London calling! Chelsea bid to become first capital club to win Champions League - Daily Mail
By Dan Ripley
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For Chelsea, the Champions League final against Bayern Munich presents an opportunity for the club to win the competition for the first time in their history.
Only since 2003, when Roman Abramovich started bankrolling the club financially, has the dream really seemed possible for Blues fans, who in the last nine years have seen enough near misses.
But it’s not just Chelsea who could see their first crowning moment as Europe’s kings – it’s the city of London too.
German mission: Chelsea face Bayern in Munich on Saturday night
England’s capital has its fair share of top football teams - without failure it serves up plenty of London derbies in the Premier League each year.
But since the formation of the European Cup in 1955, only three London sides have played in Europe’s premier club competition with Tottenham and Arsenal also appearing.
Along with the Blues, they too have come close to sealing Europe’s biggest prize for the capital, but have also suffered heart-breaking failure.
Here, Sportsmail assesses how London’s trio have fared among Europe’s elite...
Chelsea
Times appeared: 10
Best result: Finalists (2008)
Worst result: Last 16 (2006 and 2010)
Heartache: Chelsea lost the 2008 final to Manchester United
In a sign of the changing times, league champions Chelsea declined to take part in the first ever European Cup tournament and didn’t make their maiden appearance until reaching the quarter-finals in 2000.
They have been a permanent fixture since 2003, reaching four-semi finals before this season, but it’s the 2008 final in Moscow that still hurts fans.
Having already missed out on the league title to Manchester United, Avram Grant’s side went to penalties against the Red Devils and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
John Terry could have won the trophy for Chelsea but hit the post with his spot-kick after slipping, before United recovered to triumph in the competition for a third time.
Arsenal
Times appeared: 16
Best result: Finalists (2006)
Worst result: Group stage (1999 and 2000)
Seeing red: Jens Lehmann (left) was sent off as Arsenal lost to Barcelona in the 2006 final
Before the Champions League era started in 1992, Arsenal only twice featured on the biggest stage, being eliminated in the 1972 quarter-finals and the second round 20 years later.
Since 1998 the Gunners have contested every single campaign but have only once visited the final despite getting out of the first group stage in each of the last 12 seasons.
The 2005/06 campaign is the closest Arsenal have been to becoming top dogs. Arsene Wenger’s side reached the Paris final after setting a record number of 10 consecutive clean sheets before losing 2-1 to Barcelona.
The Gunners also reached the semi-finals in 2009 but were thoroughly outclassed over two legs by Manchester United, losing 4-1 on aggregate.
Missing out: Arsenal were knocked out by AC Milan this year
Capital winners
Real Madrid (9) 1956-1960, 1966, 1998, 2000, 2002.
Ajax Amsterdam (4) 1971-1973, 1995
Benfica (2) 1961, 1962.
Steaua Bucharest (1) 1986
Red Star Belgrade (1) 1991
Tottenham
Times appeared: 2
Best result: Semi-finalists (1962)
Worst result: Quarter-finalists (2011)
Spurs don’t have the staying power to make the Champions League a habit but have made a real fight in the only two times they have featured.
A controversial semi-final defeat against Benfica ended their hopes in 1962, with Bill Nicholson’s side crashing out 4-3 on aggregate after seeing three goals contentiously disallowed over the two legs.
Real hiding: Spurs lost to Madrid in last year's quarter-final
It wasn’t until 2010 that Spurs returned to the biggest stage where they starred in the tournament, topping a group that contained holders Inter Milan – even defeating the Italian giants along the way.
In the last 16 they shut-out AC Milan to progress 1-0 over two legs before crashing to a 5-0 aggregate defeat against Real Madrid in the quarter-finals.
LONDON CALLING: Ed takes on world challenge - This is Wiltshire
LONDON CALLING: Ed takes on world challenge
12:30pm Saturday 19th May 2012 in Latest News
BRADFORD on Avon paddler Ed McKeever will hope to stamp his authority on the world stage this weekend as his build-up to this summer’s Olympics continues.
McKeever, who has already secured his place at the Games in London, joins the Great Britain sprint squad in Poznan, Poland.
While many of his teammates were attempting to secure their 2012 Games places in the second round European Olympic qualification event on Wednesday and yesterday, McKeever will take to the water over the weekend for the first of the World Cup Series, also being held on the Malta Lake.
McKeever, the 2010 world champion, again contests the K1 200m event, as one of only three British canoeists to secure their places at the Games so far.
Further World Cup events take place in Duisburg, Germany, next weekend and Moscow at the beginning of June.
Olympics: London 2012 torch relay starts in Britain - Channel NewsAsia
Olympics: London 2012 torch relay starts in Britain
Posted: 19 May 2012 1450 hrs
LAND'S END, United Kingdom: Yachtsman Ben Ainslie was the first torchbearer as the Olympic flame began its 70-day journey around Britain and Ireland on Saturday ahead of the 2012 London Games.
With the Atlantic Ocean behind him at Land's End, England's most southwesterly point, the triple Olympic gold medallist waited while the flame was flown in by a Royal Navy search and rescue helicopter.
Lieutenant Commander Richard Full carried the flame off the helicopter in a golden lantern, posed briefly for photographers, and took it a short distance to light the torch that Ainslie was holding in the bright morning sunshine.
Ainslie then set off, barely breaking into a jog as he let some of the 3,500 spectators lining the route touch the golden torch whose design has led it to be nicknamed the "cheese grater".
After travelling barely 300 metres, he passed on the torch to 18-year-old Anastassia Swallow, a surfer who is hoping that her sport will one day become an Olympic discipline.
Over the next 10 weeks, the torch will travel 12,875 kilometres around England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and will also visit the Republic of Ireland.
Some 8,000 people -- one for every mile of the route -- will take part in the torch relay as it heads for the Olympic Stadium in east London for the opening ceremony on July 27.
Ainslie, who just a day earlier won a sixth world title in the Finn class as he steps up his efforts to win a fourth Olympic gold, said it had been a special moment for him to start the relay in his home county of Cornwall.
"I'm really very proud for the whole nation," said Britain's greatest Olympic yachtsman, who wore the number 001 on his white London 2012 top.
"It was pretty emotional, so much effort has gone into getting the Olympics in London and it means so much to everyone involved."
On its first leg, the torch was to be carried through Cornwall to the city of Plymouth.
On its 70-day odyssey, it will travel through 1,019 cities, towns and villages and visit landmarks such as Stonehenge.
From June 3-7, it will go to Northern Ireland and then the Republic of Ireland -- the only country outside the United Kingdom on the route.
No overseas legs of the relay have been planned this year after those before the 2008 Beijing Games were hit by protests against China.
The flame was lit in Ancient Olympia in Greece on May 10 and was handed over to the British delegation in Athens in a rain-sodden ceremony on Thursday.
It was flown to Britain on board a British Airways plane renamed The Firefly for the occasion, accompanied by football star David Beckham and Princess Anne, the daughter of Queen Elizabeth II.
Beckham had the honour of lighting the first torch at the Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose in Cornwall on Friday.
In contrast to the shoestring operation when Britain last hosted the Olympics in 1948, just three years after World War II ended, this year's relay is a big-budget affair, with parties and public events at each of its stops.
The oldest runner will be a 100-year-old woman, while Olympians past and present and soldiers injured in Afghanistan will also take part.
But the London 2012 organisers wanted the bulk of people taking part in the relay to be unsung heroes who have helped their community, individuals involved in sport and younger people.
Swallow, the teenager who had taken over the torch from Ainslie, said it was a memorable day but admitted she got "a bit excited and a little crazy and ran too fast".
"I was really surprised by the atmosphere here today. Everyone was cheering and calling my name. It is something I will never forget."
- AFP/ck/wm
London Olympics: 'Brothels should be made legal' - zeenews.india.com
London: Dennis Hof, the Nevada brothel owner who became famous as the star of HBO reality show ‘Cathouse’, has said that he wants to start a new and fully legal brothel in London during the upcoming summer Olympics.
He said he wants it -- not just because he could make “a couple million pounds”, but also because legal brothels would stop human trafficking by international criminal gangs.
Hof, 65, owner of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, promoted legal prostitution during a Thursday night debate at the Oxford Union, and told ABC News that while he is in the UK, he is on a mission to sell London authorities on legal brothels.
“The girls are not tested for diseases and they’re trafficked and forced into it. I’m saying it’s not always like that and it doesn’t have to be like that. We can provide the client with a clean, safe and fun experience,” he stated.
Hof said he wouldn’t mind making some money out of a pop-up mini-Bunny Ranch during the Olympic Games, which begin July 27 and are projected to draw as many as 900,000 visitors to London.
He estimates that he would make “a couple million pounds” during the three-week event, which he said is “much more than the average” he would make during a similar period at his Nevada brothel, where he employs 500 girls.
But he said his main concerns are the health and safety of both sex workers and their clients, and stopping a short-term epidemic of human trafficking.
“I expect 1,000 girls to be trafficked in by Southeast Asian, Albanian and African gangs, violent gangs involved in crime and drugs,” said Hof, who based his prediction on what he said he witnessed at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada.
While prostitution is legal in the UK, operating a brothel, pimping and streetwalking are all illegal, as is paying for sexual services from someone who has been coerced into prostitution.
Hof believes that establishing legal brothels around metropolitan London for the duration of the games would provide safe sex for both tourists and prostitutes, as well as much-needed tax revenue.
Hof’s girlfriend and employee, 25-year-old Cami Parker, who accompanied him on his UK trip, enthusiastically backed his proposal. “Sex is as much a human need as food or water,” said Parker.
The Oxford Union, however, seemed unconvinced by Hof’s reasoning.
During his Thursday speech, Hof told listeners legal brothels would “sort out all your problems. It would be a good thing for your country, I’m telling you.”
According to the debating society’s website, after Hof spoke a motion in which the Union would support “recognis[ing] prostitution as a legitimate business” was defeated.
ANI
Truck driver on phone ploughed into two cars - North West Evening Mail
Published at 10:37, Saturday, 19 May 2012
A TRUCK driver who admitted causing a crash on the A590 when distracted by his mobile phone has been jailed.
David Ryan, of Meadow Lane, Wolverhampton, was sentenced to 18 weeks in prison at Carlisle Crown Court yesterday.
The 26-year-old was driving his 10-tonne lorry near Newby Bridge on January 9 when he tried to answer his ringing phone.
In doing so he lost control of the vehicle and it ploughed into two cars, including a blue Vauxhall carrying a woman and two small children.
Emergency services attended the scene and had to cut several injured people from the car, which came to rest in a roadside ditch.
Seven people, including Ryan, were taken to Furness General Hospital for treatment, but no one suffered serious injuries.
Ryan pleaded guilty to dangerous driving and in addition to his jail sentence was banned from the road for three years.
He will not be allowed back behind the wheel until he has passed a re-test.
A Cumbria police spokesperson said: “This conviction highlights the consequences of driving whilst using a mobile phone.
“This was a very serious accident in which David Ryan admitted he caused after using his mobile phone whilst driving.
“Thankfully no one was seriously injured or killed.
“The police will not tolerate people who use mobiles when they are driving, it is dangerous and puts people’s lives in danger and is one of the ‘fatal four’ contributors to serious accidents: mobile phones, speeding, not wearing seat belts and drink or drug driving.”
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk
A14 Nacton fatal crash: Victim was in towed car - BBC News
The victim in a fatal crash on the A14 in Suffolk was in a car being towed by a van, police have revealed.
The woman, named by officers as Carmen Bucur, of Hollesley Road in Alderton, near Woodbridge, died at the scene at Nacton on Wednesday morning.
Ms Bucur's Vauxhall Corsa was being towed when the two vehicles were involved in a crash with a lorry.
A man, 43, from Feltham, west London, has been bailed until July on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving.
Police said they were keen to speak to anyone who had seen the Corsa being towed by the van.
Flame for London Games arrives - Bangladesh News 24 hours
Culdrose, May 19 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - The flame for the London Olympics burned brightly on British soil on Friday after David Beckham stepped off a special flight from the Games birthplace of Greece to light a cauldron with a golden torch.
The British Airways 'Firefly' Flight 2012 from Athens landed on time at the Culdrose naval air station with Britain's Princess Anne, Games chairman Seb Coe and the former England soccer captain among the delegation.
The flame will start a 70-day torch relay around Britain on Saturday, with triple Olympic gold medallist sailor Ben Ainslie carrying it on the first leg from Land's End on the south-west tip of England.
The Games start on July 27.
London Mayor Boris Johnson, his mane of unruly blond hair trimmed for the occasion, declared the moment to be "a big accelerator of the heartbeat".
"We've got 70 days to go," he told reporters before heading back to London on the golden-liveried plane.
"For someone in my position this is the final furlong for us and that's when the horses start to change places and so this is going to make the difference now between a good Games and a great Games."
British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg welcomed the Olympic torch on behalf of the British government on a clear evening in marked contrast to the torrential rain left behind in Athens.
"It is a fantastic moment for us, particularly at a time when there is so much anxiety and concern about the economy and other things, to be uplifted by this whole experience and to be able to showcase ourselves to the world as an open-hearted, generous, dynamic, positive country," he told the BBC.
"It's a wonderful opportunity for the country as a whole."
CUSTARD COMET
The arrival of the flame, with Princess Anne carrying it in a special lantern down the steps from the plane, was covered live on Britain's main BBC station with the plane circling overhead before landing to fit in with the schedules.
"It's only when the torch comes into your possession that you realise," the Princess said as she handed the lantern to one of the special security team who will guard it.
Beckham soon lit the Olympic torch and ignited a cauldron with the flame, which was then due to be transferred to Lands End for Saturday's relay start.
Johnson said the manner of the flame's arrival bodes well.
"The plane landed bang on time, in fact it was early," he declared enthusiastically.
"We circled over Cornwall like a custard-coloured comet and that is a metaphor in my view for everything that has happened so far in the London Olympics. It's been either on time or ahead of time and it's under budget."
On Thursday, the flame had been handed over at a damp ceremony in the Athens marble stadium that hosted the first modern Games in 1896.
The flame, lit from the sun's rays at the home of the ancient Games in Olympia a week ago, was presented under grey and rainy skies to former Olympian Princess Anne by the president of the Hellenic Olympic Committee Spyros Capralos.
Coe, who will head off to Munich on Saturday to watch his beloved Chelsea play Bayern Munich in the Champions League final, was confident the torch relay would light the fire for anyone still ambivalent about the Games.
"It does have a big impact," he said.
"I saw the test event the other day with a cardboard torch going from Leicester to Peterborough and they (the spectators) were three and four deep on the pavement, in the little villages.
"And every week I get letters from people who are talking about the things they are doing to mark the fact the torch is coming through. There's an emotional connect with this that I'm not sure all torch relays have got."
bdnews24.com/lg/1726h
100 marks Steve Marks, can someone elaborate on why Chels missed out on 1955 inspite of having won the league and having an excellent team , one actually expects facts from reporters can't blame DM afterall they are anti-chelsea ....atleast they have got the stats right
- Suresh , Chennai & India (brown and proud), 19/5/2012 11:57
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