And he admitted that he has been spurred on to emulate the breakthrough of his Ipswich colleague and friend Richard Wright.However, Dyer looked more impressive when he switched into the centre of the park for the second half of Tuesday night’s match He admitted: “I feel more comfortable in midfield. I play there for my club all the time and it is my favourite position.”I got on the ball quite a lot and I was pleased with my performance in that 45 minutes. But you will play anywhere for your country and I’m happy to play wing-back. I’ve played there on a number of occasions and in all honesty I believe that represents my best chance of getting into the full England squad.”There are very few wing-backs around and Glenn Hoddle wants to play with that system It is my best opportunity of making the next step up.”. Portugal Under-21 3 Wales Under-21 0
ROBERT EARNSHAW and Leon Jeanne impressed the Wales manager Bobby Gould as Wales Under-21s went down 3-0 in Braganca yesterday.
Wales lost 10 of their original 18-man squad for the friendly against Portugal and the team that lined up included eight players from the Under-18s squad.
Zeefrino Soares put the hosts ahead in the 19th minute when he latched on to a ball over the top. However, Wales were unhappy that there was no flag for Edgar Pacheco, who was returning from an offside position.Pacheco made it 2-0 seven minutes from the break with a near-post header from a right-wing corner that gave the Blackburn keeper Anthony Williams little chance.Wales’ youngsters rallied well after the break and tested a Portuguese side that included the Arsenal striker Luis-Boa Morte. “I’m trying to be straight with you mate,” he slurs later at an officer as a nurse treats his wounds “You’ll see the security video, anyway. In a corner, an elderly woman waiting for news of her husband, who has suffered an angina attack, rolls her eyes in disgust. “It’s Friday night, innit,” she whispers.
Young Shut-eyes is accompanied by two policemen who rescued him from a “good kickin” in Liverpool Street Station. But the blood-stained youth is only interested in where he can smoke a fag. The other patients in an already filling room are watching the news on a wall-mounted TV.
It is 9pm in the casualty department waiting room at the Royal London Hospital in London’s East End – an hour into the 12-hour night shift – and the young man with the blueing, pulverised face is swaying dangerously. His eyes have been punched shut and a torrent of blood has splattered a hundred red flecks into the pattern of his oatmeal jumper. Her toughest challenge was at the domino tables, where they were engrossed in their game. Eventually they all signed, but Clyde added: “You must let them people know that I am one of them that wants my debts cleared.” Then he roared a raucous, gear-crunching laugh.Honduras – Penge – the same issue.
The protest against councillors and bankers should be led by Clyde. Show him a double-six, and the noise would make them wet their pants.. So it was fitting that a club member called Rose spent the day seeking signatures for her petition to write off Third World debt. Although she’s more concerned that: “We can’t take any more disabled people, as there’s not enough of us qualified.”Housing associations made vast fortunes when Bromley sold off its housing stock, and banks make millions from interest on council borrowing. “It would be nice if I could claim back the pounds 10 a week I spend on petrol,” she says.
The task of assembling a hundred people twice a week, organising trips, receiving and conveying information, getting everyone home, cleaning and feeding the disabled and placing cardboard on tables, falls to the exhaustive voluntary efforts of people like Cynthia, one of the founders.Governments and local councils, far from being undermined by scroungers, scrounge from those like Cynthia, who works for no money. So, as well as the organisational burden, Cynthia and the others hold jumble sales, despatch countless letters in hope of sponsorship, and worry about whether the project will be able to continue at all.Only the cooks and drivers are paid – pounds 15 per day. Once full employment passed, successive governments lost interest in them and, as the generation ended their working lives, they found themselves enthusiastic, creative, active, cool and poor. Some of them have felt the direct hand of racism; abuse and discrimination, but they all know the more common type; their colour making them more likely to be in low-paid jobs and the worst housing.Bromley Council grants the club a little over four thousand pounds per year, less than the cost of hiring the council-owned community hall for two days per week. For theirs was the generation urged to leave their Caribbean homes and come to places like Penge, to alleviate Britain’s labour shortage, with the promise of comfort and security as an incentive. For two days a week, the hundred or so visitors eat, exercise, gossip and play dominoes in social surroundings. The benefits are so obvious that social services regularly refer people from their own books.The Pineapple Club is warmly inviting to white people, as most members have had more positive than negative experiences of their white neighbours But that doesn’t mean the club is beyond racism.