London Welsh file promotion appeal - Belfast Telegraph
Thursday, 7 June 2012
The Exiles won this season's Championship after beating Cornish Pirates in both legs of the final.
But the Richmond-based club were told just hours before the first leg kicked off in Cornwall they did not meet minimum standards criteria set down by English rugby's Professional Game Board for Premiership entry.
London Welsh played the final's second leg at the Kassam Stadium in Oxford, which is thought to be their preferred venue should they gain top-flight status.
As things stand, Newcastle will remain in the Premiership next term despite finishing bottom by a point behind Wasps this season.
But should London Welsh succeed in overturning an original decision that went against them, then they will go up and the Falcons be relegated.
In a statement, the RFU said: "The Rugby Football Union has today (Thursday) received London Welsh's appeal against the decision that the club failed to meet the minimum standards criteria set out by the Professional Game Board for promotion to the Aviva Premiership.
"It is proposed that the appeal hearing, which will take place before an independent panel, will be held on June 21 at the London Bloomsbury Hotel.
"An expedited timetable has been agreed with London Welsh, with the proposed date of June 21 the earliest possible time to allow for the exchange of cases and evidence.
"During the appeal, no further comment will be made."
London's hipsters embrace the original creative, Shakespeare, after rare theater find - msnbc.com
F. Brinley Bruton / msnbc.com
The Horse and Groom pub is on the same site as the Curtain, a recently discovered Shakespearean playhouse in London's trendy neighborhood of Shoreditch.
LONDON - The Horse and Groom pub is known as a drinking hole and dancing venue in the heart of London’s edgy Shoreditch.
It is not known as the place where Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ was first performed more than 400 years ago -- that is, until archeologists discovered the remains of the Curtain theater, an early Elizabethan playhouse.
“It is cool,” said 26-year-old Sophie McKay, a writer and part-time bartender at the pub as she gazed at the patch of pebbled courtyard under which archeologists recently found remnants of the Curtain, built in 1577. “A friend sent me the link and asked, ‘Isn’t this where you work?’ And I said, ‘Yes it is!’”
The Shakespeare fan -- her favorite character is Lady Macbeth -- heard that the entrance to the theater once stood near the Horse and Groom’s own front door. Pre-dating the more famous Globe, on the south bank of the river Thames, the Curtain first performed ‘Henry V’ and housed William Shakespeare’s company -- the Lord Chamberlain’s Men.
Shakespeare's pre-Globe theater unearthed
The remains of the open-air playhouse -- which was covered up again after its discovery -- lies in what was once the home of tanneries, factories, slaughter houses and bombed-out buildings.
F. Brinley Bruton / msnbc.com
Graffiti art decorates a wall on Hewitt Street outside the courtyard where archaeologists uncovered the Curtain, the playhouse where Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet' was first performed.
But today it is arguably London’s trendiest district, known for crowded bars, dance clubs, boutiques and experimental restaurants. It's an amalgam of graffiti-covered 1960s buildings, glass-fronted offices and converted Victorian factories, giving it a shabby-chic vibe.
That Shakespeare performed his tales of love, lust, ambition, betrayal and war in a place now inhabited by hipster creative-types makes sense to East London resident Trevor Howe, who was having a drink with photographer Amrita Chandradas, 24, at the Horse and Groom.
Hipsters to the rescue? UK celebrity venue in spat with auto firm Jaguar
“It’s vibrant, alive, exciting,” said the 41-year-old artist and photographer. “It’s always changing, it never stops, there is always something new.”
Howe and Chandradas agreed it was exciting that ‘Romeo and Juliet’ was first performed where they stood -- and upon realizing the tragedy about young love was a favorite of both, they embraced giddily.
Best-preserved Elizabethan theater?
The discovery of the Curtain’s walls and a yard, which came during work on a major regeneration project, is equally exciting for the experts involved in the excavation.
Over six weeks, the World Shakespeare Festival will show all of the Bard's 37 plays, each in a different language, and each by a different international company. Renowned artists and new young companies will celebrate performing Shakespeare in their own language within the architecture he wrote for -- the Globe Theatre in London. NBC News' Peter Jeary reports.
In addition to being one of only a dozen such playhouses believed to have ever been built, the site may well be the best-preserved Elizabethan playhouse, said Heather Knight, a senior archeologist from the Museum of London Archeology who helped uncover the Curtain.
“They are very rare buildings so to find anything of one of these buildings is exciting, but to find a wall that stands to its complete height is unique,” she said.
The reason the Curtain, built in 1577, and other Elizabethan playhouses are so rare is that they were razed by the Puritans after the English civil war.
Shakespeare in Jericho echoes year of Arab strife
“The most bitter and most effective attacks on Shakespeare’s and the other playwrights’ productions came from English Puritans,” leading Shakespearean scholar Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel said. “They thought the theater to be the root of evil.”
F. Brinley Bruton / msnbc.com
Graffiti art covers a building on London's Great Eastern Street close to where archeologists uncovered the Curtain, an ancient Elizabethan playhouse.
No sign of rampaging Puritans in Shoreditch these days, however.
If anything, the current rough-and-tumble creative life in Shoreditch may owe something Shakespeare, said Tom Monaghan, manager of The Queen of Hoxton, a self-described bar, club and art collective near the site where the Curtain was found.
“To think I work right opposite from were Shakespeare used to try out his material,” the 30-year-old said. “Shakespeare could have put Macbeth through his paces over there.”
Monaghan, who interspersed the conversation with barked commands into a mic pinned to his t-shirt, stood amid people sipping European beer and wearing skinny jeans and lank hairstyles.
Then he asked: “Is it a coincidence that the area has become creative again?”
More about Shakespeare:
- Restored scribble may be Shakespeare's signature
- Much ado over The Theater's ruins in London
- The Bard or not the Bard? That is the question
- Shakespeare celebrated at world festival
London 2012 Olympic football should be embraced as glimpse into future - The Guardian
As England's Euro 2012 squad acquaint themselves with their Krakow base and the disconcertingly low‑key buildup to their first match continues – free of tub thumping or metatarsal prayer mats – the announcement of the long list for Team GB's Olympic football squad is something of a sideshow.
When the list of 35 names is unveiled before the end of the week, however, it will again reignite some of the most heated debates that will surround the London Games. Not merely whether David Beckham or Craig Bellamy are worthy of a place in the squad, but the place of football in the Games itself and our attitude to it.
The lengthy buildup to Team GB's first appearance in the Games for 52 years has inevitably centred on two things. One, the row whether there should be a Team GB competing at all, given the reservations of the home nations. And, two, the identity of the players who will fill the three overage berths.
The former has receded slightly, as it has become clear that despite their ongoing reservations there is little the home nations can do – although it remains to be seen how enthusiastically the team is greeted in Wales for its third match. For the second, the smart money is on Beckham, Ryan Giggs (who, in marked contrast to his attitude to releasing other players, Sir Alex Ferguson has said he will allow to play) and Craig Bellamy (who appears to have let the cat out of the bag early).
But all of that obscures wider debates. At a time when the International Olympic Committee is again beginning the process of deciding whether any new sports are worthy of a place at the Games – with squash leading the way – there will be those who ask whether football is worthy of a place.
Like tennis and golf (due to be included from 2016), critics say the Olympics do not represent the pinnacle of the sport and should therefore not play a part. It is a position with which many managers Рnot least Ferguson and Ars̬ne Wenger Рwould probably agree as they contemplate the added headache of a tournament that ends the day before the Community Shield.
But it is not one with which I agree. The Olympic football tournament is a different beast from the rest of the football firmament – as long as it is treated as such.
Those countries that take the Olympic football tournament seriously across South America and Africa use it as a breeding ground for youth and a chance for promising players to experience the atmosphere of a big tournament. For Messi (who won gold in 2008), who so valued his place that he took Barcelona to court in order to play, to the Brazilian Ronaldo (bronze in 1996), it was seen as a hugely important formative experience in their footballing careers. For many it is a glimpse into the footballing future. At the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, a whole generation of Nigerian players announced themselves to the world in winning gold.
In Britain, however, we seem more obsessed about which already iconic player will make it the swansong of their career, rather than as a breeding ground for youth. Given that the FA is constantly pushing the rhetoric of a governing body that has belatedly woken up to the importance of bringing players together through the age groups, you'd think more focus would be on this aspect of the Games.
The nation's attitude to the Team GB football team in particular, and the tournament in general, is also a serious concern for organisers. The London Olympic organising committee, Locog, still has more than 1.2m football tickets to shift – and the prospect of embarrassing swathes of empty seats is becoming more real with only 50 days left to shift them.
The hope was always that once the draw was made, the kit was unveiled and the squad was announced, excitement would build. With two of those three milestones down, it seems safe to assume that the group stage matches of the men's GB team should sell out, along with the semi-finals and final, but that it will be an uphill struggle to ensure full stadia for the rest.
Despite that, it also seems safe to assume that once Roy Hodgson's team troop home from Poland and Ukraine, interest will build exponentially. The biggest opportunity of all is perhaps for Team GB's women. If they can emerge from a difficult group and reach the semi-finals, it could provide (with apologies in advance for employing the most overused phrase of the summer) a genuine once in a lifetime boost for the sport.
Sir Steve fears for new Olympic dream
Sir Steve Redgrave, catching up with old friends at the unveiling of Team GB's rowing squad, said he was disappointed to be listed as a short-priced favourite to light the Olympic cauldron on 27 July. Not because he didn't want to do it, but because he was desperate to be picked – and was aware that the favourite rarely prevailed. With Roger Bannister having publicly ruled himself out, Redgrave is a popular choice. David Beckham, having already performed the role at the 2002 Commonwealth Games and accompanied the flame back from Athens, would appear to be out too. But Daley Thompson, the favoured choice of the London 2012 chairman, Lord Coe, (who has ruled himself out too, and absented himself from the decision making) would seem a decent outside bet. Those who believe the bookies are rarely wrong might also note that following the Jubilee weekend, the Queen herself has also seen her odds slashed. For now, the guessing game will continue.
GB rowers to shun opening ceremony
Another hardy opening‑ceremony perennial is the never ending speculation on the number of athletes who will take part in the parade. Despite the best efforts of organisers to take advantage of the proximity of the Athletes Village to the stadium, and promises from Stephen Daldry and Danny Boyle to keep the ceremony moving as quickly as possible, the 52 rowers are all set to shun it. The performance director, Dave Tanner, said the advice from the BOA was not to do so, given that they will be staying near the lake at Eton Dorney where they will be competing in the days following the opening ceremony. Britain's sailors, currently competing in the Sail For Gold Regatta on the Olympic waters in Weymouth, will face a similarly difficult call.
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