Boreham Wood Football Club
Our fantastic hosts for the Pudsey Challenge Cup play their home games at Meadow Park, Boreham Wood, and were formed in 1948 by the amalgamation of two local sides, Boreham Rovers and Royal Retournez. In 1966, after playing in such leagues as the Mid-Herts League and Parthenon League, they joined the Athenian League, where two promotions took them to the top division, where they were champions in 1973–74. After this the team joined the Isthmian League.
In 1977 they reached the Isthmian League Premier Division, and they were to bounce between the top two divisions on a number of occasions over the next 27 years. In 2004 a re-organisation of the pyramid saw them move to the Southern Football League Eastern Division, which they won in 2005–06, but further re-organisation in 2006 saw them promoted to the Isthmian League Premier Division rather than the Southern League’s equivalent.
In 2010 Boreham Wood won the Isthmian League Premier Division play off final to obtain promotion to the Conference South for the first time in their history and have remained there ever since.
Children In Need
Children In Need is one of three telethon appeals held by the BBC (the other two being Comic Relief and Sports Relief) and is held yearly in November.
The BBC’s first ever broadcast appeal for children was a five-minute radio broadcast on Christmas Day in 1927. The response was phenomenal and it raised £1,143 18s 3d which was split between 4 prominent children’s charities.
The first televised appeal was the 1955 ‘Children’s Hour Christmas Appeal’, presented by Sooty and Harry Corbett. The Christmas Day Appeals continued on TV and radio right up until 1979, raising a total of £625,836.
The presenters included Terry Hall, Eamonn Andrews, Leslie Crowther, Michael Aspel and the rising star of the Radio 2 Breakfast Show – Terry Wogan – who made his debut appearance in 1978.
In 1980 the appeal was broadcast on BBC One in a new telethon format, hosted by Terry with Sue Lawley and Esther Rantzen. The telethon was the brainchild of Mark Patterson, who went on to be the Executive Producer for nine years. It captured the public’s imagination to such an extent that the donations increased dramatically and broke the million mark for the very first time.
Terry Wogan remains the telethon’s mainstay who has been joined by a diverse line-up over the years that includes Joanna Lumley, Sue Cook, John Craven, Andi Peters, Gaby Roslin, Natasha Kaplinsky and Fearne Cotton.
Pudsey Bear made his television debut in 1985 when Terry introduced the new, brown cuddly mascot to the audience.
He was designed by Joanna Ball, a BBC graphics designer, who named him after the West Yorkshire town where she was born. He proved very popular and returned as BBC Children in Need’s official logo the following year with his design amended to that of a yellow bear with a red spotted bandage.
In the two decades which have followed, Pudsey has received letters, drawings and e-mails from youngsters all over the UK and been photographed with more celebrities than he can remember.
Apart from a party hat worn in 2004 to celebrate the telethon’s silver jubilee, Pudsey has remained very much the same. But a 2007 revamp gave Pudsey a fresh new look and brighter colours in time for the 28th annual BBC Children in Need Appeal.
This year’s Appeal is on Friday 15 November and promises to be bigger and better than ever before.
Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b008dk4b/features/history
UK Football Finder
Championing the cause of football players needing clubs across the UK, UK Football Finder has helped stage over 250,000 trials in only five years. The Elite Team from UK Football Finder boasts players of at least Step 4 standard, and has been triumphant in games played against sides from Leatherhead Football Club, Peterborough Elite Academy, Hitchin Town Football Club and Hayes & Yeading Football Club. They truly are leading the grass-roots revolution!
Link – http://www.ukfffc.co.uk
Renegade PLC
Set up by Chairman Adam King in May 2013, Renegade PLC offers a different approach to a wide number of businesses and investments. At its heart, however, is a dedicated approach to football and the future successes of young players in the UK from grass-roots and continued survival of clubs deemed to be in crisis.
Renegade PLC is a company of the future that is very much alive and kicking today.
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