Sensational show by Stevie Wonder @TheO2 Incredible band and backing singers. More than 30 altogether including legend Greg Phillinganes. Saw him with Eric Clapton at Sheff City Hall in 1989, teasing the crowd before adding the keyboards to Layla.
Phil Ascough
@philascough
Journalist, media/PR consultant, author living in a wonderful city-region. I’ll sort my website when I get a minute!
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One for #hcafc fans. A proper tough guy.
When Billy Whitehurst was playing for Oxford United in the late 1980s, he had a reputation as one of the few centre forwards defenders genuinely did not want to play against.
Alan Hansen had spent his career dealing with some of the best strikers in Europe.
Whitehurst still bothered him.
“He was six feet tall and weighed more than thirteen stone and he knew how to exploit this.”
“Because of his power in the air, aggression and courage, he was one of the opposing strikers who frightened me the most.”
“And I do mean frightened.”
Hansen got to the point where he would check the fixtures before the season started to see when Liverpool were due to face him.
“At the beginning of every season I would look for Oxford, or whoever he was playing for.”
“It was a nightmare playing against him.”
In December 1987, Whitehurst gave a fairly good example of why he had that reputation.
Around ten days before Oxford were due to play Nottingham Forest, he got into a fight in a pub.
It carried on outside, where one of the men produced an extendable cosh and hit Whitehurst across the nose.
Another blow caught him in the side of the face.
By the time it was over, his nose had been badly smashed, he needed more than 30 stitches in the back of his head and one of the blows had gone straight through his cheek.
“I’ve got a hole straight through my cheek near the side of my nose.”
Whitehurst still went back into training.
Normally, Oxford would not have considered playing somebody with facial injuries like that, so Maurice Evans left the decision with him.
“Do you want to play?”
“No problem Morris.”
“It was just stitches. I didn’t think that it was a big deal.”
So Whitehurst started against Nottingham Forest.
The only thing he was fairly certain about was what would happen next.
“At some stage during that match against Nottingham Forest I knew I was going to get a smack on the nose.”
About ten minutes before half-time, a ball dropped between Whitehurst and Forest goalkeeper Steve Sutton.
Sutton came out to punch it.
Whitehurst went in to head it.
Sutton missed the ball and caught Whitehurst straight across the nose instead.
At half-time, the doctor removed the stitches that had been damaged and replaced them with staples.
“To be fair they were a lot better than stitches.”
Whitehurst went straight back out for the second half.
The hole in his cheek was still there, to the point where you could see through it into his mouth.
“I looked like Frankenstein’s monster.”
“I played the whole game.”
“This was football back then. You got hurt you played on and that was that.”View quoted post on X
One to remember next time they come round begging for votes.
We will cut the arts & culture budget by £1bn in order to fund 50,000 prison places. Keeping rapists and other dangerous offenders locked up is a priority for the @Conservatives. We will always put community safety first.View quoted post on X
@RichmoMusic If you need help understanding the numbers, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. Always happy to talk you through.
thetimes.com/article/77bcee…
