Category Archives: News

Hundreds Demonstrate Peacefully Outside The Lomax In Liverpool.

Vinny Spencer addresses the peaceful demonstration over the closure of The Lomax in Liverpool. Photograph used by kind permission of Adrain Wharton. February 2015.

Vinny Spencer addresses the peaceful demonstration over the closure of The Lomax in Liverpool. Photograph used by kind permission of Adrain Wharton. February 2015.

 

It sometimes depends on which part of the country you go to, which individual you speak to about the people of Liverpool and their passions, to which possible answer you receive. For some less-well informed people the thought of someone from the city protesting is perhaps a way of life, to others they would arguably feel a swell of pride in that one set of people in England fights against injustice with good humour, good voice but with the wonderful undercurrent of installed, controlled emotion and anger that wrongs made against one in the city affect everyone.

Hundreds Demonstrate Peacefully Outside The Lomax In Liverpool. full post

(972 words, 1 image, estimated 3:53 mins reading time)

Lynne Francis Fills In For Helen Carter At Scouse Of The Antarctic.

The show must always go on…it is not quite law, but to the artist, be it actor, painter or musician, it is a loaded phrase that at some point seems to present itself fully and without warning. It can strike disaster, it can bring the house down with well-deserved applause from a grateful and highly delighted audience.

With one of the stars, the incomparable Helen Carter, having suffered an injury to a rib and with around 90 minutes to curtain, the highly successful and tremendously funny Christmas show, Scouse of the Antarctic, could have suffered a set-back which would have been upsetting for the huge crowd that had made their way to the Royal Court Theatre on a cold January night on one of the final evenings of the top rated Liverpool show.

Lynne Francis Fills In For Helen Carter At Scouse Of The Antarctic. full post

(329 words, estimated 1:19 mins reading time)

Liverpool Sound And Vision Awards 2014.

To the outsider, to those who either come into Liverpool once every year for a stag or hen night or the chance to lose heavily at Aintree, Liverpool may well seem a city of contrasts, a place in which many have pre-conceived ideas of how its people act, play, work and enjoy life. However to be an outsider who embraces the city and the surrounding areas with every fibre of being, that’s when the city really shows its vibrancy and complete uniqueness.

Liverpool Sound And Vision Awards 2014. full post

(1686 words, estimated 6:45 mins reading time)

Matthew Linley Named As New Artistic Director Of The Unity Theatre.

Liverpool’s Unity Theatre is delighted to announce the appointment of Matthew Linley as Artistic Director and Chief Executive Officer.

Mr. Linley succeeds Graeme Phillips, who has guided Unity Theatre for the last 34 years and maintained its tradition of staging radical but accessible work that stretches back to the 1930s.

Matthew is currently General Manager with Eastern Angles – an acclaimed touring theatre company based in Ipswich. He has previously led venues in Leicester (Phoenix Arts), Reading (21 South Street) and Bath (Michael Tippett Centre).

Matthew Linley Named As New Artistic Director Of The Unity Theatre. full post

(507 words, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)

F.A. Community Shield 2014. Arsenal V Manchester City. Report

First published on Ace Magazine Online. August 2014.

It seems strange to think that only once before have Arsenal and Manchester City have met in the Charity/Community Shield. That game also ended up with the men from Manchester being taught a lesson in humility. Whilst this defeat won’t hurt many of the fans that travelled all the way down the M6 as much as it did in the utter ignominy that faced them in the workplace after their team lost to Wigan Athletic in the 2013 F.A. Cup Final, it will still send a few nervous nights to those who go to Eastlands this season that those charged with carrying on the success if the likes of Pablo Zabaleta, Sergio Aguero and Joey Hart should face lengthy lay-offs, are not exactly the thrilling machine that has carried Manchester City to so much success in the last four years.

F.A. Community Shield 2014. Arsenal V Manchester City. Report full post

(1200 words, estimated 4:48 mins reading time)

F.I.F.A. World Cup 2014. Holland V Argentina. Match Report.

First published by Ace Magazine online July 2014.

“On the cusp of glory, frustration and exasperation will find a way to block success…”*

Emotions in Brazil must be heading all over the place as it stands, for the footballing public, the religion of the sport is enough to make anybody even remotely concerned about the final on Sunday wonder just who they are going to cheer on. The industrious Germans who tore their side apart with the consummate ease of a Lion being offered an all you can eat menu whilst picking their main course for dinner on the Serengeti or Argentina, their biggest rivals in World Football, a country that is less than a couple of hours away by airplane, a country that produced more attractive football than Brazil in the last decade…Nobody could surely blame a single person in Brazil if they thought on Sunday afternoon, “I cannot face this, I am going to bed till Monday, roll on 2018.”

F.I.F.A. World Cup 2014. Holland V Argentina. Match Report. full post

(1276 words, estimated 5:06 mins reading time)

F.I.F.A. World Cup 2014. Brazil V Columbia: Match Report.

Originally published by Ace Magazine July 2014.

Some teams are born great, others achieve greatness and some actually grind out a result which wasn’t befitting of their glorious past but managed to do the job anyway.

Brazil, with the odd moment of joy in five games of football at this particular World Cup, have flattered themselves and have arguably been fortunate not to lose against Mexico, Chile and now by far the most attractive team to watch from both American continents, the auspicious and skilful Columbians. For many fans of the Brazilian game and there are millions upon millions outside the South Americas, the name of the past are what they have thrived upon.

F.I.F.A. World Cup 2014. Brazil V Columbia: Match Report. full post

(1645 words, estimated 6:35 mins reading time)

F.I.F.A. World Cup 2014, Holland V Mexico, Match Report.

Originally published by Ace Magazine online. June 2014.

Holland playing against Mexico, perhaps one in which the purist and the hopeful could both savour the football that was surely to be placed before an awaiting world, or at least that cared about such matters and who weren’t enthralled by the arrival of Dolly Parton at Glastonbury or the more serious topics surrounding the battlegrounds that used to resemble Iraq and Syria and the tension that grumbles on between the European Union, Russia and the Ukraine.

F.I.F.A. World Cup 2014, Holland V Mexico, Match Report. full post

(1771 words, estimated 7:05 mins reading time)

F.I.F.A. World Cup 2014. Costa Rica V Greece, Match Report.

First published by Ace Magazine, Liverpool online. June 2014.

The land of fantasy is at times such an intriguing place to let your mind wander off to. In the world of fantasy anybody can become a hero; the least likely person can walk into the sunset with their head held high having saved another’s life or the hopes of a nation. Whilst nobody on the pitch in Recife surely thought for a single minute they would be the one to take on the might of established convention, the potency of F.I.F.A.’s tight grip on the game, fantasy became reality as Costa Rica, destroyers of football establishment in the likes of Italy, Uruguay, by then unfancied and England, made the quarter finals of the 2014 World Cup by beating the equally surprised last 16 cohorts Greece.

F.I.F.A. World Cup 2014. Costa Rica V Greece, Match Report. full post

(1610 words, estimated 6:26 mins reading time)

F.I.F.A. World Cup, 2014: Greece V Ivory Coast, Match Report.

Originally published by Ace Magazine, June 2014.

The 2014 World Cup in Brazil is only the third time the country that gave democracy to the world has qualified for the final stages. There is though something very pleasing in that in their third tournament they upset the form book and make their way into the last 16 thanks to the man who has been a great servant to Celtic the last few seasons. As Georgios Samaras stepped up to take the penalty that would either send his team marching on or see them trip up in the group stages as they did in 1994 and 2010, what emotions must have been going through his head? What emotions must have been going through the mind of Didier Drogba and the Lion of African football, Yaya Touré?

F.I.F.A. World Cup, 2014: Greece V Ivory Coast, Match Report. full post

(1225 words, estimated 4:54 mins reading time)