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Despite defeat, Jack Collison was a constant menace for Wales in a narrow loss to England
06.09.2011
Jack Collison turned in a spirited display for Wales as they went down 1-0 to England in a UEFA EURO 2012 qualifier on Tuesday night. The Hammers midfielder played for 85 minutes in what was a narrow Group G defeat at Wembley, courtesy of Ashley Young's first half-strike. Collison was a lively box-to-box presence throughout in a Wales midfield also boasting Aaron Ramsey and Gareth Bale as he continues to put his serious knee injury behind him. The match was Collison's competitive bow for his country on his eleventh cap, and put to bed any outside speculation that he would choose to switch allegiance from Wales, for whom he qualifies through his grandfather. While Welsh hopes of the finals were long since over, England need just a point from their final match away to Montenegro on 7 October to make sure of a place at next summer's finals.
Elsewhere, John Carew played for the final 25 minutes off the bench for Norway in a vital qualifier away to Denmark. By the time the big Hammers front-man arrived, the damage had been done, however, with the Danes holding an unassailable two-goal lead through Nicklas Bendtner and they hung on for a 2-0 win. Norway are level on 13 points with the Danes and Portugal at the top of Group H, but both their rivals have two games remaining while they have just one. Carew will hope to figure again when they travel to Cyprus to conclude their campaign on 11 October. Only group winners are certain of a place in Ukraine and Poland next year, with play-offs being held for those finishing second in the sections.
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Arsenal youngster vows to prove worth at West Ham
By talkSPORT
Tuesday, September 6
Henri Lansbury is desperate to show Arsene Wenger that he is ready to play regular first-team football by helping West Ham gain promotion into the Premier League this season. Lansbury completed a season-long loan to the Championship club on transfer deadline day after holding talks with Wenger over his future this season.
The England Under-21 midfielder played a major role in helping Norwich gain promotion into the Premier League last season and is now hoping to achieve a similar feat with West Ham. Lansbury is hoping that another full season of playing regular football will finally persuade Wenger to put him into the Arsenal side on a regular basis. Lansbury said: "I didn't have any reservations. The manager here asked me to come and play. "So I spoke to the manager at Arsenal who told me I might not get the amount of football I wanted and I just wanted to go and play. West Ham have given me that chance to come and do just that. "Hopefully they'll see my fighting spirit and I'll show them what I'm about and get us to the top of the league. "We've got the players to hopefully go and do that, just like Norwich had last year."
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Tottenham's battle with West Ham the tip of Olympic legacy problems
While the two football clubs argue over what constitutes state aid, post-Olympic projects are suffering from a lack of it
David Conn
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 6 September 2011 22.59 BST
The oddest aspect of the high court tug‑of-war for the Olympic stadium is that while Tottenham Hotspur are claiming West Ham United's arrangements to take over the stadium constitute illegal "state aid", nobody is challenging the principle overall: the handing of a £500m stadium, built with public money, to a rich, privately owned football club.
Spurs' case, to be heard next month, is that Newham Council's £40m loan to enable West Ham to occupy the stadium is public money giving West Ham a competitive advantage over their rivals, contrary to European Union law. Newham rejects that, pointing out that it will lend on commercial terms, against stadium income and Sir Robin Wales, mayor of the borough, one of London's poorest, argues the council will secure "serious benefits for the community" by being involved in the stadium.
While the clubs tussle over that comparatively small slice of the deal, Simon Boyes, a senior lecturer at Nottingham Trent University specialising in sport and EU law, says it is arguable that the grant of the stadium to either club could itself constitute state aid: "The transfer of state-owned property below commercial rates," he says, "satisfies the European Union's definition of state aid. It might reasonably be regarded as conferring an unfair competitive advantage on the beneficiary football club."
The Olympic Park Legacy Company, which has decided to hand the stadium to West Ham after the 2012 Games, and West Ham themselves, will argue it is not state aid, because West Ham will pay a "market price" for their lease, as EU law requires. Neither the OPLC nor West Ham's managing director, Karren Brady, would comment on what that market price is likely to be, as it is still being negotiated. However, West Ham's stance will be for a rent reflecting the club taking a stadium off the government's hands, because it had no other viable post-Olympics legacy.
Brady will see as her model Manchester City, who pay nothing up to 32,000 seats for the £120m Eastlands stadium, built originally for the 2002 Commonwealth Games, then share ticket income with Manchester City Council on seats above that.
West Ham are likely to argue their deal should be more favourable, because the Manchester stadium was designed for football from the beginning, whereas the Stratford stadium was intended to be reduced post-games to a sunken, roofless bowl of 25,000 seats, with a running track. That stands as a reminder that the government, and Lord Coe, who led London's bid to host the 2012 Olympics promising they would transform opportunities for ordinary people to play sport, are where they did not want to be.
When the Olympics were secured, the politicians were firm that they did not want their stadium to be handed over, as Manchester's was, for the ultimate enrichment of a Premier League football club and its owners. That was why the Olympic board, including Coe, approved the design of 55,000 temporary seats to come down to 25,000. However, the government realised gradually that such a stadium has no sustainable regular use, so the OPLC reached the conclusion, inescapable as soon as the games were even proposed, that the centrepiece, a hugely expensive stadium, has to go to a big football club.
Brady confirmed this week that: "West Ham are still committed, we believe it is the right legacy for the stadium, and we are prepared to take the risk because we believe on balance it will be positive."
However, with the Spurs judicial review yet to be fought by the OPLC, she did not want to discuss the financial benefits the stadium move will deliver to her club. She and West Ham's 60% owners, David Sullivan and David Gold, (35% is still owned by Straumur, the Icelandic bank) did, though, make a fortune from their previous ownership of Birmingham City, the two Davids ultimately selling to the Carson Yeung‑led consortium for a combined £55m. When they took over West Ham, paying £30m each for their stakes, they talked immediately about wanting the move to the Olympic stadium, and earlier this year Sullivan told the BBC documentary Lord Sugar Tackles Football: "We believe we will turn this club into a club worth £500m."
If they achieve that – fighting off the legal challenge, restoring the club to the Premier League and making a success of a stadium with a running track – Gold and Sullivan's 30% West Ham stakes would be worth £150m each – their fortunes greatly enhanced by taking over a brand new stadium built with public money for a fortnight of Olympics next year.
The future of the public's promised Olympic legacy, of, as Coe put it: "The single biggest opportunity in our lifetime to transform sport and participation in sport in the UK forever," looks a great deal shakier now. After the International Olympic Committee opted for London, Coe himself became the £365,000-a-year chair of Locog, the body actually organising the games themselves, with little responsibility for the participation legacy. That role fell to Sport England, already the lottery grant‑giving body, but operating with less money because £56m was diverted to bolster the budget for the Olympics themselves. That figure, £9.3bn, to build the stadium, eight other new venues, the Olympic park and run the Games – protected, as is UK Sport's funding for elite athletes training to win medals – utterly dwarfs Sport England's budget to invest in all sports nationally: £249m this year, £232m in 2011‑12, £271m the following year.
The government's £1.6bn cuts to local authorities are expected to savage sport and leisure, still not services councils legally must provide. Hugh Robertson, the sports minister, who is credited with fighting for sport's share of lottery money, closed the previous government's free swimming funding weeks after taking office, saying it was "a luxury we can no longer afford".
Michael Gove, the education minister, axed £164m funding for school sport partnerships, which promoted sport in schools; after an outcry then a partial U-turn, Gove's Department for Education now provides less than a fifth of that, £33m, for a school sport programme, supplemented by £20m from the Department of Health.
A spokesman for Robertson's culture, media and sport department said: "We are absolutely committed to using the Olympic Games as a catalyst to get more people playing sport. It is not an easy task but we are not shirking from that ambition."
Simon Henig, leader of Durham County Council and sport spokesman on Labour's Local Government Group, said councils are trying not to cut services but as the cuts bite, it will become inevitable. His own council is having to close three of 19 leisure centres, and turn a further three over for more limited use, run by community groups, to cope with £120m cuts over three years.
"It is all very well spending £9.3bn on the Olympics including building a £500m stadium which will go to a top football club," Henig said, "but it is very difficult to increase participation in sport when there are swingeing cuts to sport and leisure provision, often in the poorest areas, where they are needed most."
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Jonjo abseils for Nanny and Bobby
London 24
Steve Bacon
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
3:05 PM
Hammers fan Jonjo Heuerman continues his fund-raising efforts for The Bobby Moore Fund with a charity abseil and fun day at at the Romford YMCA on Sunday.
All the money raised will go to the fund set up in memory of the former football legend Bobby Moore, who died of bowel cancer in 1993. Jonjo's initial aim was to raise £10,000 with his walk from Wembley to Upton Park in memory of his grandmother, Lynda Heuerman, and the former West Ham and England captain, who both died from bowel cancer. However, the 10-year-old has now raised close to £30,000 from the walk and follow-up events, and hopes to add to that on Sunday. The abseiling event runs between 9am and 5pm with a community BBQ, bouncy castles and other fun events. For those scared of heights, there will also be a charity head shave and leg/chest wax on the day.
Anybody interested in taking part or just coming along to enjoy the day, should visit http://www.fornannyandbobby.moonfruit.com/#/charity-abseil/4552687313
for further details
The final word goes to young Jonjo: "Please help me give my friend Stephanie Moore, Bobby's wife, a very big cheque when I see her in October. I hope you can come along it will be really fun and I hope I can raise lots of money in memory of my Nanny and Bobby."
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