I can't believe Andy Murray won Wimbledon – I don't think he set foot in his opponent's half once – Smudger Smith

What a weekend it’s been for British football.

First of all we had the Lions beating Australia by a huge margin, and I loved the result but felt the ref let the game get away from him a bit.

I’m all for letting the game flow but some of those tackles were ridiculous, not to mention the absurd amount of handballs. 41-16 must be some kind of record and it would have been even higher if all those penalties weren’t put over the bar.

Then we had Andy Murray’s heroics on Sunday to cap what will be an which is how I tend to describe my two weeks down with the Dons.

experience ended with far happier scenes than mine as he absconded into the stands to celebrate rather than to run away from an irate Vinnie. It’s standard fare for the players to tuck into a banana and sit down for a breather every few minutes but when I did that down at Wimbledon, Mr Jones was furious.

I have to say that Selhurst Park has changed a lot since my day with punters scoffing strawberries instead of pies. I also notice that that they drink Pimms which is a lager I’ve never even heard of.

The biggest change though is the attitude to that stunt by Murray. When Cantona headed over the advertising boards he was followed by stewards and there was a whole to-do but Murray was actively cheered and egged on.

Cantona was banned for nine months so it’ll be interesting to see what the Scot gets. I’m hearing rumours that he won’t play at the ground again for nearly a year.

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The last time a Brit won Wimbledon Jessie Owens was victorious at the Berlin Olympics, Morecombe opened a new open-air swimming pool thought to be the largest example of its type and I scored my last competitive goal. (Not really, I found the net a little more recently than that.)

As for the match itself, there were no surprises on the team sheet with Murray and Djokovic both going for unchanged starting line-ups.

The officials dropped the ball though and embarrassingly let both players take to the pitch in white, in the worst kit clash I’ve ever seen.

I have to say I was disappointed with Murray as he seemed to give the ball away every single time he got possession but luckily his opponent was equally careless.

It was a pretty cagey affair and I don’t think either of the finalists even set foot in their opponents half. Having said that, I was impressed by Murray’s attacking intentions to close out the match – he could easily have sat on his 2-0 lead and run down the clock but he kept going to get a third.

Only Brits could call a 3-0 win a close-run thing though It did get a little tense towards the end and my missus couldn’t bring herself to watch, but that’s because she hates tennis.

There were some notable faces in the crowd as you’d expect but I was a little embarrassed for Tim Henman’s parents who made the faux pas of turning up ten years and at least one round too late to see their son.

Still, 77 years of hurt have come to an end and there was no better image of what that meant than the joyous relief on the face in the crowd of American actor Bradley Cooper.

 

Manchester United news: Aeroflot revealed as Manchester United's 'official carrier'

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Manchester United have confirmed the latest in their , naming Russian airline Aeroflot as their ‘official carrier’.

The deal was announced at Old Trafford this lunchtime in the presence of new manager David Moyes and members of the United squad.

Manchester United’s Group managing director, Richard Arnold, said: "Today’s announcement marks in Russia, an expanding market we are keen to explore further.

"The club has close to 18 million followers in Russia, demonstrating the partnerships potential audience in the country.

"Aeroflot is celebrating its 90th birthday this year, but has already impressed us with its youthful energy as one of the youngest fleets in Europe."

Vitaly Saveliev, the chief executive officer of Aeroflot was similarly positive about the deal. “Our partnership with Manchester United is based on [our] global outlook and shared values including teamwork, a focus on quality, pride in our heritage and an innovative and forward-looking attitude.  

“We are long-standing, proud supporters of Russian sport and it’s a significant step for our first global partnership to be with one of the most successful and well loved football clubs in the world."

Former Newcastle United striker Nile Ranger charged with rape

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Ex-Newcastle United striker Nile Ranger has been charged with rape today, police have confirmed.

will appear in court next month following an investigation by Northumbria Police.

Ranger was released by the in March following a series of off-the-pitch issues and is yet to find a new club.

After playing a part in Newcastle’s Championship winning side in 2009-10 he struggled to earn a permanent place in the side when they were established back in the Premier League.

Northumbria Police said in a statement: "A rape was reported to police on Thursday January 24, 2013, and relates to an incident which happened in the early hours of Wednesday January 23 at a hotel in Jesmond.

"Nile Ranger, 22, of Bailey Close, Harringay, London, has been charged with rape. He is due to appear before Newcastle Magistrates’ Court on August 21."

Thomas Vermaelen out of Arsenal's Far East tour with lower back injury

Laurence Griffiths

Thomas Vermaelen will miss – and is struggling to be fit for the start of the season.

Vermaelen,27, aggravated a long-standing problem while on international duty lastmonth and it is believed he may have cracked a bone in his lower back.

Belgiandefender Vermaelen has been having ongoing treatment with massage and also attention to a thigh muscle injury which is likely to be back related.

Arsenal have been in contact with the Belgian FA but their hope he would be fit to fly with the rest of the squad on Thursday has been dashed after he reported back injured.

It isa hammer blow for Arsenal captain Vermaelen and his whole Arsenal future was plunged into doubt.

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Vermaelen is keen to stay and fight for his place especially as his partner Polly Parsons who is due to give birth soon.

Butthis injury has also set back his hope of winning back his place, joining up for pre-season and getting ready for the big kick-off next month.

It also means that Arsenal are unlikely to sell a player who is carrying a back injury and so it seems certain that Vermaelen will not leave this summer.

Arsenalhave already given permission to Spanish duo Santi Cazorla and Nacho Monreal to report up late after the Confederations Cup.

Theycould also be struggling to be ready for the start of the season as in previous years Arsene Wenger has insisted on players being given four clear weeks of rest ahead of the new campaign.

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But Arsenal are taking Jack Wilshere to the Far East and .

Arsenalremain keen to strengthen their squad but they are running out of time to complete a deal for Real Madrid striker Gonzalo Higuain before they depart for their pre-season.

Real Madrid president Florentino Perez yesterday .

Arsenalare understood to be about £2m short of Real Madrid’s valuation but Higuain is keen to come and has discussed personal terms, the Spanish club having already circulated his name among clubs as being available for transfer.

Gareth Bale transfer: Tottenham stars remain convinced that winger is going nowhere this summer

Tottenham players are convinced Gareth Bale will be playing alongside them next season.

Bale, 23, was among four stars .

The Footballer of the Year is set to remain in the capital for the coming campaign with Spurs adamant they will not sell to Real Madrid at any price.

Spurs captain Michael Dawson believes that – far from walking out on the club for Madrid – will actually attract players to White Hart Lane.

Dawson said: “Gareth is known worldwide. I’m very lucky to play with him. The kind of goals I’ve seen him score, winning us games… brilliant.

“Last year, some of the goals he scored to help win us football matches were unbelievable.

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“He’s a top guy. He’s here to do well, like all of us. Like the manager, like the staff at the football club, we’re striving to be successful for this club.

“I remember him coming in as a 17-year-old. He’s not changed, he’s a top guy, he’s got a great family around him.

“He’s one of the boys – the lads love having him around. Someone as good as him, you certainly want to keep him.

“You see him today, he is as I remember him coming in.

 

“It hasn’t always been easy since he signed. He was out of the team, like myself, but the boy is world class.

“And if we keep bringing players in, it is only going to make us better as a squad. That is what we want to do.”

, the PFA ­equivalent, the corresponding award from sponsors Barclays and Tottenham’s Player of the Year gong too.

He and Dawson were joined on promotional duty yesterday by keeper Brad Friedel and England striker Jermain Defoe.

Defoe said: “It’s important that Gareth stays. This year, we want a great season and we want to get into the Champions League and to do that you’ve got to keep your best players.

“What Gareth did here last year was unbelievable when you look at the amount of goals he scored.

“At times he was playing out of position, up top or off the forward, and to show the composure he did in certain games when he was one-on-one with the keeper was outstanding.

“He’s a special player. You want to keep your top players.”

Under Armour is the Official Technical Partner of Tottenham Hotspur. For more information and to pre-order the new 2013/2014 home and away kits, please visit

Atletico steal the keys to AVB’s Spanish Villa

Andre Villas-Boas is set to miss out on one of his top targets with David Villa heading to Atletico Madrid for just £4.4million.

Mirror Sport revealed yesterday that Spurs were confident of landing the 31-year-old Barcelona striker this week.

But with Spurs chairman Daniel Levy haggling over a fee, Atletico swooped for the Spanish star to replace Radamel Falcao.

Wayne Rooney can beat Manchester United boo-boys like Cristiano Ronaldo did, says Bryan Robson

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Wayne Rooney has been told he can win over his Manchester United critics if he stays .

is understood because Sir Alex Ferguson claimed he asked to leave at the end of last season.

ButUnited legend Bryan Robson cited the case of Cristiano Ronaldo seven years ago. The Portugal star rescued his reputation with Reds fans after his infamous winkergate incident as Rooney was sentoff at the 2006 World Cup.

Robsonsays Roo can also get everyone behind him if he starts the new campaignon fire. “What you’ve got to do is go back to Ronaldo and that World Cup with Wayne when they had that incident,” said the United ambassador.“After two games, Ronaldo was playing fantastic and everybody forgot all about it.

“That’s the scenario for Wayne. If he starts the season well and scores a few goals and is enjoying his ­football, then the fans will forgive him – if thereis anything to forgive him for.”

 

Robson, who was speaking at ­United’s £40million five-year sponsorship agreement with Aeroflot to be their official carrier, urged Rooney to continue his career at Old Trafford.

“David Moyes has come in and said he wants Wayne to stay,” he said. “He is a great footballer and sometimes great footballers do look for greener pastures. But you just have to look at this launch today and it shows you how big Manchester United arewith this partnership with Aeroflot.

“Waynehas everything he needs to be happy at this football club. It is obvious that the manager, the players – and everyone here – wants Wayne to be playing his football here next season.”

 

Andy Cole, also a United ­ambassador, regrets leaving the club for ­Blackburn in 2002. He feels .

“KnowingWayne, and the man he is, he’s at a great football club in Manchester United,” said Cole. “You never want to leave this football club. If you do, you say to yourself, ‘I wish I had never left this football club’.

“He is a top player and top players are going to be looked at by other football clubs.

“But he’s got a great platform here to do what he wants to do. Fingers crossed, he will stay and hopefully he will want to stay.

“David Moyes says he’s not for sale and I feel that should be the end of it to be honest.”

Christian Benteke transfer: What next for Aston Villa now the Tottenham target wants to leave? – James Nursey

Chris Brunskill

Aston Villa finished last season in fine form with 21 points from 14 games to engender huge optimism for this season.

Their only defeats during the run-in were to Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool, Manchester United and Chelsea.

And the star at the centre of it all was

The marksman, whose many assets include pace, power, good finishing, heading and a decent touch, genuinely seemed to get better with every month and ended with 23 goals – including 19 in the Premier League.

His hat-trick heroics in the televised 6-1 destruction of Sunderland in April in particular left fans drooling with anticipation about the forthcoming campaign.

He was Villa’s spearhead in front of an exciting young attacking team featuring the likes of Ashley Westwood, Andreas Weimann and a rejuvenated Gabriel Agbonlahor.

Benteke’s influence undoubtedly helped save Villa from relegation as he either scored or created 23 of Villa’s 47 Premier League goals.

At nearly every press conference towards the end of last season, boss Paul Lambert, who had cannily plucked Benteke from relative obscurity in Belgium for just £8million last summer, was asked about the forward’s future.

The Scot felt he could persuade Benteke to stay and I know club officials I spoke to were hopeful of keeping him for at least one more year on improved terms in a new contract.

Benteke, for example, and Lambert was planning on building the team around him.

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But those plans are in tatters now after

It begs the question of where Villa and Lambert’s revolution goes from here after his bold policy of clearing out older players for bright, young talent.

Will Lambert’s brave new world plunged into darkness and relegation without its arguable figurehead?

In the short-term, we have a transfer saga (probably a messy one) to play out with the striker, from what I am told, fancying

But at least Villa owner Randy Lerner and the club’s chief executive Paul Faulkner – recently re-elected to the FA Council – have plenty of experience of handling these.

Because to the names of Gareth Barry, James Milner, Stewart Downing and Ashley Young, can be now be added another name – Benteke.

The hotshot has three years left on his contract at Villa Park after joining from Genk and will not be leaving on the cheap.

I would expect a fee in excess of the £26m it took to take Milner to Man City and perhaps with a player as a make-weight too.

Benteke is not in Germany on Villa’s pre-season tour and I don’t doubt his absence is unsettling and concerning for the squad given his importance.

But Lambert has made some very shrewd bargain signings before like Benteke himself, Westwood, Matt Lowton and re-signing Brad Guzan to name a few.

And he will no doubt make further decent additions.

Fellow star performers like Guzan and Weimann have already committed to new long-term contracts so the revolution will not stall completely.

And I thought Agbonlahor’s end of season form was particularly encouraging as the Brummie and life-long Villa fan really raised his game when required.

So there are other players at Villa capable of scoring and Villa do not only possess one decent striker.

But Villa’s statement last night confirming Benteke had put in a transfer request stressed the need to settle the dispute quickly one way or another while still in pre-season.

The player has been given extended leave from Villa and is not due back until next Thursday, July 18.

And Villa ideally need to sort out his future by then to ensure it does not overshadow the start of the new season.

If a huge club-record fee can be squeezed from Spurs, or another club in that time frame, then Villa should take it and back Lambert’s judgement to find more hidden gems – hopefully with a little more loyalty.

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I find it very depressing for English football that Benteke already wants to leave Villa after less than 11 months to go to one of the so-called big five or six.

I am not naive but feel if he had stayed one more season and done well, gone to the World Cup and starred then he could have left with everyone’s respect – for probably a lot more cash too.

But in football, players and their agents generally feel when you are hot and in demand you have basically got to go.

And as it stands, realistically, Villa have little choice but to flog him.

If he wants out, Villa should sell him because keeping players who don’t want to be there can be damaging as WBA found out last term in their second half of season slump, which can in part be attributed to the Peter Odemwingie mess.

Furthermore, as good a player as Benteke is, and as much potential as he has, there are no guarantees he will have as good a campaign again.

He will be more tightly marked next season by defenders who have studied his strengths.

What Benteke did so well last season was to arrive in England without knowing the country or league and adjust so quickly, which is very rare I must admit.

It will make replacing him with a similar raw foreign talent very challenging but I know Lambert had drawn up contingency plans for targets for precisely this worst-case scenario.

No player is irreplaceable as even Benteke has short-comings and there are question marks over his temperament given his red-card in against Chelsea in May and the fact he was fortunate not to be sent off in the previous game too when he grabbed Sebastien Bassong by the throat at Norwich.

Now though sadly Benteke has Villa by the throat.

The only other possible consolation I can give Villa fans is: what goes around, comes around.

As I personally still believe – and have heard – there is a reasonable chance Mr Bale may end up in a Real Madrid shirt next season whatever Spurs may think and do.

Manchester United legends David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt, Phil Neville and Gary Neville spotted heading for night out

Eamonn & James Clarke

Terry Cooke must have been busy, but otherwise it was a full-house reunion of class of 1992 in Manchester last night.

David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt, Phil Neville and Gary Neville were the "kids" that United were never going to win anything with – Sir Alex Ferguson’s crop of young talent that got fast-tracked into the first team and glory.

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Twenty-one years later and, knees permitting, the old fellas were hitting the town together fully intent on partying hard within reason before returning home at a sensible hour.

The ‘lads’ were spotted reportedly heading to "Artisan Bar & Restaurant" in Manchester’s Spinningfields Area. Let’s hope they sat the Nevilles apart.

The dark cloud on Gary’s face says that brother Phil has somehow rubbed him up the wrong way yet again.

Bad enough Philly turning traitor and leaving Manchester United all those years ago.

Now he’s and he’s dressing appropriately for a man his age, in slacks and grown-up shoes – when everyone else has come as a member of N-Zinc Supplement, Britain’s oldest boy band.

Eamonn & James Clarke

It looked like the real David Beckham too –

Pictures of Manchester United legend David Beckham making surprise visit to Old Trafford shop

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One of the greatest shirt-shifters in football history hopped over the counter as David Beckham popped into the megastore to buy a load of Manchester United kit.

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Dave’s in the smutter trade himself of course, with his little underpants, so he was probably looking to spend some me time checking hems and gusseting.

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Surprised shoppers soon turned the event into a photo-call and flesh-press, but you’d doubt this came as a shock to Becks given the circumstances.

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Strolling around among the mortals comes naturally to Les Balls d’Or, who clearly can bear a bit of adulation if he has to, and looks to have responded with typical class and grace.

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But there’s steel with the charm and our hero didn’t get where he is by paying full retail like a muggle!

Here Becks appears to be haggling with a store representative for a bogof or some sort of former-staff discount on a multi-pack of socks.

In the end they possibly had to put his request to Sir Alex Ferguson, who was up in the Old Trafford CCTV control room, letting David Moyes just get on with the job. Fergie said no.

Tottenham transfer news video: Benoit Assou-Ekotto admits he's never heard of Paulinho

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It’s not easy keeping tabs on of the world of football, but Tottenham’s Benoit Assou-Ekotto isn’t even bothering to follow the news from

The big-haired Spurs star was being earnestly quizzed about the potential impact that might make on the squad next season.

Turns out Benny’s not absolutely up to speed on what a ‘Paulinho’ is.

So you’ll be reserving judgement until you see him in training, suggests the interviewer helpfully.

Not really. Benny had never heard of Paulinho before and doesn’t know what he looks like now, so…

Laurence Griffiths

Not the first time that’s happened to the French-born Cameroonian either apparently – he famously operates on a football ‘need to know’ basis so strict that it turns out he needs to know almost nothing.

He admits he thought Rafael van der Vaart was just some bloke when he first met the Dutchman at Spurs a few years back.

Last season Benny was reportedly surprised to learn in an interview several weeks after the event that Luis Suarez had bitten someone.

You might think that this utter disinterest in football other than his own 90-minutes at the coal face looks a bit like slacking. Let’s just call it ‘focus’.