Alan Ball, one of England’s 1966 World Cup winners, has died of a heart attack at the age of 61, United Kingdom media reported on Wednesday. The former Everton, Arsenal and Southampton midfielder won 72 caps for his country, scoring eight goals, before moving into management.
A trio of banks led by the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has proposed a €72-billion (-billion) bid for ABN Amro, threatening to thwart an agreed takeover of the Dutch bank by Britain’s Barclays. The RBS group, which also includes Spain’s Santander and Dutch-Belgian bank Fortis, said on Wednesday it planned to offer €39 a share for ABN Amro.
Wayne Rooney brilliantly trumped AC Milan’s Brazilian star Kaka to fire Manchester United to an exhilarating 3-2 victory in the first leg of their Champions League semifinal on Tuesday. Just as it seemed that Kaka’s first-half double would be enough to earn Milan a draw, Rooney raced on to a through ball from Ryan Giggs and hammered a low drive into the net.
A British rail operator who asked a group of high-profile musicians to pay more than £100 for a ”seat” for their cellos has apologised for any inconvenience caused, but insisted it cannot carry bulky items for free. ”When the ticket inspector saw the cellos, he got very angry,” said Tobias van der Pals, a student at London’s Royal Academy of Music.
Michael Schumacher says he is enjoying Formula One from the perspective of a spectator but that doesn’t mean he’s got his feet up in retirement. His new life may not be revolving around lap times, grid positions and Grand Prix victories, but he is a man in demand.
AC Milan have beaten Manchester United on the three occasions they have met in the European Cup. The Red Devils’ injury crisis means it won’t be easy to reverse that trend on Tuesday. United manager Alex Ferguson is without eight players — including three first-choice defenders — for the first leg of the Champions League semifinals at Old Trafford.
The differences between Roman Abramovich and Jose Mourinho appear to have been patched up for the moment. An impromptu hug at the end of the FA Cup semifinal win over Blackburn hinted that the troubled relationship between Russian owner and Portuguese manager was on the mend.
A man stormed into a London restaurant and hacked off his own penis in front of horrifed diners, an Italian restaurant said on Tuesday. The man charged into a branch of a pizza and pasta chain Zizzi in a tourist area of central London on Sunday.
A pump failure at a water-treatment plant discharged tens of millions of litres of raw sewage into the estuary waters of the Scottish capital, Edinburgh, before it was repaired on Monday, officials said. The major leak over the weekend sparked health concerns among city residents who were warned to stay away from the Firth of Forth shoreline.
Manchester United winger Cristiano Ronaldo won two player-of-the-year awards voted for by his fellow Premier League players on Sunday. Ronaldo won the Professional Footballers’ Association Player of the Year and Young Player of the Year at a dinner in London. He’s the first man since Aston Villa striker Andy Gray in 1977 to win both awards in the same season.
Chelsea are the odd club out in the Champions League semifinals — they have never won a European title. The Blues host Liverpool in the first leg on Wednesday — a repeat of their 2005 semifinal. Liverpool emerged victorious then and went on to win their fifth European Cup.
British bank Barclays has agreed to buy Dutch rival ABN AMRO for just over €67-billion as it seeks to head off rivals to clinch the world’s biggest ever bank takeover. Barclays said on Monday it would pay 3,225 new shares for each ABN AMRO share, equivalent to €36,25 a share at Friday’s closing price.
Chelsea missed their chance to slash Manchester United’s lead in the Premier League to a single point on Sunday when they were held to a 0-0 draw at Newcastle United. Manchester United handed the initiative to Chelsea after drawing 1-1 at home with Middlesbrough on Saturday and will breathe a huge sigh of relief at the champions’ scrappy draw.
Manchester United were held to a 1-1 draw by Middlesbrough on Saturday, dropping two points in the Premier League title race. United midfielder Kieran Richardson gave the hosts the lead in the third minute, but Mark Viduka headed Middlesbrough level in the 45th.
Virgin Atlantic chairperson Richard Branson has been airbrushed out of the James Bond film <i>Casino Royale</i> in edits of the movie screened on rival airline British Airways (BA), a newspaper reported on Saturday. The <i>Daily Telegraph</i> said the entrepreneur, and all references to his airline, had been airbrushed out by BA.
Wayne Rooney was sued on Friday by Everton manager David Moyes for libel over comments in his autobiography. Moyes is suing the England striker after he said in My Story So Far that the manager was overbearing, controlling and ultimately responsible for the player’s move from Everton to Manchester United in 2004.
A London council has decided where to place a statue of former South African president Nelson Mandela, after five years of wrangling, it announced late on Thursday. The sculpture will be placed on Parliament Square in Westminster, central London, alongside statues of former British prime ministers Winston Churchill and Benjamin Disraeli.
Benni McCarthy claimed his 20th goal of the season with a diving header as Blackburn pushed Watford to the brink of relegation with a 3-1 win at Ewood Park on Wednesday. Centre back Christopher Samba and McCarthy’s strike partner Jason Roberts were also on the mark as Rovers cruised to a comfortable win.
Britain has the worst level of drug abuse in Europe, and the second highest level of drug-related deaths, a report said on Wednesday. The value of trade in illegal drugs is estimated at £5-billion a year, according to the study by Professor Peter Reuter of Maryland University in the United States and Alex Stevens of Kent University in Britain.
Poland and Ukraine have been chosen to co-host the European Championship soccer tournament in 2012, Uefa announced on Wednesday. European soccer’s governing body said it had selected the Poland and Ukraine bid ahead of Italy and another joint bid from Croatia and Hungary to stage the finals.
The Simplified Spelling Society (SSS) is celebrating its 99th birthday by launching a new campaign to make it easier to read and write English. It may be the world’s most universal language, but linguistic experts say it has failed to adapt for the past 500 years and now half the globe’s English speakers have difficulty spelling.
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England cricket coach Duncan Fletcher should be sacked after England were dominated by South Africa in Bridgetown, much of the British press said on Wednesday. According to the Times, the ”precise figures have changed from match to match, but the theme of capitulation has remained all too constant”.
Manchester United put the pressure back on Chelsea after easily beating Sheffield United 2-0 on Tuesday in the Premier League. Wayne Rooney and Michael Carrick scored a goal each to give United a six-point lead over two-time defending champion Chelsea, which plays at West Ham on Wednesday.
Politicians are lost deep in cyberspace, struggling to reach a new generation of tech-savvy voters through blogs, social networking sites and video-sharing. In the United States, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama used their websites to launch their 2008 presidential campaigns.
The British pound broke through the mark in European trading on Tuesday, its highest level since September 1992 as new United Kingdom inflation data strengthened the likelihood of another interest-rate increase by the Bank of England. After moving past the mark, the pound quickly fell back to ,9985.
Outspoken Zimbabwean Roman Catholic archbishop Pius Ncube said in an interview published on Tuesday that he understood that he may lose his life over his continued critical stance against President Robert Mugabe’s regime. Ncube also criticised Zimbabwe’s neighbours for not doing more to avert the crisis.
Diners at one of Britain’s top restaurants are being invited to listen to MP3 players as they eat because its chef believes sound can make the flavours more intense. Heston Blumenthal already serves up unusual dishes such as snail porridge and bacon-and-egg ice cream at the Michelin three-starred Fat Duck in Bray, west of London.
More than 30 years after his death, a ”new” book by JRR Tolkien goes on sale on Tuesday which may well be the author’s last complete work to be published posthumously. Tolkien’s son and literary executor Christopher, now in his eighties, constructed The Children of Hurin from his father’s manuscripts.
Chelsea are finally putting on a united front — and the club couldn’t have chosen a better time. Despite chasing an unprecedented four trophies, the season has resembled a soap opera with manager Jose Mourinho and owner Roman Abramovich barely on speaking terms.
Robbie Keane scored two goals and set up another on Sunday in Tottenham’s 3-3 draw at Wigan in the Premier League, and Chelsea advanced to the FA Cup final with a 2-1 win over Blackburn. Tottenham rallied three times against its relegation-threatened opponents.
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England batsman Kevin Pietersen insists his bitter feud with South Africa captain Graeme Smith will not distract him from his mission of trying to secure a World Cup semifinal place. If South Africa win Tuesday’s Super Eights clash then they will be guaranteed the final last four spot and England will be out.
Manchester United secured a place in the FA Cup final and kept their treble challenge on track with a 4-1 rout of Watford in the semifinals on Saturday. Ferguson’s perfect record both at Villa Park and in semifinals with United remained intact at a canter after Wayne Rooney’s two goals and strikes from Cristiano Ronaldo and Kieran Richardson ended Watford’s dream.