Latest news with #footballclub
ABC News
2 days ago
- General
- ABC News
Port Adelaide star Ollie Wines considering second surgery to address heart irregularity
Port Adelaide's Brownlow medallist Ollie Wines is considering more heart surgery at the end of the AFL season. Wines suffers from a heart irregularity which sometimes causes palpitations, leading him to be substituted out of three games in the past four seasons. The 30-year-old admits frustration at the condition arising most recently — and forcing his substitution — from Port's away win against Sydney on April 20. That episode followed heart surgery last December in a bid to correct the issue. "I had a procedure back in December and there was 1 per cent likeliness that it wouldn't work," Wines told reporters on Monday. "And unfortunately, I'm in the 1 per cent that it hasn't worked. "So we've gone back to a bit of an intervention plan that we had the previous two years to manage it up to that operation and that is working well so far. "We will reassess at the end of the season to see if we do it again and try a surgical operation." But Wines remained pragmatic about his heart issue. "It was frustrating (to be subbed out against Sydney)," he said. "But, look, at the end of the day, luckily for me it's not life threatening. "And it's something that cost me a game of footy, enough to get subbed out of a game of footy. "So I'm in a really fortunate position. I've got the best cardiologists and doctors around me at the footy club and they've talked me through everything. "So at the moment, it's just this plan that has previously worked. "I've never had an episode when we're using this intervention and once the season ends, we'll assess if I need a procedure again." Wines and his teammates have returned to training after a mid-season bye which came with the Power languishing in 15th spot with four wins and seven losses ahead of meeting GWS in Canberra on Saturday night. Some pundits have blamed Port's fall on the coaching succession plan — head coach Ken Hinkley will step down at season's end and be replaced by long-time assistant Josh Carr. But Wines said from the February announcement of the handover "nothing has changed". "Ken's our coach, he will be for the rest of the year," he said. "And I know he's got a lot of energy and enthusiasm for the job and we'll be there for him.. "Despite not winning a premiership, I think we've always been up there and we've played a lot of finals. "Ken's done a lot for me personally as a footballer and off the field so I'm always going to play for him." AAP
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Football club attended by Barcelona legend says pitch costs have 'easily doubled'
An amateur football club says pitch increases are forcing them to scale back on helping youngsters. David O'Neil, who runs Fernhill Soccer School, has said that the cost of using Fernhill Community Centre – owned by South Lanarkshire Council – has completely shot up in recent years. (Image: Davy O'Neil, founder of Fernhill Soccer School pictured at the pitches at Fernhill Community Centre,) The 64-year-old, who is also the chairman of the club, added: 'The facility and staff at the community centre are incredible, but the cost of kids' football has gone up and up. It has easily doubled over the last few years. 'We're now in a position where we have to use all our money just to rent the pitch." It means the club is no longer able to split their money between rent and providing players with things they need for free. The club make sure that every player gets a free strip when they join and provides shin guards, Astroturf boots, waterproofs and gloves so that no kid or parent is out of pocket. They also provide the kids with a roll, fruit and a biscuit, host free Halloween and Christmas parties every year and purchase medals and trophies which are handed out to the hardest workers each month. David said: 'The basic thing for us when setting up the club was to give children a place to play football for free. 'I just want to keep doing what we do to help the kids. We don't want to cut back on helping them, we want to keep boosting morale. 'If a boy turns up and we can tell he has no money, we get him a new pair of boots and say he's won a prize, that's how we go about it.' (Image: Picture credit: Colin Mearns, Newsquest.) The club was set up around 14 years ago after a high volume of gang activity in Fernhill. David explained: 'In the 70s and 80s when I was younger, Fernhill was a bad place. 'There was a lot of rivalry between Castlemilk and Fernhill. Years ago, people from Fernhill wouldn't be able to walk into Castlemilk. There would be a lot of trouble if people mixed with one another.' (Image: Picture credit: Colin Mearns, Newsquest.) Having gotten involved in gang culture himself when he was younger, David decided to set up the club to get boys and girls mixing from different areas, with the hopes of reducing crime and anti-social behaviour, as well as getting kids off the street. He continued: 'I wanted to mix kids at a young age and in my opinion, it has worked. 'We've kept kids from different areas mixed and the rivalry that once was so strong feels a lot better nowadays.' The club has proudly integrated youngsters from areas including Castlemilk, Cathkin, Rutherglen, Blantyre and Calton, and has produced popular ballers like Callan McKenna (AFC Bournemouth) and Steve Archibald (Barcelona, Tottenham). (Image: Callan McKenna. Image: SNS.) (Image: Image of Steve Archibald)The club have survived over the last decade by relying on funding and the kindness of people and businesses in the local community. 'We rely on funding and anyone that can help us out,' David said. He added: 'Locals give us money sometimes which is really helpful.' (Image: Picture credit: Colin Mearns, Newsquest) Companies like Warburtons have provided the club with free rolls in the past and trusts have previously donated thousands of pounds. 'Without that, we would have struggled a lot last year, I think,' Davey said. The club have set up a Crowdfunder to help with running costs. If you wish to donate, click HERE (Image: Picture credit: Colin Mearns, Newsquest.) A spokesperson for South Lanarkshire Leisure and Culture said: 'Due to funding pressures, it was previously agreed that concessions applied to Under 16s Clubs for our pitch bookings should drop from 75% to a 50% discount of the adult rate, phased over a three-year period, moving prices to around the average around Scotland. "That means the concession now enjoyed by Under 16s clubs from April 2025 is a 50% discount from the adult rate.' Fernhill Soccer School is for kids aged between three and 16. For more information, visit
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Newcastle's transfer plans: Who they will target in biggest summer in recent history, the one problem with Alexander Isak and why Paul Mitchell will still be involved
Paul Mitchell has one month to leave a legacy that could impact Newcastle United for years and years. He will, sources insist, work the entirety of June, despite this week's confirmation of his imminent exit. Some find that bizarre, hardly conducive to best practice.
The Guardian
5 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
‘We work hard and have a plan': meet the team who have won their league 23 times in a row
There are many types of champions. Some win the league just as a one-off. There are those who enjoy periods of sustained success as well as the relentless winners who establish a long-term stranglehold on the silverware in their country. The next level up is the peerless teams who sustain it for a decade or so. Finally, in an entire category of their own, we have SFK 2000 Sarajevo. The Bosnia and Herzegovina women's champions recently extended their own world record by lifting their 23rd (!) consecutive title, continuing a streak that began before nearly half of their current squad were even born. On 21 May they added the Bosnian Cup, lifting it for 21st time this century, with a 1-0 victory over their nearest challengers Emina, and speaking to the Guardian before that cup success, trying to explain their dominance in the league, Sarajevo's secretary general, Azra Numanovic, said: 'I can't even describe it any more. We are changing the perspective towards women's football in Bosnia and in this region, because if you see our results, we're the most successful football club in Bosnia. Not women's football club, the most successful football club. 'I think the biggest question is, 'how do we do it psychologically, to motivate our players to do it from year to year?' Everyone says 'the league in Bosnia, the quality is not so high and so you do it easily' but actually no, that's not true, because we are human – we work so hard, we have our strategic plan, our tactics, our mentality, that we from year-to-year manage to be the best. 'The key point is we have our head coach, Samira Hurem, who is, at the same time, the president of this club. She formed this club in the year 2000 and she's the one who's been leading us since day one. Her vision, her energy is something that has been transferred to all of us younger ones.' Hurem is, like Numanovic, a former player for both SFK 2000 Sarajevo and the Bosnia and Herzegovina women's national team. This year their team won the title by a 21-point margin, but spare a thought for second-place Emina, who have finished as the runners-up for a sixth consecutive campaign. 'We have really good matches with them,' Numanovic says, of their rivalry. 'They're trying hard and it's good for us to have teams like that so we play better games because the rest of the league is really not that good, and then you don't have those kind of quality matches and then when the Champions League comes you have to play more defensively and it's really hard to switch over, so we're actually very happy to have Emina.' Naturally, amid such domestic dominance, it is in the Women's Champions League where Sarajevo face their toughest games each season. This season, they beat the Faroe Islands-based club KÍ Klaksvík Kvinnur in the first round of qualifying before being knocked out by Benfica. They have claimed some sizable scalps over the years, including beating Cardiff City 3-0 in 2013, but they have progressed through the qualifying rounds just four times, most recently in 2019, when they were eliminated by Chelsea in the round of 32, before the existing main-draw group-stage format was introduced. 'We try in our preparation period to have good friendly matches with the champions of Serbia and Montenegro who are pretty similar to us,' Numanovic says of the gap between domestic and European football. 'There was an idea to establish a regional league. The best teams from Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia would play each other, because all of us need to overcome this gap. All of us have the same problem. 'It [creating such a regional competition] is not easy because the biggest problem we have is how to finance it. We already had many meetings and everyone would be happy to do it, but we still cannot overcome the financial burden. What's interesting here is, for example, our men's colleagues in all of these countries could never organise that, because of security reasons. It is impossible. Imagine Sarajevo v Dinamo Zagreb? That would be a mess – but when we play each other it's a super happy, positive match, so we have overcome the political situation with women's football. It's a super beautiful atmosphere. Now we need a shift to more investment in women's football to see the potential in it, to make some of these projects come alive.' There is at least a new competition that has been introduced by Uefa, but it is Europe-wide. Bosnia and Herzegovina are ranked 25th in Uefa women's coefficient list but now have an extra incentive to improve their standing – from 24th place upwards, countries start to receive a spot in the new Women's Europa Cup competition from the 2025-26 campaign, meaning Emina have narrowly missed out this time, but Numanovic is enthusiastically welcoming that new competition as a means to grow the women's game around the entire continent. 'This is a big step forward,' she says. 'It will help a lot of teams. More teams will get access to Uefa competitions to work on their development so this will help a lot. We are close to having two teams – it will be amazing if Emina also gets to play in Europe and develop themselves, and it will also push the other teams here to also develop.' Numanovic, who started playing for Sarajevo at 14 in 2004, was a defensive midfielder who could also play at full-back, and although she hung up her boots three years ago, she has never been more active in the sport, having working in administration for the past 17 years, initially just to help the club out. She has spent 10 years working with the European Club Association, where she is now a board member, and she wants more women to have chances to get involved in running the sport. 'Another key reason why we [Sarajevo] are successful is most of our administration staff are former players of the club – we give everyone a chance to learn if they want to stay in the club. When you were a player and you remain to be a fighter on the administration field as well, you know what a player needs.' They are already in the Guinness book of World Records but, with that ethos, they intend to remain on top in Bosnia and Herzegovina for many more years to come. Major blow: The Tottenham defender Ella Morris has sustained an anterior cruciate ligament injury in her right knee during training with England after she received her first senior international call-up. She wrote on the social media platform X: 'From the highest high to the lowest low. Devastated doesn't even come close. So grateful for the incredible people around me. ACL round 2 – let's go.' Cutting it fine: The match venues for July's Women's Africa Cup of Nations, being hosted in Morocco a year later than originally planned, have finally been announced. The stadiums will include the Olympic Stadium in Rabat and Casablanca's Larbi Zaouli Stadium, among four other venues. An official fixture list is still yet to be released. Champions of Europe. Faye Carruthers is joined by Suzy Wrack, Tim Stillman and Sophie Downey to reflect on Arsenal's historic Champions League victory. There is also a chat with Adrian Jacob, head of football at World Sevens Football, about the inaugural tournament in Portugal. Listen here You can watch SFK 2000 Sarajevo clinch their latest domestic double in the Cup final against Emina, with Lili Jones-Baidoe heading in the only goal in the 37th minute. 'I had hoped that Mary would play an important role within the squad this summer, so of course I am disappointed. Mary has been clear on her reasons why she has made the decision and it is something we need to accept.' The England head coach, Sarina Wiegman, reacts to Mary Earps' decision to retire from international football. What is your favourite Mary Earps moment? The dancing on the table? The swearing? Taking on Nike? Suzanne Wrack pays tribute to a player who elevated the game in England to another level. The interim Matildas coach, Tom Sermanni, has hit out at the A-League Women for 'gross' underinvestment. 'We need a complete rethink,' he says. Tom Garry tracks the steps – from Linköping to Lisbon – that made Stina Blackstenius an Arsenal icon. Her former coaches are not surprised. The Guardian has exclusively revealed that the FA and the England players have agreed a bonus package that would see the squad receive up to £1.7m if they defend their Euro title this summer. And yes, it is already that time of the year. Sarah Rendell has already inputted more than 150 transfers into our transfer interactive, and this year we have added the NWSL as well. Take a look here.
The Sun
6 days ago
- Business
- The Sun
Managerless QPR release five players following culmination of Championship season… but SEVEN more could still leave
QUEENS PARK RANGERS have announced five players are leaving the club - with a fan favourite potentially set to follow. The Rs have just completed their tenth-straight season in the Championship. 2 Rangers finished 15th, six points clear of the relegation zone but ten behind the playoff places. The club are currently searching for a manager after placing Marti Cifuente on gardening leave in April. But that isn't stopping them from having a summer clear-out at Loftus Road. The club have confirmed Kenneth Paal, Conor Clark, Samuel Manufor, Harry Murphy, and Casey Shann have all been released. Paal has been in West London since 2022, joining the club from Dutch side Zwolle. He has played over 120 times for the R's, scoring six goals. In an emotional statement on Instagram, he wrote: "From day one, I enjoyed every moment. "The people at the club as well as my team-mates helped me and my family, and I will always be thankful. "There were tough moments but my time with QPR made me a better person and a better player. "I became a father here and my little one was born in London, so this will always be a special place and time for me. It was a life-changing period." Former Championship club win promotion to National League as fans go wild after nightmare decade Seven players remain locked in negotiations with the club over a new deal. Lucas Andersen, Jack Colback, Jimmy Dunne, Morgan Fox, Joel Halliday, Noah McCann, Kieran Petrie and Nathan Shepperd. QPR attempted to renew Dunne's contract earlier in the season and blocked a move to Sheffield United in January. The 27-year-old was voted the club's player of the season by both supporters and his teammates. Dunne is set to become a free agent if he is unable to sign a new deal in the capital.
