Latest news with #Euro'96
Scottish Sun
11 hours ago
- Sport
- Scottish Sun
Russell Martin says Rangers icon was one of his footballing heroes growing up and reveals traits his players MUST have
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) NEW Rangers manager Russell Martin has revealed that a massive Ibrox icon was one of his favourites growing up. The ex-Gers defender signed a three-year deal this week to take over in the dugout, with the red carpet rolled out for his first day in the building. 4 Russell Martin was unveiled as Rangers manager this week Credit: Willie Vass 4 He had a short spell playing at Ibrox Credit: Keith Campbell - The Sun Glasgow 4 He's revealed Paul Gascoigne was one of his footballing heroes Credit: Getty And now he's in the door supporters of the club are getting the chance to learn a bit more about him. Speaking to the club, the Englishman said that Paul Gascoigne was one of his footballing heroes. He said: "I know it will sound cliche but Gazza... I think all of us absolutely loved watching him. "When they were flying and he was flying during Euro '96, and what he was doing up here. "He was just an incredible player to watch." Martin was born in 1986 meaning Gascoigne was turning out for England from early childhood until he was around 12, with his Gers spell taking place in the last three of those years. The ex-Southampton gaffer was asked what three non-negotiable qualities are for players working under him ahead of his first season at the helm in Govan. He replied: "Courage. Intensity. And honesty. "I love watching a player or a group of players or a team start with something, an idea or way to improve, and seeing after the process what they're capable of achieving. "I absolutely love being able to watch and see something that I think is a problem for a player then help them find the solution, and then see them actually enjoying finding the solution. Rangers fans react to news Russell Martin is their new manager "When they do, that moment when it clicks is just the best." He's already discussed wanting the best out of the current squad as well as hinting that he knows areas which will need improved in the transfer window. He also revealed that his earliest memory of the sport was in Scotland, despite being born in Brighton. He said: "At the Ayr Youth Cup watching my big brother play up here. I think I was three or four. "I bought a plastic ball, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ball, and it got stolen outside my room in Butlins or Haven, whichever one it was. "I was devestated, but I got bought a new one the next day. 4 Gazza starred at Euro '96 for England when Martin was young Credit: News Group Newspapers Ltd "That's my earliest footballing memory. Just watching him play and playing on the side of the pitch." And having spoken openly about his managerial career being based on proving people wrong and never being first choice, he's said similar of his playing time too. When asked about the moment when he knew he'd made it, he responded: "Never. Even when I was playing my first game for Wycombe I was thinking 'I've played a professional game now, that'll be it, at least I've had one game'. "And I've never felt comfortable once throughout my career, so not at one point did I think I'd cracked it or I'd made it, and definitely before that I didn't think I could do it. "So I'm very grateful that I did!" He went on to make almost 600 club appearances, mostly for Wycombe and Norwich, and was capped 29 times for Scotland. Keep up to date with ALL the latest news and transfers at the Scottish Sun football page
The Guardian
30-03-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
Squaring up to death after my cancer diagnosis gave me a deeper appreciation of life
Lauren Laverne says she loves her life more now that she's had cancer. I know exactly what she means. Imagine you're diagnosed with cancer. Do you think you'd look back on the moment as one of the best of your life? It sounds bonkers if you've not been through it, but it's how I feel. My wedding day beats it. As does Stuart Pearce's penalty against Spain in Euro '96, Nottingham Forest getting promoted at Wembley and Oasis reuniting. But those are in everyone's top five, so let's set them aside. Eighteen months ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. Awful nerve pain in my left leg, which I presumed was sciatica, forced me to see a doctor. An MRI scan revealed a tumour at the base of my spine. They knew it was cancer, but weren't sure if it was a primary tumour or had metastasised. It was bad news, but I didn't yet know whether it was bad-bad or just bad. I had no idea how much longer I had to live. That precise moment will stay with me for ever. Because now I know how I really feel about death. Obviously, I'm broadly against it. But being forced to accept that I may have a limited time left clarified the point of life. And it wasn't just to watch more football. I braced myself for the worst news. Like an old airport departure board, I saw the time I had left rapidly fluttering away. In seconds, I'd bargained myself down from 10 years to a few weeks and had come to terms with it. This rapid reckoning with existence was done calmly – there was no panic. I felt grateful to have lived and to have followed my passions. I wasn't afraid of dying. The only thing I felt sad about was that I'd miss my wife. We'd only got married a few months before and it felt desperately sad that our story was going to end too soon. That aside, and of course it's a huge thing, I had accepted my fate as a condemned man. Alongside this serene conclusion about life, something else happened. It was as if my body was talking to my brain. It was something beyond a thought, as if my mind wasn't just in my head, but distributed equally through my whole body. My body was telling me: 'Carve any part of us off in order to stay alive. Go through anything. Life is the point.' This was a phenomenal rush. I've never been brave – my housemate used to hide a toy rat just to make me scream. Yet here I was, calmly ready to leap onto a bandsaw, embracing whatever it took to stay alive. After weeks of limbo, I got my answer. I had a chordoma, a form of bone cancer that only one in 800,000 people get. Nice to be special. Surgery involved removing the base of my spine, which meant losing bowel, bladder and sexual function. It's not that these things sounded inconsequential, or that I didn't worry about what my life was going to be like. But compared with death, they were preferable. Although I accept that most things are preferable to death – apart from listening to Ed Sheeran. The 10 weeks I spent in hospital recovering from surgery were difficult in that they were often physically painful and, at times, I despaired. But even on the hardest days, there were moments of levity. For three weeks, I was in severe distress from catastrophic levels of nerve pain. But even on those days when I was in tears, gripped by pain I couldn't believe the body could endure, I still laughed with friends who came to visit. My sides weren't in danger of splitting, but the stitches holding my back together were. Laughter wasn't the best medicine, but after morphine it did wonders. I've quickly adjusted to the changes to my body. My stoma is far easier to manage than I expected and hasn't limited my ability to go to football matches or the pub. Plus, not pooping the old way has given me more free time – although I am reading less. To pee, I have to self-catheterise, which means using disposable catheters a few times a day. Yes, it sounds horrific. Thankfully, it's not. Every few hours I have to push a tube down the hole in my penis until it reaches the bladder. I look like I'm loading an old rifle. When the tube is fully in, pee comes out the other end and when the flow stops, I gently withdraw it. And believe me, I do that very gently. I could teach bomb disposal squads a thing or two about keeping a steady hand under pressure. Sign up to Observed Analysis and opinion on the week's news and culture brought to you by the best Observer writers after newsletter promotion Erectile dysfunction can be embarrassing and talking about it can be hard. Sorry, soft. I'm 42, so it's not something I thought I'd have to deal with yet, if ever. I'm still in the process of discovery when it comes to pills, pumps and injections. It's miraculous what these things can do for a part of the body that was effectively pronounced dead. You don't need the details of how I'm getting on, but let me put it this way: I'm now far less sceptical about the resurrection of Lazarus. I don't want to give the wrong impression. A lot of the past year and a half has been difficult and distressing. At times, I felt petrified about my future. But it was also a life-enriching experience unlike anything else. I benefited from the love and care of exceptional nurses, doctors and hospital staff. Friends and family entertained me at my bedside. It has brought me and my wife even closer together. But the main thing it has left me with is a deeper appreciation of life. Being alive is wonderful. One day it'll end, and thanks to this I know how I'll feel when that day comes. But not yet. Matt Forde is a comedian, podcast and radio host whose End of An Era tour is on until June
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Sir Gareth Southgate warns ‘toxic influencers' pose threat to generation of young men
Sir Gareth Southgate has made a resounding plea to save a generation of boys and young men from online 'callous, manipulative and toxic influencers' who he says have taken the place of positive real-life role models. Delivering the Richard Dimbleby Lecture on BBC 1, the former England manager touched upon his own missed penalty in the semi-final of Euro '96, the challenges his players faced during his eight years as manager and also his recent experiences which he says have persuaded him there is a 'crisis' facing young men and boys. During his time as England manager, Southgate encouraged his players to discuss their emotions and share their own personal stories. He admitted that there were times when some of them wept as they talked about their past and growing up. Speaking this month, Southgate said that: 'Young men are suffering. They are feeling isolated. They're grappling with their masculinity and with their broader place in society.' He said that he had spent time visiting schools, and also a prison, since he stepped down from the England job after defeat in the final of Euro 2024 last year and wondered whether the opportunity to develop the sense of resilience he came to as a young man was still there now. Southgate said that the unrelenting pressure of social media on smartphones, where a teenage mistake could go round the world, and the bombardment of images of the perfect body and the perfect lifestyle, meant that modern day challenges were 'unique'. He said that developing resilience meant that parents could not shield their children from failure in the real world, and that the greatest dangers were online. Southgate said: 'As one mother told me recently: 'One of the most impactful things we can do for women is to focus on improving young men.' So why is this happening? Why do so many young men feel lost, isolated, or without hope? 'From an early age, young boys need to fail often and learn fast. Falling off a bike, splitting up with friends, messing up exams and maybe even missing a penalty. These are the moments that test belief and build resilience. It's a paradox that all parents face. And as a parent myself, I get it. Do we protect them from failure – out of love and support, or expose them to risks that may challenge their resolve? 'In my opinion, if we make life too easy for young boys now we will inevitably make life harder when they grow up to be young men. Ironically, parents know exactly what their children are doing in the physical world, but they are losing control in the virtual world where young people are exposed to far more danger and failure is something that is shared with the world. 'The result is that too many young men are at risk of fearing failure, precisely because they've had so few opportunities to experience and overcome it. They fail to try rather than try and fail.' Past Dimbleby Lectures have been given by computer scientist and father of the internet, Tim Berners-Lee; Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates; author Sir Terry Pratchett; and Prince William. He quoted the Centre for Social Justice findings that 2.5 million children in Britain have no father figure at home, 'an epidemic of fatherlessness', compounded by a fall in access to father figures at sport clubs and community centres. Southgate noted that the chief cause of death for males under the age of 50 in Britain was suicide. Southgate said: 'As real-world communities and mentorship declines, young men end up withdrawing, reluctant to talk or express their emotions. They spend more time online searching for direction and are falling into unhealthy alternatives like gaming, gambling and pornography. And this void is filled by a new kind of role model who does not have their best interest at heart. 'These are callous, manipulative and toxic influencers, whose sole drive is for their own gain. They willingly trick young men into believing that success is measured by money or dominance, never showing emotion, and that the world, including women, is against them.' Southgate said that a key part of his approach as England manager, during which the team reached a World Cup semi-final and two Euros finals, was 'owning your own story', was about the players understanding their place in a tradition as old as the national team. During his time in charge Southgate introduced the legacy number tradition which assigns each new cap – and every player going back to 1872 – his own chronological number in the sequence of men who have been capped by England. He said: 'I wanted to really get to know my players, and spent a lot of time talking to each of them about their lives, their hopes, and their fears. They were happy to talk to me and they were happy to talk to each other. 'Players looked forward to meeting up. We had fun. We laughed together and at times even these strong powerful men, opened up to me about their feelings and cried on my shoulder. And that's fine by the way. I think it's an important message for young men today. It was these connections and relationships that created the belief and resilience that carried us beyond where we might have gone when times got really tough. We weren't just playing for the badge, we were playing for each other. Southgate said that as a society, Britain needed to do more to help young people in 'a culture that doesn't judge them only by how well they succeed, but by how much they grow, by the effort they put in and the character they develop.' He added that he looked forward to playing a role in that too. Richard Dimbleby Lecture with Sir Gareth Southgate is available now on BBC iPlayer and on BBC One at 10:40pm on Wednesday, March 19 Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. 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Telegraph
19-03-2025
- Sport
- Telegraph
Sir Gareth Southgate warns ‘toxic influencers' pose threat to generation of young men
Sir Gareth Southgate has made a resounding plea to save a generation of boys and young men from online 'callous, manipulative and toxic influencers' who he says have taken the place of positive real-life role models. Delivering the Richard Dimbleby Lecture on BBC 1, the former England manager touched upon his own missed penalty in the semi-final of Euro '96, the challenges his players faced during his eight years as manager and also his recent experiences which he says have persuaded him there is a 'crisis' facing young men and boys. During his time as England manager, Southgate encouraged his players to discuss their emotions and share their own personal stories. He admitted that there were times when some of them wept as they talked about their past and growing up. Speaking this month, Southgate said that: 'Young men are suffering. They are feeling isolated. They're grappling with their masculinity and with their broader place in society.' He said that he had spent time visiting schools, and a prison, since he stepped down from the England job after defeat in the final of Euro 2024 last year and wondered whether the opportunity to develop the sense of resilience he came to as a young man was still there now. Southgate said that the unrelenting pressure of social media on smartphones, where a teenage mistake could go round the world, and the bombardment of images of the perfect body and the perfect lifestyle, meant that modern challenges were 'unique'. He said that developing resilience meant that parents could not shield their children from failure in the real world, and that the greatest dangers were online. Southgate said: 'As one mother told me recently: 'One of the most impactful things we can do for women is to focus on improving young men.' So why is this happening? Why do so many young men feel lost, isolated, or without hope? 'From an early age, young boys need to fail often and learn fast. Falling off a bike, splitting up with friends, messing up exams and maybe even missing a penalty. These are the moments that test belief and build resilience. It's a paradox that all parents face. And as a parent myself, I get it. Do we protect them from failure – out of love and support, or expose them to risks that may challenge their resolve? 'Parents are losing control in the virtual world' 'In my opinion, if we make life too easy for young boys now we will inevitably make life harder when they grow up to be young men. Ironically, parents know exactly what their children are doing in the physical world, but they are losing control in the virtual world where young people are exposed to far more danger and failure is something that is shared with the world. 'The result is that too many young men are at risk of fearing failure, precisely because they've had so few opportunities to experience and overcome it. They fail to try rather than try and fail.' Past Dimbleby Lectures have been given by computer scientist and father of the internet, Tim Berners-Lee, Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates, author Sir Terry Pratchett and Prince William. He quoted the Centre for Social Justice findings that 2.5 million children in Britain have no father figure at home, 'an epidemic of fatherlessness', compounded by a fall in access to father figures at sport clubs and community centres. Southgate noted that the chief cause of death for males under the age of 50 in Britain was suicide. Southgate said: 'As real-world communities and mentorship declines, young men end up withdrawing, reluctant to talk or express their emotions. They spend more time online searching for direction and are falling into unhealthy alternatives like gaming, gambling and pornography. And this void is filled by a new kind of role model who does not have their best interest at heart. 'These are callous, manipulative and toxic influencers, whose sole drive is for their own gain. They willingly trick young men into believing that success is measured by money or dominance, never showing emotion, and that the world, including women, is against them.' Southgate said that a key part of his approach as England manager, during which the team reached a World Cup semi-final and two Euros finals, was 'owning your own story', which was about the players understanding their place in a tradition as old as the national team. During his time in charge Southgate introduced the legacy number tradition that assigns each new cap – and every player going back to 1872 – his own chronological number in the sequence of men who have been capped by England. He said: 'I wanted to really get to know my players, and spent a lot of time talking to each of them about their lives, their hopes, and their fears. They were happy to talk to me and they were happy to talk to each other. 'Players looked forward to meeting up. We had fun. We laughed together and, at times, even these strong powerful men opened up to me about their feelings and cried on my shoulder. And that's fine by the way. It's an important message for young men today. It was these connections and relationships that created the belief and resilience that carried us beyond where we might have gone when times got really tough. We weren't just playing for the badge, we were playing for each other.' Southgate said that as a society, Britain needed to do more to help young people in 'a culture that doesn't judge them only by how well they succeed, but by how much they grow, by the effort they put in and the character they develop.' He added that he looked forward to playing a role in that too.
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
🎥 Emotional Alan Shearer re-lives Newcastle 1996 transfer decision
In 1996, Alan Shearer was one of the most sought-after strikers in Europe. The Newcastle native was an England regular at Euro '96 and had already scored over 100 Premier League goals for Blackburn and Southampton. A free-scoring Shearer had interest from Alex Ferguson's Man United and Spanish giants Real Madrid but ultimately decided his future lay with his boyhood club. "It was everything I wanted and hoped for" 🥹Alan Shearer reminisces with Ally McCoist over choosing to play for his home club Newcastle ⚫️⚪️ — Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) March 13, 2025 The Tyneside-born striker went on to score 206 goals for Newcastle between 1996 and 2006 - a club record to this day. 📸 PAUL ELLIS - 2006 AFP
