Archives for August 2012

By 5 live reporter Matt Cole:

Recognition of Stoke Mandeville Hospital's crucial role in the foundation of the Paralympics will be in full focus this evening. The flames lit in the four corners of the UK will come together at the birthplace of the games - the Stoke Mandeville stadium - and be unified into a single Paralympic torch.

What's less well known about the original 1948 games - then known as the International Wheelchair and Amputee Sports (IWAS) World Games - is that patients at Stoke Mandeville were pitted against another care facility, the Royal Star and Garter Home in Richmond Upon Thames, where the father of the games Dr Ludwig Guttman also worked.

Less well known still is that the Royal Star and Garter side won that inaugural contest - an archery competition. The Richmond-based patients also won the rematch just a few weeks later.

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By 5 live Olympic correspondent Gordon Farquhar:

They’ve arrived! Over two thousand landed in the UK this week to compete in Paralympic Games and among them was the Canadian wheelchair rugby player David Willsie who showed BBC 5 live's Matt Cole his battle-scarred competition chair. Another competitor who landed at Heathrow was Jan Apel who is part of the first New Zealand sailing crew to compete in the Paralympics for 12 years. She told BBC London's Jason Rosam about her excitement that so many of the tickets had been snapped up.

A number of those in ParalympicsGB are former soldiers who were injured in Afghanistan, Iraq and other conflicts around the world. Their battle injuries dramatically changed their lives but they have rebuilt themselves to become elite sportsmen and women. Sam Bowen was hit by mortar shrapnel that severed an artery in her right leg, leaving her paralysed from the knee down. She revealed her difficulties coping with post-traumatic stress in BBC Radio 1's "Against All Odds". Vernon Kay investigated the role of coaches in the rehabilitation of those injured on the frontline when he spoke to fitness instructor Major Martin Colclough who has worked with both para-cyclist Jon-Allan Butterworth and discus thrower Derek Derenalagi.

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With less than a week to go until the start of the Paralympics the excitement and expectation is palpable.



But for everyone at BBC Radio 5 live, the start of the Paralympics, will be the result of over two years of meticulous planning to ensure that 5 live and 5 live sports extra capture all the key commentary moments and drama of the Games.

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By 5 live's Matt Cole:

International travel can be fraught with annoyances, not least that tricky moment when you realise your suitcase is identical to someone else’s when they both arrive on the luggage carousel. So spare a thought for the Russian Paralympic team, who not only dressed in matching tracksuits, covered in lurid red swirls, they also had identical kit bags. I passed the team in the luggage hall of Heathrow’s Terminal 3 as the gathered around dozens of their bags. My Russian’s non-existent, but you didn’t have to speak a word to realise more than one athlete was asking: “er… which ones mine?”

On the whole though London’s host airport for the Paralympics seems to be coping well, despite today helping some 500 wheelchair users though the terminals – that’s the kind of number who normally pass by in a month.

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This year’s Paralympic Games will be the biggest ever, featuring over 4,000 athletes from 160 countries who will compete in 20 sports. What an extraordinary achievement for a movement that started in Buckinghamshire; the idea for a parallel games for disabled people was born at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital, were Dr Ludwig Guttman, a German Jewish refugee encouraged paralysed servicemen to use sport as part of their rehabilitation. In “Sunday” on BBC Radio 4, Dr Guttman’s daughter, Eva Loeffler spoke about her father’s pioneering work and what he would have made of the London Games.

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One of the things we try to do at 5 live is to get out and about as much as possible - to big events like the Olympics and Paralympics, to the scene of major news stories and sporting events but also to places where we can do some surprising and different programmes and meet our listeners. That's why we will be heading to Sheffield from 11 to 13 October for Octoberfest 2012 - a free three-day festival, featuring what should be an exciting programme of live broadcasts and events across the city.

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By Spoony:

It was the opportunity to sit and speak with one of the finest football managers ever. Have I over stated that? I don't think I have. League titles in four countries. In three of the four he has won the league twice, and in the fourth he is still the manager so who knows? One thing for certain, he IS a special one.

I was about to meet somebody I'd watched in many press conferences, almost baiting the media, playing with them, toying with them like a young cat would a ball of wool. Except for José Maria Dos Santos Mourinho Santos it's a science. Everything with Mr Mourinho is a science. Well that's what I thought before meeting him. I was wrong. I have to admit it.

The human side is what really drives him. He cares. It matters. They matter. They? The players. The fans.

"I feel the fans as part of myself, I create internal links with fans," he told me. I'd seen him throw his medals and a blazer into the crowd before but I wasn't aware his respect for them went this far.

I wondered if there would be areas he'd be cagey about addressing. His relationship with Abramovich? Returning to England to manage? And the million dollar question (although I suspect it would be MUCH more than that): would you manage Chelsea again? I was spoilt because he was forthcoming with all three. Although I'm sure there would've been a few crossed words between Roman and himself at some point.

He was and is charming. He is intelligent. An authority on football and without reservation, a formidable adversary. If you should ever find yourself on the other side of the battlefield to him make sure you prepare for every eventuality. He will.

Spoony meets...José Mourinho is on BBC Radio 5 live at 7pm on Monday 20 August. It'll be available as a free download afterwards as part of the 5 live Sport Specials series.

By Non League Show presenter Caroline Barker:

I feel like I'm about to give birth to triplets. In truth the emergence to the world of Dave Anderson, Alan Alger and Dave Watters will hopefully be without the need for gas and air.

The three stooges are a mainstay of the new 5 live Non League Football Show, and have been with me on the journey for the past five or so years.

This weekend, as we make our 5 live debut, they'll also be at my side mopping my brow and with hot towels aplenty. When we kick-off with the lines "for the fans, by the fans" this weekend we won’t be lying.

I love Non League Football and have supported Chelmsford City ever since I could holler the word "Clarets". A stint as CEO at the club and helping out at others drags you even further in; I'm hooked and Dave Anderson, or Angry to his friends, is equally so. He holds the world record for managing a side unbeaten when at AFC Wimbledon and he's now plying his trade as the gaffer at Harrow Borough in the Isthmian League.

Dave Watters (I won’t tell you his unforgivable nickname) is a long-time sports journalist, once editor at the Non League Paper, and he now helps a number of leagues with their media. Then there's Alan, PR man for the Conference sponsors Blue Square. But he's not just a corporate face - he lives and breathes the game at our level and promotes it any moment he can.

We all love Non League. Over the coming months I hope just a bit of that affection will rub off and we're hoping to engage audiences like never before.

Social media, and in particular Twitter, have become the lifeblood of communication in Non League and we want to take advantage of that. You can find us on Twitter and Facebook and as well as tweeting the show, people can also send us their news from their club via audio messages from their smartphones by emailing [email protected].

Whatever the level, whatever the club, we want to give a voice to what is the foundation of football in our country. Here's hoping you all join in.

The first Non League Show of the season is on at 5.30am on Sunday 19th August on BBC Radio 5 live, and from every Sunday thereafter. You can catch up for 7 days via the BBC iPlayer.

For more clips, photos and blogs visit the Non League Show homepage, and you can also subscribe the Non League show free download.

5 live's Olympic correspondent Gordon Farquhar on Team GB's Olympic success.

Another week, another incredible Olympic games with continued success from Team GB in the boxing ring, in the dressage arena and around Hyde Park at the triathlon.

In front of huge and enthusiastic crowds, Alistair Brownlee became Olympic champion, his brother Jonny taking bronze after incurring a 15 second penalty for getting on his bike too soon in the first transition. Alistair had already been crowned world champion for the second time in 2011; his inaugural gold two years earlier made him the first competitor to win all three major world triathlon titles, having previously triumphed at junior and under-23 levels.

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As well as the Olympic medal count, there's another set of numbers to look at this week - the latest radio listening figures from RAJAR which cover the period from April to June.

Overall the combined reach for 5 live and Sports Extra is 6.36 million listeners a week - down 3% on the year and 5% on the quarter. Both our share of listening and average hours listened per week are encouragingly up whilst the individual figure for 5 live Sports Extra is its second highest ever.

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