Latest news with #ThroughtheKeyhole
Irish Examiner
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
There are bigger teams than Northampton but are there happier ones?
It may sound strange but the moment that best reflects Northampton's collective mindset took place late at night in their club captain's bedroom the other week. George Furbank was fast asleep in bed when, suddenly, he awoke to find several uninvited 'guests' in his house and a video camera filming his reaction. Saints' backs have been playing a game called Our House, based on the television show Through the Keyhole, and their senior coaches have also been joining in the fun. Even on the eve of a massive final, Sam Vesty, Northampton's head coach, needs little encouragement to tell the story. 'We broke in at one o'clock in the morning. Fraser Dingwall, Fin Smith and myself, filmed by Dingers' girlfriend, went in and shocked him. Boom. We woke him up and he had to do this quiz. Fin came in and he had another challenge. I came in with my tennis balls and said: 'Right we are going to get better, Furbs.' We took a video of it all and showed it around.' Typical 'sports jock' humour? Or something much more fundamental? If Saints can delight their travelling Shoe Army fanbase by waltzing past Bordeaux-Bègles in the Champions Cup final in Cardiff, they will argue that enjoyment and a close squad bond have been essential ingredients. There may be bigger, better resourced teams but none that are happier in each other's company. You can tell simply by watching them play. Many finals – as underlined in Bilbao this week – are cagey and dull. This one has the ingredients to be a free‑wheeling riot. Bordeaux, with Louis Bielle‑Biarrey and Damian Penaud lurking on their wings, need no second invitation to run. Northampton, though, are wired up similarly. Any side capable of scoring five tries against a full‑strength Leinster in Dublin in a huge semi-final can really play. The only question is whether they can conjure something equally magical in Cardiff. Which is where Vesty comes in. There are several reasons why the 43-year-old former England international – he won two caps on tour in Argentina in 2009 – is among the country's most enlightened attacking thinkers and his self-titled role as 'space coach' is just one example. For him, even the biggest games ultimately hinge on mental freedom and coaches empowering gifted players. Or as Vesty puts it: 'Imagine telling Lionel Messi how to pass the ball. It's just stupid. Alex Mitchell is that good. Why would I try and tell him?' Woe betide anyone, certainly, who solely praises the tactical masterclass Saints produced to confound Leinster's blitz defence without also citing their all‑important can-do attitude. 'It's so interesting the way everyone talks about the tactical bit. If you've got good decision-makers throughout the team that's way more powerful than any move or coach-driven tactic. That's all crap … it's about them being really good rugby players. 'I just think it's arrogance as a coach to think: 'Oh yes, I came up with this.' It's great in the paper because you can draw a diagram of it but it's short-lived. Actually, it's Alex Mitchell making really good decisions at the line, Henry Pollock seeing space and backing himself to go and take it, Fin Smith seeing space on the edge, calling for the ball and then executing his skills. It's not a tactic.' By now something else should be clear: Saints are not tiptoeing towards Cardiff, where they lost to Leinster in the 2011 final. While they are desperate to lift the coveted trophy for the first time since 2000 – their former captain Pat Lam and a host of other players from that era will be in attendance – retreating into their shells would run counter to everything they hold dear. 'Ultimately we're going to win a game by being the best of Northampton Saints,' Vesty says. 'That's what we pride ourselves on, that's the way we attack every game.' Easier said than done for most coaches in weeks such as this but Vesty and his co-conspirator Phil Dowson, having guided the club to last season's Premiership title, believe a large chunk of their job is knowing when to take a step back and allow the players to chase their own destiny. 'It's 100% about decluttering players' minds and not getting in the way,' Vesty says. 'That could sound quite laissez‑faire but it's not. I'm hard on some elements but on others there has to be room to make mistakes. No one is going to learn to drive a car without stalling it, are they? So why on our rugby journey do we expect everything to be executed perfectly? It seems mental.' It clearly helps to have four British & Irish Lions on the team sheet in Mitchell, Smith, Tommy Freeman and their resident boy wonder Pollock but Dingwall's unselfish example and smart leadership in Furbank's absence has also proved pivotal. This season alone Saints have won away in Loftus Versfeld, Thomond Park and the Aviva Stadium, three of rugby's most daunting venues. Keeping calm and carrying on has become their super skill. Not that it will be remotely easy against Bordeaux, who swept past the holders, Toulouse, in this month's other semi. This may be their first Champions Cup final but few sides are more lethal off turnover ball. Courtney Lawes, the now departed Saints legend, recently popped back from Brive to warn Vesty that French flair is enjoying a renaissance. 'He said the skill level of the kids coming through is phenomenal because they see the spaces and play with that joué mindset.' Vesty is not entirely clear on the precise East Midlands equivalent of joué – 'Play, mate? Get up, me duck?' – but he does know cool heads will be needed when the going gets tougher. 'The boys now have had collective experiences of these pressures, be it at Croke Park [in last year's semi-final] or in last year's Premiership final where we perhaps went into our shell a little bit. We are a more mature group now. So I think we'll be able to handle the perceived pressures better and be in a better position to back ourselves.' And in those pin-drop moments, do not underestimate a team who, insists Vesty, perform better because they have fun together. 'Rugby is a game of enjoying yourself and connecting. Then we work harder for each other. We are serious when we are serious but it is mandatory that we have fun. That is one of our absolute super‑strengths.' Strike early and stay positive and the Shoe Army could yet have the last laugh. NORTHAMPTON SAINTS: G Furbank, T Freeman, F Dingwall (c), R Hutchinson, J Ramm, F Smith, A Mitchell; E Iyogun, C Langdon, T Davison, T Mayanavanua, T Lockett, A Coles, J Kemeny, 8. H Pollock. Replacements: C Wright, T Haffar, E Millar-Mills, E Prowse, A Scott-Young, T James, T Litchfield, O Sleightholme. BORDEAUX-BEGLES: R Buros, D Penaud, N Depoortere, Y Moefana, L Bielle-Biarrey, M Jalibert, M Lucu (c); J Poirot, M Lamothe, S Falatea, A Coleman, C Cazeaux, M Diaby, G Petti, 8. P Samu. Replacements: C Sa, U Boniface, B Tameifuna, P Bochaton, B Vergnes-Taillefer, M Gazzotti, A Retiere, R Janse van Rensburg. Guardian
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Northampton mix secret ingredients for glory in Champions Cup final clash
It may sound strange but the moment that best reflects Northampton's collective mindset took place late at night in their club captain's bedroom the other week. George Furbank was fast asleep in bed when, suddenly, he awoke to find several uninvited 'guests' in his house and a video camera filming his reaction. Saints' backs have been playing a game called Our House, based on the television show Through the Keyhole, and their senior coaches have also been joining in the fun. Even on the eve of a massive final, Sam Vesty, Northampton's head coach, needs little encouragement to tell the story. 'We broke in at one o'clock in the morning. Fraser Dingwall, Fin Smith and myself, filmed by Dingers' girlfriend, went in and shocked him. Boom. We woke him up and he had to do this quiz. Fin came in and he had another challenge. I came in with my tennis balls and said: 'Right we are going to get better, Furbs.' We took a video of it all and showed it around.' Advertisement Related: Northampton's Champions Cup final date with Bordeaux should be all-out attack | Ugo Monye Typical 'sports jock' humour? Or something much more fundamental? If Saints can delight their travelling Shoe Army fanbase by waltzing past Bordeaux-Bègles in the Champions Cup final in Cardiff, they will argue that enjoyment and a close squad bond have been essential ingredients. There may be bigger, better resourced teams but none that are happier in each other's company. You can tell simply by watching them play. Many finals – as underlined in Bilbao this week – are cagey and dull. This one has the ingredients to be a free‑wheeling riot. Bordeaux, with Louis Bielle‑Biarrey and Damian Penaud lurking on their wings, need no second invitation to run. Northampton, though, are wired up similarly. Any side capable of scoring five tries against a full‑strength Leinster in Dublin in a huge semi-final can really play. The only question is whether they can conjure something equally magical in Cardiff. Which is where Vesty comes in. There are several reasons why the 43-year-old former England international – he won two caps on tour in Argentina in 2009 – is among the country's most enlightened attacking thinkers and his self-titled role as 'space coach' is just one example. For him, even the biggest games ultimately hinge on mental freedom and coaches empowering gifted players. Or as Vesty puts it: 'Imagine telling Lionel Messi how to pass the ball. It's just stupid. Alex Mitchell is that good. Why would I try and tell him?' Advertisement Woe betide anyone, certainly, who solely praises the tactical masterclass Saints produced to confound Leinster's blitz defence without also citing their all‑important can-do attitude. 'It's so interesting the way everyone talks about the tactical bit. If you've got good decision-makers throughout the team that's way more powerful than any move or coach-driven tactic. That's all crap … it's about them being really good rugby players. 'I just think it's arrogance as a coach to think: 'Oh yes, I came up with this.' It's great in the paper because you can draw a diagram of it but it's short-lived. Actually, it's Alex Mitchell making really good decisions at the line, Henry Pollock seeing space and backing himself to go and take it, Fin Smith seeing space on the edge, calling for the ball and then executing his skills. It's not a tactic.' By now something else should be clear: Saints are not tiptoeing towards Cardiff, where they lost to Leinster in the 2011 final. While they are desperate to lift the coveted trophy for the first time since 2000 – their former captain Pat Lam and a host of other players from that era will be in attendance – retreating into their shells would run counter to everything they hold dear. 'Ultimately we're going to win a game by being the best of Northampton Saints,' Vesty says. 'That's what we pride ourselves on, that's the way we attack every game.' Easier said than done for most coaches in weeks such as this but Vesty and his co-conspirator Phil Dowson, having guided the club to last season's Premiership title, believe a large chunk of their job is knowing when to take a step back and allow the players to chase their own destiny. 'It's 100% about decluttering players' minds and not getting in the way,' Vesty says. 'That could sound quite laissez‑faire but it's not. I'm hard on some elements but on others there has to be room to make mistakes. No one is going to learn to drive a car without stalling it, are they? So why on our rugby journey do we expect everything to be executed perfectly? It seems mental.' Advertisement It clearly helps to have four British & Irish Lions on the team sheet in Mitchell, Smith, Tommy Freeman and their resident boy wonder Pollock but Dingwall's unselfish example and smart leadership in Furbank's absence has also proved pivotal. This season alone Saints have won away in Loftus Versfeld, Thomond Park and the Aviva Stadium, three of rugby's most daunting venues. Keeping calm and carrying on has become their super skill. Not that it will be remotely easy against Bordeaux, who swept past the holders, Toulouse, in this month's other semi. This may be their first Champions Cup final but few sides are more lethal off turnover ball. Courtney Lawes, the now departed Saints legend, recently popped back from Brive to warn Vesty that French flair is enjoying a renaissance. 'He said the skill level of the kids coming through is phenomenal because they see the spaces and play with that joué mindset.' Vesty is not entirely clear on the precise East Midlands equivalent of joué – 'Play, mate? Get up, me duck?' – but he does know cool heads will be needed when the going gets tougher. 'The boys now have had collective experiences of these pressures, be it at Croke Park [in last year's semi-final] or in last year's Premiership final where we perhaps went into our shell a little bit. We are a more mature group now. So I think we'll be able to handle the perceived pressures better and be in a better position to back ourselves.' And in those pin-drop moments, do not underestimate a team who, insists Vesty, perform better because they have fun together. 'Rugby is a game of enjoying yourself and connecting. Then we work harder for each other. We are serious when we are serious but it is mandatory that we have fun. That is one of our absolute super‑strengths.' Strike early and stay positive and the Shoe Army could yet have the last laugh.
The Guardian
27-03-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
The Kings and I: Puma's classic boots beckon me back from brief Umbro betrayal
There is something indescribably beautiful about finding a pair of football boots that fit you perfectly. It is like Cinderella's glass slippers – your foot just slides in, the instep and arches ensconced in the cushioning – or putting Excalibur back in the stone. Until you go out on the pitch, anything is possible. That boot for me is the Puma King. To be clear, this isn't an advertorial – Herr Puma hasn't given me a brown envelope, or a pair of boots. They are just the boots that fit. If I had slightly narrower feet and there's no doubt I would be in the pocket of big Copa Mundial. However, since I had my own bank account and my own mind, I have given over three decades to amateur football accompanied by the pure black leather and big white tongue of those boots. I haven't always been faithful. Mum put me in Dunlops in the mid-80s. I flirted with Nike Tiempos for a time, but I've always come back. I can stare at those boots sitting on the shoe rack for hours. The promise they bring: of playing a side-footed pass, of bringing a ball out of the sky with the stitching on the instep or catching a half-volley and caressing it into the back of the net. (Time since last goal: a season and a half. Own goals scored in that time: two.) The issues really start just above the boot. My hip-groin expert has discovered more arthritis than seems ideal for a 45-year-old. I spend 15 minutes a day with one end of a giant rubber band tied to a broomhandle and the other wedged in the back door, trying to activate muscles that have lain dormant for the best part of half a century. The season in Australia starts imminently and contract negotiations have been tense. My second son, named after his great-grandfather and Through the Keyhole stalwart Willie Rushton, arrived eight weeks ago. It appears a given for professional male footballers to turn up to the birth and then get back on the pitch: 'Been a busy couple of days for Bamford – his wife gave birth yesterday' … Don Goodman: 'Ooooh I remember those sleepless nights Bill' … Bill Leslie: 'Here come Sheffield United down the right.' It would be refreshing to hear a more accurate reflection: 'No Kulusevski – he's missing the next eight weeks because his wife is postpartum and she has quite correctly pointed out that leaving the house and two children for four hours on a Sunday afternoon just because football means a lot to you while she still can't go for a 30-minute swim and you haven't found a babysitter isn't parenting in 2025.' But the boots keep staring. This pair of moulds has been with me since before the pandemic. From the Quintin Hogg Memorial ground in Chiswick to Princes Park in Melbourne. They are older than the kids; they might even remember Trump's first presidency. Nothing lasts for ever – the frayed stitching, the increasing gap between the sole and the leather at both toes. Even the seams are coming apart at the seams. Here is where I made a fateful mistake. An act of betrayal. Buoyed by increasing activity in my team's WhatsApp group, Strava maps, friendly fixtures and new players – it was time. New boots, new me. Anyone old enough to remember the release of the original Adidas Predators will remember thinking: 'How much better could these boots make me? I'll be bending it around corners. It'll be like taking a free-kick in Kick Off 2 on the Amiga.' And then some guy turned up to school trials with a pair and it became abundantly clear that the boots don't make the player. In my fervour I forgot this. My nearest boot emporium – a cavernous world of footballing joy – even has a five-a-side pitch in the middle of it, the boot area a cacophony of colour and blades and studs and swooshes. The one issue: no Puma Kings. I should have hesitated, I should have stayed loyal. However, in the heat of the moment we all err. I stuck on some Copas – too narrow. Was there anything else? Black boots only? Sign up to Football Daily Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football after newsletter promotion The Umbro Speciali have a beautiful unfancied clogger centre-back vibe to them. They could work in the centre of the park – just getting it on the half-turn, taking half an hour to half-turn the other way and giving it simple. I put them on over the store football socks; they felt good. On a wild impulse there and then I signed a two-boot deal with Umbro. One left. One right. Years ago I remember reading that Ole Gunnar Solskjær would sit for hours in the bath with new boots to mould them around his feet. But with no bath in the house, I would just have to get to the park and do some shuttle runs and re-enact some turn-and-face backwards jogging. It hit me straight away, before even kicking a ball. These boots were not an extension of my body. It's not them, it's me. They have done no wrong. For another slightly bigger foot, these guys would excel. Sure, they can do a job, like Kieran Trippier at left-back, but can I commit to them? Then one night while idly doom-scrolling emerged two minutes of complete joy and happiness. An advert for a special pair of Puma Kings: 'the Super-Archive' in association with Mundial Magazine. The ad stars a Sunday League hacker being transported to Germany, where he's yelled at by Lothar Matthäus before being kitted out with a pair of boots that reflect the legends who wore them – Maradona, Eusébio, Cruyff – and the magazine itself. Mundial is a wonderful thing, a celebration of why we love football. It is unashamedly hipster: all Utrecht away kits and Jackson Irvine perusing the flea markets of Berlin. For a centrist dad like me, some of it can get a little anoraky about, say, anoraks. But it is good people doing good things, taking you away from goal involvements and the race for fifth place and sportswashing and online debates about whether Trent is a traitor. It celebrates the history and stories of football all over the world and how different parts of the game move us in different ways. It was meant to be. Add to basket. Boots may mean nothing to you – just the thing people put on their feet – but for some of us they are beauty and hope and possibility. If anyone wants to lend me their bath to really break them in, let me know.
