Stockport – VIJAY SHAH via ALIA ROPUN, upday, JOE ROBERTS and Metro
A five-year-old English child was taken to hospital after coming across a painkiller tablet she found inside a packet of chocolate sweets, online newspaper Metro reported yesterday.
The little girl, Annabelle Stark, had gone out trick-or-treating for Hallowe’en with her three-year-old brother, Joel, in the northern England town of Stockport. She was given a pack of Smarties, a sweet containing chocolate covered in a sugar shell popular among children in the United Kingdom.
Her mother, Kayleigh Stark, gave the packets of sweets to her children as a treat, only to discover that one of the Smarties was a prescription pill, namely the strong anti-inflammatory medicine Diclofenac, which is only available via a doctor’s prescription note. The mother became concerned that Annabelle had eaten a pill and immediately rushed the child to hospital, Metro reported.
The orange-coloured pill, which bears a strong resemblance to a Smartie, was also taken by the mother to show to doctors at Stepping Hill Hospital. She had opened the box this past Thursday and poured the sweets into a bowl for her son when she spotted the medicine, which is believed to have been put in the box of Smarties after the multipack it was in was opened by the original purchaser who gifted it to the children.
Stark told Metro: “It was right at the top (of the Smarties box)”
‘I noticed it because it was slightly bigger and wasn’t shiny like the other Smarties.’
Kayleigh called her husband Chris to notify him of the discovery, and found out that their daughter had already eaten another box of Smarties on Hallowe’en. Worried for her health, they called the 111 non-emergency number run by the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), where an advisor asked her to take Annabelle to her nearest hospital accident and emergency ward.
“We just didn’t know if there had been another pill – or what it even was,” she said.
Kayleigh added: ‘Annabelle was fine, we could see that, but we wanted to be on the safe side.’
‘We took her to Stepping Hill hospital and they carried out loads of tests – blood pressure, temperature, blood sugars, urine samples, heart trace.
‘She was quite scared by it all as she didn’t feel poorly. I had to explain to her that she hadn’t done anything wrong, but that there was a naughty pill in her brother’s sweets so we had to check her over.
‘It was quite overwhelming for her.”
Thankfully, Annabelle was given a clean bill of health, although medical staff warned the mother that had her child ingested the Diclofenac, she would have suffered vomiting.
The manufacturer of Smarties sweets, Nestlé UK, and the Greater Manchester Police were both informed of the incident and are currently investigating. In a statement, Nestlé told the Metro: “We are aware of this instance and have been speaking with the family involved. We have very strict controls in place to ensure the quality and safety of all of our products.”. As the box was opened after purchase and before it was given to the Stark family, there is no implication that the pill was included in the pack under Nestlé’s watch.
Ilford – VIJAY SHAH via ELLENA CRUSE and Ilford Recorder
A person has been knifed to death and another has suffered critical injuries in a violent incident in the Ilford district of Hainault, local newspaper the Ilford Recorder has reported.
Local residents told the paper that the deceased was stabbed in their throat in the incident, which occurred late yesterday evening. Police were called to reports of two men found stabbed in Hainault’s Manford Way. Ambulance crews were also in attendance. One man died from his injuries at the scene, while the other was taken away to hospital by paramedics from the London Ambulance Service who described his current condition as ‘critical’.
A spokeperson from the Metropolitan Police service, which polices the Greater London area, told the Ilford Recorder: “A crime scene remains in place.
‘Officers from the Homicide and Major Crime Command have been informed.’
‘There have been no arrests and inquiries continue.”
Hainault is around five miles from Ilford’s city centre and 22 miles from Central London. It is largely a residential area popular with families and commuters.
Witnesses to the attack on Friday night have been encouraged by police to come forward. They can dial either 101 (non-emergency number), asking for police and giving the crime reference CAD 8451/12Oct, or ring Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
The man who was found injured and taken to hospital was in his twenties, but no other details were reported. Police are still investigating.
As National Blood Week (19-25 June 2017) reaches its end, the U.K National Health Service is encouraging people to come forward and donate blood to help those who need it most, with an online strategy covering websites and social media such as Facebook, HEM News Agency exclusively reports.
The NHS Blood and Transplant division launched National Blood Week with a campaign to get more people visiting their local blood donation centre with a series of advertisements and even a hashtag #ImThere. The campaign was set up to celebrating new and existing blood donors making a difference and helping save people’s lives, according to the NHSBT website.
Blood donors are being encouraged to proudly announce they have donated via social media to help overcome the reluctance of other members of the public to donate and to solve shortages of certain blood groups, particularly those associated with ethnic minorities.
The NHSBT is particularly keen to get on board more donors of black African and Afro-Caribbean heritage, who are currently vastly underrepresented in the blood donation pool. An appeal was launched to increase the number of black British donors by 40,000, to help fight the effects of sickle cell anaemia among the African and Afro-Caribbean communities. The agency has received support from television presenter Scarlette Douglas, whose brother was a blood transfusion recipient. She spoke with sickle cell sufferer Aaron Thomas on the BBC One Show about the condition and the need for more donors from this community.
Donors are being encouraged to add frames to their Facebook profile photos and special ‘Twibbons’ to their Twitter pages. They can also take a selfie at the blood donation centre and use the #ImThere tag, to get their friends and family to join in and donate too.
NHSBT is also keen to reach out to more people with blood group O- as stocks of this blood type are running very low. The agency runs twenty three permanent centres and visits thousands of venues across England.
Current caretaker England football team manager and former international star Gareth Southgate has said he will undergo an interview for the manager’s job this Monday, ESPN FC reported via PA Sports yesterday.
Southgate has been the interim manager after previous incumbent Sam Allardyce was expelled from the role last September after becoming embroiled in a corruption scandal concerning players, their agents and FIFA. According to the FA (Football Association, the governing body of English football) chief executive Martin Glenn, Southgate has said he wants to make the role permanent and the two will hold further talks on the matter at the start of next week, ESPN reports.
Before taking over from the disgraced Allardyce, Southgate was head of the England under-21s side. He quickly assumed managerial position after Allardyce was caught on camera telling an undercover reporter from the Daily Telegraph newspaper ‘controversial comments’ about overriding FIFA rules concerning player purchases.
So far, Southgate has shown some promise in the role. In addition to his many years of experience at the top end of English football, Southgate has now overseen two wins and two draws of the four matches under his guidance.
It is not known if anyone else is also been interviewed for the manager’s post. Glenn refused to be drawn into naming other candidates, citing confidentiality in the FA’s interviewing processes. He only went as far as saying that Southgate was one of their stronger choices.
He added: “Not just [because] the facts of the last four games have shown a lot of signs of encouragement but the fact he’s worked in the FA for the last couple of years.
”He’s run the Under-21s well, he understands how the international set-up works so we’re going to be having discussions with him in the coming weeks to really understand what his learnings are, what his ambition for the England team is and really, really understand that well and then we’ll take a considered view.”
Gareth Southgate was born in Watford, a commuter town north of London in 1970 and began his playing career at London side Crystal Palace as a central midfielder. His prowess on the pitch soon led him to captain the side and saw them win the 1993/1994 First Division cup. He later transferred to Aston Villa before eventually becoming manager of Middlesbrough in 2006, after joining them five years earlier. He also made appearances internationally starting with Euro 1996, the 1998 World Cup and then again at Euro 2000. In 2013 he began his first national position as head of the youth side for England.
One of the most intense rivalries in the world of cricket is set to resume today as England face the Aussies for the Ashes. The Test series begins today (July 8) and will run until the 12th. The matches take place at Sophia Gardens in Cardiff, Wales – neutral territory for these two intense rivals and cricketing champions. Australia is the 2013-14 champion of the tournament, which began in 1883, and where these two teams vie to take the Ashes, a small urn from the 19th century said to contain the ashes of a wicket.
The Australia team, captained by Michael Clarke, is eager to reverse a bad run of fortune in the last few Test matches, and call a halt to a long 14-year stretch without a series win in England, while the home team have their sights set on taking back the prized urn and restoring English cricketing, and national, pride.
Australia won 5-0 at home in the last ashes two years previously. However, the Aussies’ series tally has been less impressive on UK soil. It won its last series in 2001, more than a decade ago, and crashed out of the record in 2005, 2009 and 2013, according to the International Cricket Council (ICC), making the 2015 series a highly anticipated and even contest.
(c) Alastair Cook/Facebook
The Australian captain Clarke was part of those three defeats and is eager to save face both for himself and the Aussies by securing the Ashes this time round. He has already a very established and successful leadership career, the ICC states.
England will be headed by accomplished captain Alastair Cook and will also be managed by new coach Trevor Bayliss. England made an exceptional performance in recent One-Day International and Test games against New Zealand, playing an aggressive brand of cricket that promised results and entertainment. Andrew Strauss, a former England captain and current director of cricket, was positive that England would be no pushover. “I think if Australia do win, they’ll have to play some outstanding cricket to do so,” he said.
The last Ashes to be held in England was a positive one for the Three Lions, who secured a comfortable 3-0 victory, although close performances on both sides made this a far from easy victory. Australia soon acquired a new leader, Darren Lehmann, who inspired the team from Down Under to a stirring victory against the motherland of cricket, and earned that spectacular 5-0 usurping that brought smiles on faces from Perth to Sydney and a drubbing for the beleaguered England outfit. Things have changed for the Aussies since that glorious match in 2013-2014. The team will be missing their sting in the attack. Ryan Harris recently retired from the international game, after wowing audiences with his ingenious bowling in the England series of 2013, as well as the return leg in Australia in that season’s Ashes. Australia’s pace attack now will be mainly reliant on remaining international team members Mitchell Johnson, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood, who performed well in a series win against the West Indies. Starc, the Man of the Tournament during Australia’s ICC World Cup 2015 win, has been helping demolish wickets with that famed hard red ball, and he says that it was his consistency in play that helped him to that glory. “I have worked a long time for my stock delivery being at a left-hander,” said Starc. “The consistency is getting to where it needs to be and I’m starting to see results.”
England’s counter attack against a notoriously challenging team could well rest with County Durham ‘pacer’ Mark Wood. Fresh to the international pitches, Wood has already done well for himself and justified the selector’s pick for England. He recently picked up nine wickets in the two Tests against New Zealand in his debut series. The spinning contingent will be supported by Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid, both very meticulous in their department, and will be useful tools in England’s pace attack assault against Australia.
In other Ashes news, former captain of England, Kevin Pietersen has urged his old team to be like the Australians and go for more sledging, writing in The Telegraph that “this is sporting war” and that he did not want to see “people laughing and joking with each other”. England has won the toss to bat first today. Meanwhile, media giants Sky Sports are already offering up their predictions for the outcome of this year’s Ashes.
With both sides keyed up to win a series that has held a special place in the hearts of players and fans for more than a century, the action promises to be enthralling from start to finish.
Teams (from):
England: Alastair Cook (Captain), Adam Lyth, Gary Ballance, Ian Bell, Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler (wicket keeper), Moeen Ali, Stuart Broad, Mark Wood, James Anderson, Steven Finn, Adil Rashid.
Australia: David Warner, Chris Rogers, Steven Smith, Michael Clarke (Captain), Adam Voges, Shane Watson, Brad Haddin (wicket keeper), Mitchell Johnson, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon, Peter Siddle, Mitchell Marsh, Shaun Marsh, Fawad Ahmed, Peter Nevill.
A semi-retired builder searching for treasure in the east of the Englishcounty of Devonstruck historical gold after recently uncovering a hiddenhoardof around 20,000coinsdating from theRoman occupation of Britain, national newspaper theDaily Mailreports. The collection of coins, believed to be in the value of £100,000 (US $162,440) was chanced upon by builder and amateurmetal detectingenthusiast Laurence Egerton in east Devon, an area in south-westernEnglandfamed for its picturesque moors and fields.
The hoard of Roman money is believed to be one of the largest hauls of historical coinage ever discovered in the U.K. Egerton, aged 51, was in a local field searching for finds with his metal detector when he stumbled across the hoard of copper-alloy coins, possibly low-denomination coinage issued by theRoman Empirefor use by their colonists in their northern most province. The Daily Mail reported that Egerton was so concerned about the possibility of his hoard being stolen that he camped out in the field for three nights, guarding the discovery site while archaeologists arrived to explore the site in more detail.
Dubbed the Seaton Down Hoard, the assortment of 22,000 copper-alloy coins may have been the accumulated savings of a private individual keeping the money safe for a ‘rainy day’ or an informal and well-hidden bank of wages perhaps left by aRoman soldier. It is likely the hoarder died or lost track of the burial site leaving the coins to lay unseen for nearly two thousand years. A picture supplied to the Daily Mail by theBritish Museumand picture agency Apex shows the Seaton Down Hoard contained in a heavy duty plastic box. The coins appear in still good condition despite being buried for two millennia, but all show signs of corrosion, namely a green rust called verdigris, caused by the copper in the coins reacting with moisture and acids from their surroundings. Many of the coins bear the usual emperor’s profile ofRoman coinageand some show two standing figures which possibly have allegorical origins. An analysis by local historian Bill Horner determined that the coins dated back to between 260-348 AD and bear portraits of the Roman emperor Constantine, other emperors ruling alongside him, members of his family. Emperors that ruled either side of Constantine’s reign also make an appearance. According to Horner, Britain at that time was in a prosperous financial state with many Romans and natives flush with money. As one of the outermost provinces of the Roman Empire, Britannia, as the Romans knew it, was a relatively safe area at a time when rebellions on the European mainland against Roman colonial rule made matters unstable there. The Roman colonists in Britain escaped the worst of the tensions and maintained their high standards of living, building many luxurious villas in the south of England. However, freedom struggles and numerous invasions and episodes of infighting in the Empire soon brought financial uncertainty to the rich Romans and Romanised Britons of east Devon, who started hoarding as a security measure.
“Romanised farms, or Villas including several inEast Devon, were at their richest.
‘But the province was ultimately drawn intoImperial powerstruggles that, along with increasing attacks from Germanic, Irish and Caledonian tribes, resulted in the rapid decline and end of Roman rule.
‘Coastal areas such as East Devon were on the front-line, and this may be the context for the coin hoard.
‘There were no high street banks, so a good, deep hole in the ground was as secure a place as any to hide your savings in times of trouble, or if you were going away on a long journey.
‘But whoever made this particular deposit never came back to retrieve it” Horner explained.
(c) British Museum via Joanne Bailey.
Believed to have been buried in the4th century AD, the Seaton Down Hoard is only the third largest such discovery in recent times. In 2010, theFrome Hoardmade headlines with its total of 52,503 coins. The second largest was the Nether Comptonhoard of 22,703 found in the neighbouring county of Dorset in 1989. Laurence Egerton’s find has been declared ‘treasure trove’ under a Crown law for the protection of British antiquities. A Devon Coroner’s inquest held earlier this month saw the coins donated to the British Museum who are now holding the Seaton Down collection in storage.
A video shot by Egerton shows him wearing gloves and extracting the dirt covered coins from a pit in a muddy field. Despite the muck, archaeologists reckon that his find is one of the best preserved findings of coinage from the last centuries of the Roman Empire in Britain they have ever witnessed. The video later shows archaeologists working on site removing clumps of coins heavily concentrated in a non-descript part of the field.
Interest in the Seaton Down coins, which do not contain any gold or silver, have nevertheless soared between the many museums in Britain concerned with Roman antiquities. The Royal Albert Memorial Museum(RAMM) in Exeter, the county town (capital) of Devon already houses a formidable collection of Romano-British artefacts from the local area and is eager to acquire the coins, and is running a fundraising campaign to purchase the coins outright from the British Museum to display for the benefit of local historians, researchers and students.
Although only reported this month, Laurence Egerton made the initial discovery in November 2013 after obtaining permission from the landowner of the field in Honeyditches, eastern Devon, where previously the remains of a Roman villa, or country home had been noted. The find was then reported to the landowner, a privately-owned company named Clinton Devon Estates, in accordance with theTreasure Act 1996, a parliamentary legal instrument aimed at safeguarding artefacts of national and historical value.
In an interview with the Daily Mail newspaper, Mr Egerton said: “It’s by far the biggest find I’ve ever had. It really doesn’t get any better than this.
‘Between finding the hoard and the archaeologists excavating the site, I slept in my car alongside it for three nights to guard it.
‘On this occasion, the ground where I was working was quite flinty and I found what I thought were two Roman coins which is actually quite unusual in Devon.
‘As I began working in a grid formation in the surrounding area I had a signal on the metal detector which means that there is probably iron involved.
‘Most detectors are set up to ignore iron but I decided to dig the earth at that spot and immediately reached some iron ingots which were laid directly on top of the coins’
‘The next shovel was full of coins – they just spilled out over the field.“
The coins may have originally being held in a cloth bag at the time of their deposition, but that the ravages of time and chemicals from the nearby soil might have caused the bag to rot away leaving the coins to scatter underground. The find is said to be unusual for the region as the county’s acidic soils would normally decompose any metal left in it, yet the coins are in a remarkable state of preservation.
The United Kingdom, with the exception of Scotland, became part of the Roman Empire in a 55 BC invasion of the area by renowned emperor Julius Caesar, who wrested control from the numerous Celtic tribes previously settled there. Many of the conquered Celts were permitted to continue striking their own coins, which were often modelled on imported Greek coins but made more simplified by the native minters. The Romans began importing their own coinage, mainly to pay Roman soldiers and imperial mercenaries stationed in the UK, and also began minting coins locally and to celebrate their victories in Britain. The gold aureus was used for large payments, but not much for day-to-day transactions. It had a fixed value of 25 denarii until at least 200 AD. The silver denarius was the main coin of value in generalcirculation. The low value coinage of sestertii, dupondii, and asses was struck variously in bronze, orichalcum and copper. Denarii were paid to soldiers at a rate of one a day, while asses, or aes, were believed to have been used to pay for supplies obtained from local traders by the Romans. However by the time of the Seaton Down Hoard, Roman British coinage had become almost worthless owing to imperial financial mismanagement and debasing of the hard currency.
“Coinage In Roman Britain The Coinage Of Britain During The Roman Occupation” – Peter R Thompson, The Ormskirk and West Lancashire Numismatic Society http://www.numsoc.net/rombrit.html
A student inChester, Cheshire, can finally wave goodbye toPot Noodlesandbaked beansafter she recently won just over £1 million on a lottery run by a localbetting shop. Jirtchaya Klongjarn, 34 years, visited a town centre branch of the betting shop chainLadbrokes, where she placed two £1 bets for the Friday draw of the ‘49’s‘ lottery. She successfully chose all six winning numbers and netted herself a cool £1,000,990.
It was a case of ‘second time lucky’ for Klongjarn, who only began playing the 49’s lottery just four months ago. She first won £601 in June 2014 and narrowly missed out on a £200,000 windfall after selecting a different draw for her numbers mistakenly earlier in the summer. Among her lucky numbers, the Thai student picked 8 and 12 based on her birthday of 12th August, while the rest of the lucky digits were picked at random.
“I’m over the moon and I still can’t believe it,” Ms Klongjarn said in an interview after the big win. “I told my friends I had won the 49’s and that I might have a chance to win a million, then when I finally found out I was so excited. It still doesn’t feel real and I’ve barely slept. I had some bad luck earlier on in the year but this has made up for it. My friends all play the 49’s and they now say I’m the luckiest in the whole group.”
Ladbrokes’ spokesperson Alex Donohue said in an interview with betting website Bettingpro.com that the company was just as happy for their lucky punter, notwithstanding the huge payout. He commented “We couldn’t be happier for our history-making millionaire,”
“She’s defied the odds in style.”
While not as popular as the Lotto (NationalLottery) – which draws the lion’s share of non-professionalgamblersin the UK, the 49’s lottery is very popular among the hundreds of thousands of customers that visit Ladbrokes’ branches every week. Just like its popular rivals, punters chose a set of numbers and hope to match all the numbers to get the top prize. The maximum cash giveaway is £1,000,000 if a 49’s player successfully matches all six numbers in one of the twice-daily draws held.
Jirtchaya’s windfall is the second million pound pay-out for Ladbrokes in the past 12 months, after another customer in Bournemouth scooped a seven-figure sum after placing a £4 stake in December 2013.
The wins at opposite ends of the country has certainly stunned Ladbrokes just as much as the lucky winners, Donohue added: “These jackpots are won once in a blue moon so the odds of two coming along in under a year are very long”
“We’re not expecting any sympathy though and we’re paying out with a smile.”
Ms. Klongjarn plans to visitChester Racecoursewith her friends to repeat her success at the races as well as celebrate her win. She also plans to share her fortune with her mother, who is living back inThailand.
Holidaymakers planning to visit beaches and festivals in the south of the United Kingdom this August Bank Holiday weekend have been warned by weather forecasters that unseasonably bad weather could ruin their plans and cause travel chaos on English and Welsh motorways, according to a new report out today by The Guardian newspaper.
The Meteorological Office (Met Office), the U.K.’s national weather institute, is predicting cold and damp weather to cover most of southern Britain, possibly impacting visitors to the Notting Hill Carnival in west London, as well as sunseekers traditionally heading out to popular beaches like Brighton, Great Yarmouth and Shoeburyness. The Met Office has also issued a ‘yellow’ weather warning for southern England on Monday. The rest of the British Isles will escape the worst of the rainy weather, but will still feel cold despite spells of sunshine. On Monday itself, Scotland and northern England will feel cold to start off with, but average midday temperatures are predicted to reach 18 degrees Celsius (64.4 degrees Fahrenheit). Ironically the Bank Holiday for August is only marked in England and Wales and is not being observed in Scotland. The precipitation and likelihood of ruined holidays and unsafe driving conditions could temporarily dent the British tourism industry, which usually sees record numbers of ‘staycation’ tourists taking advantage of an extra day off work and the long weekend to go on short breaks to the seaside and other places of interest. The tourism body Visit England is expecting five million Britons to plan an overnight holiday trip this weekend.
English: Rain Swept Beach – Skegness Looking north from about level with the seal sanctuary. It was an awful day. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A short spell of heavy rain was reported yesterday in the east London area at around 6:00 pm and lasted for approximately twenty minutes according to one observer, despite much of the day having fine and sunny weather. The Met Office expects heavy rain and winds to roll in across the south on Monday, ruining the last long Bank Holiday weekend of 2014. Their yellow weather alert could spell disaster for people using motorways as they return from weekend breaks as surface water on the tarmac will make driving conditions more hazardous. Overnight temperatures, which are already considerably low for this time of year, will plummet to freezing point during this weekend with the first frosts appearing in the north of the UK since the summer weather dissipated. Monday’s weather warning will apply to parts of Wales, London, south-east England, as well as the south-west and East Anglia regions, where temperatures will be at an unseasonal average of 17 degrees Celsius (62.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
The Met Office said: “Heavy rainis expected to affect many southern areas of Britain at times during bank holiday Monday, with strong winds a possible additional factor close to southern coasts. The public should be aware that there may be some impacts to holiday traffic and other outdoor activities.
“A complex area of low pressure looks like bringing an unpleasant day’s weather to much of the south on Monday. Rainfall amounts look like exceeding 20mm quite widely, while a few places might see around 40mm, so there will be a lot of surface water and spray on roads.
“The spray will probably be made worse by strong winds across some southern areas; gusts to around 40mph may occur at some coastal locations although this will depend on the exact track of the low pressure.“
The Met Office uses a weather warning system consisting of colours, rather like traffic signals. There are three colours used for what the Office terms as ‘severe weather’ and five in use for instances of ‘extreme weather’. The basic colour scheme used by the Met for communications with the public and media outlets consists of light green for ‘no severe weather’ (normal meteorological conditions); yellow for ‘be aware’ (some unusual and impacting weather to be expected); orange for ‘be prepared’ (bad weather expected, people are advised to be vigilant and check weather forecasts) and red for ‘take action’. Red warnings are the most severe and the public are advised to be extra vigilant, to follow orders from authorities and to be prepared for ‘extraordinary measures’. Orange alerts are usually in place for localised flooding, while red alerts are actioned during periods of intense flooding and extreme weather such as hurricanes.
The English and ex-ChelseafootballerFrank Lampard has announced this past Friday that he is planning to sign up with rivals Manchester City in a short-term contract, reports the Guardian newspaper. The ‘shock’ move could occur within the next week or so and will mean that Lampard could end facing the Blues (Chelsea, his old team) twice while playing in City’s kit. Lampard will then switch nations to play for an American team being developed by the Mancunians. City will be squaring off against Chelsea, and Lampard’s former teammates, at their Etihad Stadium on the 21st September, which he may well feature in if his contract is signed and stamped.
Manchester City currently has an investment in the US soccer leagues, running a team, New York City, who will appear for fixtures in the new Major League Soccer tournaments. However the New Yorker eleven, which will begin kicking about in March next year, may well have Lampard back on their team sheet once his temporary contract with owners City is rolled-up, meaning they can transfer him to their MLS franchise. Lampard signed a two-year contract previously with NYC FC, after vacating Chelsea and English football earlier this year. The former Chelsea midfielder had previously turned down an opportunity to appear in Melbourne, Australia for another of City’s international club ventures, while also becoming a signing priority for Queen’s Park Rangers, who he also declined. The 36-year-old has now made it clear that he favours a spell with Manuel Pellegrini’s side. According to Metro,Lampard has rejected the prospect of playing football in Australia as he had expressed a desire to remain in England,which will seem confusing for many as Lampard will be flying across the Atlantic once his stint in Manchester has run its course. He had also previously stated that he would not want to appear for any other Premier League team apart from the Blues after leaving Stamford Bridge.
The move to New York will see Lampard keeping his levels of fitness up as he nears the end of his active career and will also benefit Manchester City in making him free and available for their Premier League and Champions League squads. He is likely to sign a six-month contract which will run until he begins pre-season training with New York. The Lampard signing also means that City can increase the number of English players on their teams to counteract criticism that English clubs are too reliant on foreign players and not making enough use of home-grown talent. For Lampard, who is only a handful of years from making his retirement from the game, it will also keep him fresh in the eyes of England national team manager Roy Hodgson, who has considered him one of his star players. City hopes to have Lampard on the training field with them before their Community Shield clash against Arsenal, on Sunday 10th August.
Frank Lampard recently spoke about the importance of keeping fit ahead of making his debut in MLS, scheduled for March 2015 at the earliest.
“I will have to keep fit. I’ll have to train at the very top level, whether that’s on my own or with a club somewhere, I’ll have to see,’ he said at his New York City unveiling.
‘Of course I’ll keep fit and make sure my levels don’t drop too much. When we come here for pre-season I want to be ready to go. I want to fly out of the blocks. I don’t want to come out sluggish.“
The ‘shock move’ by Lampard is bound to raise eyebrows among many in the Premier League, especially at his old side Chelsea, where he became a legend of the team affectionately known as ‘Chelski‘ after thirteen trophy-packed years with them. The move may well be even more of a shock for Chelsea’s fans, who worshipped him in his days playing for the south London side at their hallowed home in Stamford Bridge. Many may well see his joining of one of their biggest Premiership rivals as a Judas move and a betrayal, while others have described it as a chance for Lampard to make his last few years playing professionally a success and an guiding inspiration for the young and fresh-faced American footballers he will encounter in the ‘Big Apple’.
An article published by the U.K. newspaper The Independent today claims that houses located in the vicinity of a racecourse can cost up to twenty per cent more than those situated further away. In one cited example, houses located near Wetherby Racecourse are 119% higher than the average property price for the entire county of West Yorkshire.
New research suggests that houses located in the same postcode district as a racecourse are 19.6 per cent higher than the average for other houses in the same county as a whole. The study on house prices and areas was conducted by Chestertons Research using data from property prices website Zoopla.
According to the research and Zoopla’s figures, houses in the same postcode area as a ‘mixed racecourse’ command a 25 per cent price premium. Move near a national hunt course and you will pay 18.5 per cent above average prices. if you decide to put roots down in the vicinity of a traditional flat-racing venue then you will likely pay the smallest increase – at 15 per cent, the figures claim. In London and surrounding areas, which has several mixed racecourse locations, the average house price asked for by sellers and agents is £346,355. The average for postcodes with a flat racing course stands at £276,497 and £258,813 for national hunt racing venues.
The five highest average prices are all located in the south-east of England, in areas traditionally frequented by the upper and upper-middle classes. Sandown Park (KT10) in Surrey has the highest average house price of all racecourses in England at £905,635, followed by Ascot (SL5) with £694,391, Epsom (KT18) at £494,341, then Goodwood (PO18, £484,676) and Windsor (SL4, £457,630). All of these racecourses are located in the Home Counties region, a high-price area surrounding England’s capital city, the area of choice for commuters in high pay careers.
Goodwood Racecourse, West Sussex, England (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
House prices in the LS22 postcode region, home to Wetherby racecourse in West Yorkshire, average out at £348,967 which represents a 119 per cent premium over the West Yorkshire average. House prices within the same postcode area as Southwell (NG25) racecourse in Nottinghamshire county are slightly over 111 per cent more than the county’s pricing average, marginally higher than Ascot race course (SL5) in Berkshire.
“In recent years horse racing has become increasingly popular and events such as Royal Ascot, Glorious Goodwood and the Epsom Derby are key dates on the social calendar for hundreds of thousands of people across the country,” said Nick Barnes, the head of research at Chestertons, in an interview with The Independent explaining the findings.
“For those living close to race courses our research shows that the disruption caused by big racing events is worth the hassle. The staging of big events pumps money into local economies and house prices close to countries throughout the country are benefitting from this, with certain locations achieving substantial price increases since the downturn in 2008.“.
The higher house prices around racing venues can be attributed to the prestige the locations have among horseracing clientele, who generally have high disposable incomes and are advanced in age. Many are retirees or people in their late working lives who have a preference for traditional racing sports. In addition to the presence of racecourses, these areas also attract people for the higher standard of living and amenities to be found, as the racecourses inject a large financial boost to the local areas they operate in.
Some courses, such as Royal Ascot, have long been substantial bit players popular culture due to the events they host, which draw thousands of punters and fans, and horse racing in particular is a significant component of the UK’s betting industry.
