Mark Sampson says he believes “the most together team will be the last to go home” as England Women begin a month?long training camp before the European Championship this summer. With hopes high after England’s third-place finish at the 2015 World Cup in Canada, Sampson says players and staff are focused on being “the best on the planet” and have not discussed any outcome other than winning the trophy. Women’s Euro 2017: Panini launch sticker collection for tournament Read more Speaking before preparations that include friendlies, the first of which is on Saturday away against Switzerland, and a warm-weather training camp in Spain, Sampson said: “I think that the key quality in this tournament will be togetherness. The most together team will definitely be the team that is last to go home. “We’ll be working hard on the training pitch to make sure we’re fit, to make sure we understand what we’re trying to do and to make sure that whatever the opponent throws at us we’ve got the relevant weapons to find a way to win. Refusing to go home, find a way to win, and staying together. “I believe this team has the ability to be the best in the world, 100%. There’s been nothing on my mind since the final whistle of the [World Cup] semi-final than how we’re going to win this event. I’ve never once discussed with the players about getting through the group, of
Henrik Borgstrom Jersey getting to this stage or whatever. It’s about winning. Euro 2017: England squad guide for the Netherlands finals Read more “That’s no guarantee we’ll win. – of course it’s not. We might lose our first two and be eliminated. But our focus is completely on doing everything we can to give us the best possible chance to win this event.” Sampson earned criticism from inside the women’s game after he named his 23-strong squad three months before the tournament and before the Spring Series, the climactic event in a reshaped Women’s Super League. Yet the England manager defended his decision and said the announcement was a necessary part of the squad’s preparation. “I’ve got to give huge credit to the players,” he said. “They were all made aware of the announcement and their confirmed places in the squad early and I think the work they have put in has been incredibly diligent and professional. I’ve been really impressed with their level of performance [in the Spring Series] but I’ve also been impressed by their work away from the field. This was always the intention, to do the work behind the scenes that makes the big difference when you’re put in front of all the cameras. “We said we need to rip into each other and have a right good go at this Spring Series. We said we had to compete, to tackle, to fight, to push each other. I think we arrive now with the right balance between toughness and freshness.” Uefa launches drive to
http://www.authenticfloridapanthers.com/authentic-jakub-kindl-jersey boost girls’ football participation in Europe Read more England are planning to stay to the end of a tournament being hosted by the Netherlands and which begins on 16 July. “We’re looking at it that we’re away from 5 June to 7 August which seems a really long time,” Sampson said. “So we try to have a good balance as to when we switch on. When we do switch on with this team we demand the highest of standards, work ethic, competitiveness, learning – all the key qualities to be the best on the planet. But when we switch off we want to have fun, we want to enjoy ourselves and we’ve got a great balance, I think. “I’m excited by the programme we’ve got, but like anything it’s great to see it on paper, but it’s the people that make it come alive. That’s the staff, that’s the players, that have to make it come alive and make it the best possible preparation camp they’ve ever hadThe South Yorkshire police and crime commissioner (PCC), Alan Billings, acted unlawfully and irrationally when he sacked the force’s chief constable, David Crompton, a day after last year’s verdicts in the Hillsborough inquests, the high court has ruled. Lawyers for Crompton claimed there was no fair or reasonable basis for forcing him out of office. Crompton attacked the decision taken by Billings following the inquest findings into the deaths at the Hillsborough stadium disaster 27 years before. Lady Justice Sharp and Mr Justice Garnham, sitting in London, ruled in Crompton’s favour on Friday. Hillsborough disaster: deadly mistakes and lies that lasted decades Read more Billings’s decision to sack Crompton was not based on the case South Yorkshire police presented at the inquests, but on a press statement issued the following day, 27 April 2016. Garnham said the decision was irrational and “wholly disproportionate”. In the judgment, Billings’s conduct at the time – refusing to consider
Adidas James Reimer Jersey and advise on the press statement when Crompton consulted him about it following criticism of the police’s case by bereaved families and politicians – was described as “surprising in the extreme”, “a serious error” and “wholly unreasonable”. Billings was also found to have acted irrationally and unreasonably in failing to take account of an opinion last June from the HM chief inspector of constabulary, Sir Tom Winsor, who said the sacking of Crompton was “conspicuously unfair, disproportionate and so unreasonable that I cannot understand how the PCC has reached this view”. Billings’s suspension and then sacking of Crompton followed severe criticism by families of the case made by South Yorkshire police in the two-year-long new inquests into the 1989 disaster, in which 96 people died at the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. Advertisement Families and Labour politicians, including the then shadow home secretary Andy Burnham, accused Crompton of seeking to advance original 1989 smears against Liverpool supporters and blame them for the disaster, rather than stand by previous admissions of police fault. The inquests coroner, Sir John Goldring, in October 2014 rejected an application by the families for the force’s admissions and apologies to be put before the jury. At the conclusion of the inquests, the jury determined that the 96 people were unlawfully killed due to gross negligence manslaughter by the police officer in command at the match, Ch Supt David Duckenfield, and that no behaviour of football supporters contributed to the disaster. After the verdicts, Crompton issued a statement in which he fully accepted the findings of the jury and apologised for the police failures. In response to the criticism which followed the verdicts, he issued a second statement on 27 April, which explained that while South Yorkshire police accepted their culpability for the disaster, their failures had to be put in the context of “other contributory factors”. Although in media interviews Billings had suggested he sacked Crompton for the conduct of the inquests, in fact it was for the press statement, arguing
Adidas Blake Comeau Youth Jersey it implied the force was still failing to take responsibility. The legal process since has revealed that Crompton consulted Billings about the statement before he issued it, but Billings refused to look at it, saying he did not want any statement to be made at all. Garnham described that approach as “surprising in the extreme” and “a serious error”, saying Billings should have worked collaboratively with Crompton on the response. Crompton, who argued he conducted the police case at the inquests responsibly and responded to the verdicts reasonably, strongly criticised Billings after winning the judicial review. “Dr Billings has spent a huge amount of public money trying to defend actions which he was advised in the strongest terms not to pursue by Her Majesty’s chief inspector of constabulary,” Crompton said. “This money would have been better spent on operational policing … The judgment, which is damning, speaks for itself.” In a statement, Billings said he was disappointed with the decision and would seek to appeal it, although he might look for an alternative to using further South Yorkshire public money to do so. Crompton was due to retire anyway in November last year and was not seeking reinstatement. He could now be entitled to financial compensation, but is understood not to have commenced any proceedings yet
