furious. I'd had a belly-full of growing up as the son of a famous racing driver and people being interested in me because of that. I just wanted a normal life where people didn't give a damn about that and I could establish who and what I was. Georgie was unimpressed by whoever my dad might have been, and by the racing world, so she was an oasis.' Six months after they started seeing each other Georgie suddenly realised why he seemed so bereft. They drove past the graveyard where Hill's father was buried and, finally, the dam broke. 'I remember it like yesterday,' Hill says. 'I thought we were going on a trip down memory lane and I'd show her where I used to live. It hit me completely unexpectedly. Until then I had moments where I wept about my dad but they were rare. But there's something about crying which soothes and having a good old sob is a good thing.' In the film he speaks of his fleeting desire to have been on the plane with his father. Death, at 15, seemed easier than life. 'I felt that immediately after the accident,' Hill says. 'I was very upset and I wanted to be with my dad. If that meant being on the plane that would have been fine. I spent a lot of time next to my dad, in the co-pilot's seat, and I loved being with him because he was a fascinating guy.' Did Hill have counselling? 'The closest we got to that was a day or two after he died. My school chaplain arrived at our house and wanted to console me in some way. I was really touched but there was no grief counselling in those days. People hadn't even heard of it.' As a kid Hill had never wanted to be a racing driver as he was smitten with motorbikes. But in his mid‑20s he resolved to follow his father into F1. 'It came from a fairly juvenile sense of loss and attempting to recover something of the past. We had lost a life, and our world, and I wanted to try and recapture that in some way.' He told Georgie that, one day, he would become world champion. Hill laughs. 'I was always saying daft things like that. But I am determined and you need lots of determination to get up that ladder in F1.' Hill was 30 when his F1 career began in 1991 as a test driver for Williams. His big break came two years later when he was promoted to race for the team alongside the newly signed Alain Prost, then a triple world champion, who replaced Nigel Mansell. There is an astonishing, if quaintly amusing, scene in the documentary where Hill films Georgie as she reads the contract as it spools out of their old fax machine. He keeps the video rolling even though he can barely believe that Frank Williams had stipulated that Hill should pay for his own flights and accommodation. Hill smiles and says: 'Back then we thought faxes were space age technology.' But he adds insight into the machinations of F1. 'Frank was particularly clever and I'd said to him, because I wasn't terribly impressed by how much he was going to pay me: 'What about the travel?' He said: 'We'll pay for it.' I said: 'What about Georgie?' And he said: 'OK. We'll fix that.' Now I've got to pay for my own travel! So you realise very quickly in Formula One you've got to pay attention to the detail.' I tell Hill how interviewing Williams turned out to be one of my tougher gigs. He grins sympathetically. 'I could never have a conversation with Frank. People used to say they'd spoken to Frank and it was all lovely and I'd go: 'Honestly?' I couldn't get two words out of him and it would dry up and he'd stare at his tea. I'd say: 'Do you want me to go now?'' Hill showed incredible resolve, and great skill, to become world champion for Williams. But, near the end of that 1996 season, Williams coolly announced that Hill would be replaced the following year by Heinz‑Harald Frentzen. The team were about to begin a partnership with BMW and employing a German driver made business sense. Hill was axed but he clinched the championship anyway and left Williams as the team's second most successful driver, with 21 race victories, behind Mansell. 'You can't condemn people for having to do that when they've got a massive company to run,' Hill says. 'I think he did feel something – not remorse, but he was uncomfortable having done that to me. Latterly, he said something like: 'We should have kept you on.' It was a little late, but nevertheless appreciated. He said some nice things about me after I'd gone. He called me a tough bastard, which is a compliment from Frank.' The documentary offers fascinating insights into Michael Schumacher and Ayrton Senna. Archive footage shows how Schumacher was irked by Hill's challenge. There is a scene where, after Hill won a race, Schumacher slaps his rival's cap. It is meant to look playful but it's a petty gesture tinged with frustration and anger. 'He was embarrassed and didn't know how to respond to someone who had beaten him,' Hill says of Schumacher. 'It was an awkward moment. I tried to have conversations with him and it wasn't possible. Our values were different. 'I was nowhere near as good as him, and I'm never going to pretend that I was. But having him as a foil brought out the most I could get out of myself, and I know what it's like to get driven absolutely to the maximum. Sometimes I was a match for him but, aged 36, it was hard. He was 26 and I was fighting the clock.' Georgie reveals how Senna, who had switched to Williams to drive alongside Hill, spoke especially kindly to her just before he died at Imola in 1994. He told her not to worry about Damon and reassured her that he would do well with Williams. 'We had the loss of [the Austrian driver] Roland Ratzenberger the day before. Everyone was conscious of that awful presence and I think he wanted to reassure Georgie about me and the team. It's very poignant.' Hill was a pallbearer at Senna's funeral and the memory still moves him today. 'Oh my God,' he says, 'ambassadors and presidents had come from all over South America, all over the world, to this state funeral. This was not a racing driver. This was someone who was the best thing about Brazil. At a time when they needed a hero, he was their leading light. He represented hope for Brazil and still does that today.' Does any driver today carry anything like the hinterland of Senna and other F1 greats? 'It's too early to say. They're still very young, in their 20s, but I think back to when you had James Hunt and Niki Lauda, Prost and Senna. They seemed different men. But that's maybe because I'm getting older and policemen are getting younger.' Is Max Verstappen approaching the heights of Senna and Schumacher? 'Yes, he's in that mould. Max is disciplined and honed, trained to fight. But the whole point of the sport is to be up against a foe or nemesis who defines you. I don't think F1 has the same gravitas as the era we're talking about. From their perspective this is serious combat – but I don't know if anybody's matched up to Max's seriousness yet. Until they do, he hasn't got the foil. In the past you had to be a tough old boot to take on Alan Jones, Lauda and Hunt when he was on fire. They were brutally serious. 'Max and [43-year-old] Fernando Alonso are the same. Max always gives it 100%. Same with Fernando, who is cunning and clever. I wouldn't want to play cards with him.' Which of the younger drivers have impressed him? 'Oscar Piastri is interesting. He has a calmness and confidence in himself that's not overstated. Charles Leclerc is super-talented, super-quick but he's maybe too comfortable in the Ferrari. Carlos Sainz Jr [who lost his seat at Ferrari to Lewis Hamilton] has got that mettle which makes him fight in whatever position you put him in.' And Lando Norris, who is locked in battle for the championship with Piastri, his team-mate, and Verstappen? 'Lando is very talented,' Hill says. 'He's gifted and smart, but I don't sense he's concerned enough that he might lose it. I would be worried he's going to come off second-best to Oscar. I don't know if he realises the consequences. You just can't be beaten.' In his quest to heal himself, and match his father, Hill would not be beaten in 1996. He recalls how, before a crucial race at Suzuka in Japan, he said a few words of prayer to Senna. 'An extraordinary thing happened,' Hill says as he remembers driving magisterially, like he had never driven before, as if he had found a mysterious way to channel the brilliance of Senna. 'I have no real explanation for what happened other than we are constrained by our conscious brain to be cautious and our limbic system is much more capable than we ever give it credit for. 'If we can just get ourselves out of the way, we can do extraordinary things, and making that little prayer freed me up. I couldn't find any other way of going quicker. I was going to get beaten by Michael. I wouldn't say it was an out-of-body experience because I was there in the car, but my hands and my feet were just completely free. It was like someone had suddenly taken off the handbrake.' Hill became world champion, at the age of 36, and he says: 'I'm proud of myself for having achieved it, and it's a great accolade to get to the top of any sport. I'm constantly reminded of the respect that accords but I paid my dues. I put myself through a lot to get there.' HILL will air on Sky and streaming service NOW from Wednesday 2 July.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Wimbledon briefing: Day one preview, order of play and must-see match
Wimbledon is set to get under way with a bumper schedule of action in blazing sunshine at the All England Club. Women's world number one Aryna Sabalenka and defending men's champion Carlos Alcaraz start their campaigns on Monday while 14 British players take to the court hoping to thrill the home crowd. Here, the PA news agency breaks down what to expect on day one of the Championships. Brit watch British tennis fans are spoiled for choice on Monday as 14 of the 23 home players in the singles draws take to the court. Emma Raducanu faces Welsh 17-year-old Mimi Xu in the day's 'battle of Britain' while British number two Katie Boulter and number three Sonay Kartal have their work cut out against seeds Paula Badosa and Jelena Ostapenko respectively. Sixteen-year-olds Hannah Klugman and Mika Stojsavljevic are also against seeds – former US Open finalist Leylah Fernandez and Ashlyn Krueger respectively – while Harriet Dart plays Hungary's Dalma Galfi. In the men's draw British number two Jacob Fearnley takes on hot Brazilian prospect Joao Fonseca while Cameron Norrie faces Roberto Bautista Agut. Debutant Oliver Tarvet, former boys' champion Henry Searle, Billy Harris, Arthur Fery and Oliver Crawford also take to the court on Monday. Raducanu plays down expectations Emma Raducanu made the fourth round last year in her biggest moment since winning the US Open in 2021 but this time is dealing with some difficult personal news, a niggling back problem and a very tough section of the draw. But the 22-year-old is determined to enjoy her time in SW19. 'Truthfully I don't expect much from myself this year (at Wimbledon),' she said. 'I know I've just been dealing with certain things. I just want to go out there and embrace the moment. I want to embrace the occasion. 'Right now I'm just happy to be at Wimbledon. I think that is a great motivation to just keep going and deal with everything else afterwards.' King Carlos eyes hat-trick Carlos Alcaraz is full of confidence as he starts his bid for a third successive Wimbledon men's singles title – a feat managed only by Bjorn Borg, Pete Sampras, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic in the Open era. The Spaniard comes into the tournament in superb form, with his 18th-straight victory securing the title at Queen's to follow up successes in Rome and, memorably, at the French Open. The 22-year-old, who opens play on Centre Court against veteran Italian Fabio Fognini, said: 'Obviously I feel a lot of confidence. But right now I'm not thinking about who I could join if I win three Wimbledons in a row.' Match of the day Katie Boulter's hopes of a long Wimbledon run were handed a major early obstacle when she was drawn against Spanish ninth seed Paula Badosa. But the 28-year-old is confident she can give anyone a match on Wimbledon's lawns. 'I do feel like I can play very well on these courts and I don't think that a seed is going to want to see me in their part of the draw either for a first round,' Boulter said. 'I'm very, very excited. I feel like it's a totally different situation for me coming in this year. I'm not seeded. I'm kind of like a dark horse and I like that feeling. I do like the fact that I can go out and swing free and I've got nothing to lose.' Order of play Centre Court (from 1.30pm) Carlos Alcaraz (2) v Fabio Fognini Katie Boulter v Paula Badosa (9)Alexander Zverev (3) v Arthur Rinderknech Weather Hot and sunny, with highs of 33 degrees Celsius, according to Accuweather.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
From Boulter and Burrage to Draper's title tilt – the 23 Britons at Wimbledon
The biggest fortnight of the year for British tennis will see 22 home hopefuls try their luck in the Wimbledon main singles draws, the highest number since 1988. Jack Draper goes into the tournament as a legitimate title challenger for the first time while the remainder range from teenage debutants to veterans potentially taking their final shot at SW19. Here, the PA news agency takes a closer look at the home contenders. Katie Boulter, 28, world ranked 43 Boulter is unseeded this year after an up and down start to the year with injuries and form but has played some of her best tennis at Wimbledon. Jodie Burrage, 26, WR 154 Burrage missed much of last season, including the grass-court swing, with injury and is still trying to kick-start her comeback. Jay Clarke, 26, WR 196 A first main draw appearance in three years for Clarke, who reached the second round in 2019 and played Roger Federer. Oliver Crawford, 26, WR 248 It will be a grand-slam main-draw debut for Crawford, who switched nationality from American to British at the beginning of 2024. Jack Draper, 23, WR 4 The 23-year-old has rocketed up the rankings over the past year and a top-four seeding means he will avoid Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner until the semi-finals. Harriet Dart, 28, WR 152 Dart has made it to the third round of Wimbledon twice before, including last year, when she won a tense clash against Boulter. This season has been a struggle. Dan Evans, 35, WR 154 The former British number one will make a 10th main-draw appearance. He needed a wild card after slipping down the rankings but has shown encouraging form. Jacob Fearnley, 23, WR 51 The Scot's incredible rise as a professional began on grass last year and has continued apace. Fearnley took a set off Novak Djokovic 12 months ago. Arthur Fery, 22, WR 461 Fery, who has French parents but grew up in London, has seen his progress stall because of injury. This will be his third Wimbledon appearance. Billy Harris, 30, WR 151 An inspiring story of perseverance, Harris made his Wimbledon debut last year as a wild card and is into the main draw of a grand slam on ranking for the first time. Fran Jones, 24, WR 122 A strong season so far for Jones, who is missing several fingers and toes because of a rare genetic condition but is close to breaking into the top 100 for the first time. Sonay Kartal, 23, WR 51 Kartal has made huge strides since reaching the third round of Wimbledon as a qualifier last summer, including winning a first WTA Tour title. Hannah Klugman, 16, WR 573 A first wild card into the women's singles for the precocious Wimbledon resident, who recently reached the girls' singles final at the French Open. George Loffhagen, 24, WR 293 A former leading junior, Loffhagen made his main draw debut two years ago and has been rewarded for good form on the lower tours with a wild card. Johannus Monday, 23, WR 224 A 6ft 6in left-hander from Hull, Monday will make his grand-slam debut after starring on the US college circuit and making a strong start to his professional career. Cameron Norrie, 29, WR 61 Clay revitalised the fortunes of former British number one Norrie, who defeated Draper at Wimbledon last year and is a former semi-finalist. Jack Pinnington Jones, 22, WR 281 A former top junior, Pinnington Jones followed Norrie and Fearnley in attending Texas Christian University. Reached the final of a second-tier event in Ilkley this month. Emma Raducanu, 22, WR 40 Back at British number one following an encouraging few months, Raducanu is very at home on grass but has been handed an extremely tough draw. Henry Searle, 19, WR 421 Big-serving Searle became the first home champion of the boys' singles at Wimbledon in more than 60 years in 2023 and made his senior debut last year. Mika Stojsavljevic, 16, WR 796 The tall, big-striking teenager emphasised her potential by winning the US Open girls' singles title last year and is a major prospect. Oliver Tarvet, 21, WR 733 A big breakthrough for the San Diego University student, who came through qualifying to set up a Wimbledon debut. Heather Watson, 33, WR 143 A wild card means Watson will appear in the main draw at Wimbledon for a 15th straight edition. Results have been hard to come by but she loves playing on grass. Mimi Xu, 17, WR 318 The last of a trio of British teenage girls given wild cards, Welsh player Xu has twice beaten top-100 players on grass already this summer.
