logo
Football fan travels from India to see Brigg Town play

Football fan travels from India to see Brigg Town play

BBC News5 days ago
A football fan who travelled 5,000 miles to see lower league side Brigg Town play on Saturday, said he was "overwhelmed".Rohan Chowdhury, 27, from Kolkata in India, became a fan of the Lincolnshire club during lockdown.Mr Chowdhury, who watches every game online, said the sport brought people together, "making the world a smaller place".After a tour of the club, he travelled to North Ferriby where he led Brigg Town out on to the pitch for their pre-season friendly against Hull Utd, which they won 4-2.
Mr Chowdhury, who is a sports journalist in India, was visiting England for the first time to cover the cricket series and took the opportunity to visit the club."I'm a huge football fan", he said."I have always had a fascination with non-league football in England."Brigg Town competes in Northern Counties East League Division One.Mr Chowdhury began chatting with managers at the club from afar and was soon helping out with their social media channels."Everyone was quite surprised that someone from Kolkata was actually interacting on social media on a regular basis and it was quite fun," he said.
Jim Huxford, the club chairman, met Mr Chowdhury at the railway station at the start of his visit."It's nice when you get attention from half the way across the world," Mr Huxford said."I'm quite emotional anyway, so I had a little tear in my eye. I gave him a big hug."The stadium at Wrawby Road has recently undergone a £1.5m refurbishment, with the work due to be completed soon."I think it's such a lovely connection that sports bring to you," Mr Chowdhury said."I am from a different country altogether and there's no physical connection, so this friendship gives you a message that's also much bigger than the sport itself."It brings people together and makes the world a much smaller place," he added.Mr Chowdhury said he intends to return to Lincolnshire to watch the club play again.Listen to highlights from Lincolnshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here.
Download the BBC News app from the App Store for iPhone and iPad or Google Play for Android devices
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Chaser Paul Sinha makes brutal jibe about fans of the ITV game show - calling out 'unemployed' watchers
Chaser Paul Sinha makes brutal jibe about fans of the ITV game show - calling out 'unemployed' watchers

Daily Mail​

time21 minutes ago

  • Daily Mail​

Chaser Paul Sinha makes brutal jibe about fans of the ITV game show - calling out 'unemployed' watchers

Chaser Paul Sinha has taken a brutal swipe at viewers of the hugely popular ITV game show - calling keen fans 'unemployed'. His quick wit and fiery authenticity has made Paul, aka The Sinnerman, a fan favourite on The Chase. Colleague and fellow Chaser Anne Hegerty, known by the moniker The Governess, has previously described him as the most 'fearsome' Chaser. But when he's not playing fiercely on the show, he's performing stand up comedy around the country. Arriving at the Ealing Comedy Festival on Thursday, the 55-year-old kicked off his set with a playful jab at watchers of The Chase, the Express reported. 'Welcome to you, and a special welcome to those of you in full-time employment, as you won't have a clue who I am,' he said - in a cheeky nod to the show's airing time of 5pm on weekdays. But Paul did not shy away from laughing at himself, as he poked fun at his player name The Sinnerman, saying: 'It's a s*** name. It means f*** all. It makes me sound like a low-budget superhero!' The ITV quizzer, who first qualified as a doctor before turning to comedy, even poked fun at his family names. 'My mum's name is Smith,' he said. 'It's an unusual maiden name for someone with full Bengali heritage, but there is an explanation - which is I'm lying. I made it up.' Paul later admitted his mother's maiden name was actually Chakrabarti, which he joked has '17 variant spellings in the English language.' He added that he'd been 'locked out of so many online accounts' after selecting it as a security question. 'Many years ago, I made the pragmatic decision that my mum's name is actually Smith - it's not easy though, I tell you,' he continued. Paul joked that he'd made a successful career owing to his knack for 'box-ticking', as he falls into a number of 'diverse' categories. 'I'm a gay man and, I'll be honest, it's not a bad life - you're the only openly gay British Asian qualified doctor with Parkinson's Disease,' he laughed. The Chaser said that, after a long period of singledom between the ages of 18 and 41, he had finally found love. But, in a cruel twist of fate, he received his Parkinson's diagnosis the very same year he became a married man. 'When you see as many doctors as I do, your life is a rollercoaster, your career is a rollercoaster... tonight I'm in Ealing [but] two weeks ago I had a damage limitation gig with the production team at Masterchef! It's all happening for me!' This appeared to the audience to be a gesture to TV chef John Torode's recent dismissal from his BBC post following accusations he had used derogatory racialised language. Despite his buoyant tone, it has been a difficult few years for Paul, who acknowledges that his disease could eventually leave him 'expressionless' and 'immobile'. Nonetheless he insisted he was facing the future with 'good cheer and optimism', as proved by the riotous comedy set that drove his audience to (happy) tears. The London-based doctor has previously opened up about his declining health, having admitted he suffered two heart attacks in the same week but refused to call an ambulance for a 'stupid' reason. Paul told of his ordeal on an episode of Good Morning Britain to presenters Susanna Reid, 54, and Ed Balls, 58. He said the ordeal happened while he was at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2023 to perform a run of shows. He explained of his set at the Scottish arts festival: 'It was a bit of a wild show. 'It was very much about my life as a gay, disabled son of immigrants but it was quite a political show, and it was a big show. 'I was in a room with 400 people in and it all got on top of me and I had two heart attacks in the same Edinburgh Fringe. 'Two! Week number one and week number three.' Paul explained the first heart attack happened while he was 'shaking the hand of Levi Roots', who he had been introduced to in a bar. As he greeted the businessman, known for pitching Reggae Reggae Sauce on Dragons' Den, he felt 'a crushing, tightening chest pain'. Having previously worked as a GP before entering showbusiness, the quizzer explained: 'As my years of medicine made me remember, it was not like anything I'd ever felt before and I knew it was cardiac. 'But I didn't want to cause a scene so I just walked into a cab. 'I didn't want to call an ambulance because I thought, "I might as well just get into a cab to take me to the nearest hospital as quickly as possible", which is what I did.'

Ella Toone: Back-to-back European Championships would be a 'dream'
Ella Toone: Back-to-back European Championships would be a 'dream'

South Wales Argus

time23 minutes ago

  • South Wales Argus

Ella Toone: Back-to-back European Championships would be a 'dream'

The 25-year-old scored the opener in the Lionesses' 2-1 victory at Wembley in 2022 as they won their first major tournament trophy, and they could repeat the feat just three years later. They face a rematch of their World Cup final defeat in 2023 as they lost 1-0 to Spain in Australia, and now they are aiming to avenge that with victory at St. Jakob Park. '[Back-to-back champions] is the dream. That's the aim. You want to come into a tournament, and you want to put on performances,' said Toone. 'You want to make the country proud, and you want to inspire a generation and those were our aims for the tournament. 'We've got all this way, so we want to go out into the game and give it everything. No one wants to lose a football match, especially a final, so we'll do everything we can to put on a performance. 'We'll fight, we'll believe in ourselves, we'll have that togetherness like we always do, so we will hopefully get over the line." England's route to the final has been far from straightforward with their quarter-finals and semi-finals both requiring extra time, and in the former, penalties, to decide them. It has led to tense viewing for fans and family of the Lionesses alike. Against Sweden, Michelle Agyemang's late equaliser saw England recover from a two-goal deficit to take the game to penalties. Then in Geneva against Italy, Agyemang once more popped up to take the game to extra-time where Chloe Kelly struck the winner to send England to the final. 'It's mad. I'm not all for the drama but we've definitely made it dramatic this tournament. Sometimes football's not always how you want it to be,' said Toone. 'It would be lovely to win in 90 minutes, but the teams we've been playing against have been really tough and we've right until the very end. 'We've never given up and we like to add that little bit of drama. I know the fans at home we've probably given a heart attack. 'You can see the fight from the team that we want to win whatever game we play in.' That fight has emerged from what the Lionesses are dubbing a 'proper English mentality'. It has come to sum up their approach to the positions they have found themselves in, seemingly escaping from scenarios they seemed destined to go out. 'We spoke a lot about a 'proper English performance' at this camp. We have it in us all individually and as a team that we want to fight, and we want to not stop running,' added Toone. 'You've seen that in games where it's 90 minutes and it might look like we're down and out, and then someone comes on and we have one moment, and we take that moment. 'That's what it's all about. It's squad depth and players having that belief that they can come on and really change the game. 'But it's all in us individually that we're competitive and we want to win and we know what it takes to win in tournaments. That's what we've managed to do and that's what has got us to a third consecutive final.' The Lionesses will face their toughest test yet in Basel as they meet the reigning world champions to defend their European crown. Having faced each other twice already this year, the teams have one win each from their recent meetings, but Spain are yet to lose at Euro 2025 with a perfect record in their group. They boast a midfield three of Patri Guijarro, Alexia Putellas and Aitana Bonmati who play together at Barcelona and have looked unbeatable at times this tournament. It will likely be Toone, Georgia Stanway and Keira Walsh who come face-to-face with the trio, but they are under no illusion about their own strengths, too. 'In football, games can be won and lost in the midfield. We know that we have to be on our game,' said Toone. 'We have so much respect for [Patri, Putellas and Bonmati]. All three of them are world class players and are very talented. 'But we know what we're capable of. Whoever plays in the midfield will do an important job. No matter what, we'll go into that game, we'll give 100% and we'll fight like we always do.'

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store