Longthrow Does The Longride 3
Rory before the ride in 2009 (courtesy of the Sentinel)
Stoke City’s most recognisable player,
Rory Delap, is once again setting off on a bike ride to raise money for The Donna Louise Children’s Hospice Trust. The latest journey will depart from Whitehaven docks at 7am on Saturday 26th June with the aim of cycling the challenging 140 miles coast to coast ride to Tynemouth in only two days.
The world famous exponent of the Longthrow will be joined by his brother in law Andrew Bretnall who has also taken part in the two previous fundraising rides in 2008 and 2009.
Rory gets set to go
To read about Rory’s motivation to do the challenge and more crucially to SPONSOR him then please see his justgiving page here:-
http://www.justgiving.com/RorysBigBikeRide
See the excellent video diary done by Dave Knapper of The Sentinel of last years “Longthrow does the Longride” here:-
http://www.whydelilah.co.uk/news/22_Jun_2009/Rory%27s+long+ride+-+VIDEO.html
There is also link below to the story that Sky sports did of Rory’s ride last year.
http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11661_5353702,00.html
Please do whatever you can to support Rory and this great cause.
December 15th, 2009
admin
Santa is a Stokie!
Santa is a Stokie!
Yes, I can say that with as much confidence as I can say that “Abdoulaye Faye does not sleep, he waits” – because it’s a fact. And we have photographic evidence from pitch-side. “How did you get that?” I hear you ask. Well to cut a long story short, it was the Stoketshirts.co.uk Christmas “works do” last Saturday. It wasn’t planned that way, but as some of the more astute of you may have noticed from the matchday programmes, (sorry I mean “magazines”), our humble enterprise has been sponsoring Abdy Faye’s away kit this season – it’s our way of putting something back into the club that is the inspiration for our shirts and other merchandise. Part of that arrangement means that Rob and I can pick a match to attend and enjoy some hospitality in the Waddington Suite as well as a behind the scenes tour of the Brit – hence the exclusive snap of Santa waving from his executive box (reindeer and sleigh parked on the John Smith’s roof, just out of shot).
Apparently Stoke won the World Cup once?!
So it was that we arrived at the untraditionally early hour of 9.15am last Saturday and were shown the sites by Potters legend Terry (TC) Conroy from one or two of the more “privileged” parts of the stadium – the sky boxes, media suite and the hallowed walls of the Home dressing room to name a few. The tour is highly recommended and well worth booking on if you get chance – ours was a record group of 55 people – tribute to Terry Conroy’s unique slant on the day-to-day life of the Brit and the helpfulness of all the club staff as we went round interrupting their matchday routine.
There was even a visitor from foreign shores – a German chap (and Johan Boskamp lookalike) called Kristian who’d flown from New York. This prompted TC to ask if anyone else had travelled far. “Heron Cross!” came the shout from Rob. “Yes the name of Stoke City is really spreading out there”, quipped TC.
- No clues on tactics here.
...or here.
Once the tour was over, we took our seats in the Waddington Suite for some splendid (and warm!) Potteries fare before the game – chatting to the other guests there including renowned Stokie author Simon Lowe.
Early present for Abdy.
The icing on the cake was about 30 minutes before kick-off when we went pitch-side to meet and greet the big man (No! Abdy – Not Santa!) as he finished warming up. He presented us with a signed shirt and in a cheeky return of favour, we handed him a “Abdoulaye Faye – Magnifique!” shirt. “For Me?!” he exclaimed in that characteristic voice before hurrying off to get shirted and booted.
All-in-all a good day despite the result – Saint Nick not quite gifting us 3 points – we mustn’t have been 100% good all year 😉 .
