Straight Up: America's Fiercest Climate Blogger Takes on the Status Quo Media, Politicians, and Clean Energy Solutions is a book by author, blogger, physicist and climate expert Joseph J. Romm.  A Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and former Acting Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, Romm writes about methods of reducing global warming and increasing energy security through energy efficiency, green energy technologies and green transportation technologies.

Romm writes and edits the climate blog ClimateProgress.org for the Center for American Progress, where he is a Senior Fellow.  Time magazine named this blog one of the "Top 15 Green Websites" and called Romm "The Web's most influential climate-change blogger", naming him as one of its "Heroes of the Environment (2009)".

Straight Up was released on April 19, 2010, by Island Press.  It is "largely a selection of [Romm]'s best blog postings over the past few years related to climate change issues".  TreeHugger describes the book as "a whirlwind tour through the state of climate change, the media that so badly neglects it, the politicians who attempt to address it (and those who obstruct their efforts and ignore [the] science), and the clean energy solutions that could help get us out of the mess."

Summary
The title of the book's introduction, "Why I blog", is a play on the title of George Orwell's essay, "Why I Write".  Romm states, "I joined the new media because the old media have failed us.  They have utterly failed to force us to face unpleasant facts.  From this starting point, Romm posits that global warming is a bipartisan issue.  He writes, "Averting catastrophic global warming requires completely overturning the status quo, changing every aspect of how we use energy – and doing so in under four decades.  Failure to do so means humanity's self-destruction."  The book collects, reprints and updates postings from his blog, ClimateProgress.org, as the main part of his content, adding introductions and some new analysis.

In his first chapter, Romm argues that the media perpetuates the status quo through laziness and a misunderstanding of how to present a "balanced" story.  For example, he believes that the media did a bad job of assessing the outcome of the Copenhagen summit in December 2009.  Romm comments that global warming is a science story, but that the traditional news media, which has scaled back on specialized reporting, has given the story to political reporters who don't understand, and have not time to research, the scientific consensus.  He next presents research concerning the science of climate change, as explained by what Romm calls "uncharacteristically blunt scientists".

In the third chapter, Straight Up presents proposed solutions to reducing greenhouse gas emissions through the use of clean energy technologies and other currently available technologies.  For example, it describes what Romm believes are the advantages of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, generation of energy through wind and solar power, including concentrated solar power using mirrors to concentrate the sun's energy.  He writes that "A 20 percent reduction in global emissions might be possible in a quarter century with net economic benefits".  "Our plan", says Romm, must be "Deployment, deployment, deployment, R&D, deployment, deployment, deployment."  The next chapter discusses peak oil.

The next chapters move into the politics of global warming and what Romm sees as a "right-wing disinformation machine" that confuses and misleads the public, by, for example, fostering what Romm calls "Anti-Scientific Syndrome".  The book says, "the economic cost of action is low, whereas the cost of inaction is incalculably greater – what exactly is the 'price' of 5 feet of sea level rise in 2100 ... and losing all of the inland glaciers that provide a significant fraction of water to a billion people?  Or the price of losing half the world's species? ... the bottom line is that the economic cost of action is low, whereas the cost of inaction is incalculably greater". Romm calculates that deployment of existing technologies on the massive scale that can save the climate can be accomplished at the cost of 0.12 percent of global GDP per year.

Romm advocates citizen action to pressure Washington and industry to act quickly and decisively to reduce greenhouse emissions.  Otherwise, he argues, we will fall behind in the race to commercialize profitable technologies.  "China has a excellent track record of achieving gains in energy efficiency and has begun to ramp up its efficiency efforts and aggressively expand its carbon-free electricity targets (recently committing, for instance, to triple its wind goal to 100,000 MW by 2020). ... will the United States be a global leader in creating jobs and exports in clean energy technologies or will we be importing them from Europe, Japan, and the likely clean energy leader in our absence, China"?

In the last chapter, Romm posits that progressives are "lousy" at educating the public, and he offers ways in which he thinks they can be more effective at messaging.  In his conclusion at the end of the book, Romm argues that the global economy is a sort of ponzi scheme, in which our failure to prevent the worst effects of climate change now could eventually cause the world economy to fall apart just like a ponzi scheme.

Reception

Initial reviews
A review in USA Today called the book "a gut-wrenching wakeup call".  Thomas L. Friedman, in his op-ed column in The New York Times, called the book "insightful", agreeing with Romm's arguments in the book that the proposed "cap and trade" climate bill "is a step in the right direction toward reducing greenhouse gases and expanding our base of clean power technologies".  Former US Vice-President Al Gore endorsed the book as "important" on his blog, writing, "If you are interested in the fight to solve the climate crisis, I recommend you read this book."

The book has been reviewed by many of the "green" websites.  For example, the blog of the American Solar Energy Society, Solar Today, commented, "It's a collection of spirited and readable critiques of the delaying forces – the corporations and institutions who want to see no changes in national policies and tax codes that now work to make them rich.  In particular, Romm eviscerates the American news establishment for ignoring climate catastrophe issues". ...  It's full of solid fact-based arguments, properly referenced within the text (no footnotes!), along with a lot of low-carbon fire and brimstone.  Daily Kos commented, "Romm's forceful, impassioned blogging – and his book publishing – are a shining light in the confrontation of those 'misguided seals of approval'" being given out by the mainstream press to climate disinformers.  The review continues, "Romm is a tenacious fighter ... ready to take on all comers to the point that he can even rub 'friends' and allies the wrong way at times. ... Romm's knowledge, writing skills, and passion enable most to see past those conflicts since, on so many issues, Romm is simply – well – correct and laying out viable paths forward. ... Simply put, if the 'nation' would read Straight Up and follow Romm's prescriptions, we would find ourselves moving away from decline into a new era of prosperity."  The Green Energy Reporter stated that "Straight Up's indictment of "status-quo media" like The New York Times lays bare the inadequacies of traditional he-said-she-said media coverage when faced with a civilizational challenge like climate change. ...  Strong opinions, muscular writing."

Reporter Tyler Hamilton calls the book "a stinging critique of how poorly the mainstream media has covered global warming" and says that the book, like Romm's blog, "cuts through the crap in a way no mainstream media outlet has or will."  A review in TreeHugger termed the book "an essential guide to climate, energy, and politics for the blog era."  It continued, "nobody knows the game like Romm – both in terms of ability to interpret and explain the latest science, and in boasting expertise on the politics and policy process that, whether you like it our not, is going to be instrumental in mitigating climate change on a large scale."  Even for readers of Romm's blog, the book "provides an important narrative flow, and condenses everything you need to know about the current state of climate science and politics into a nice, quick read.  While extremely thorough, it may make some beginners' head spin, and it can get combative and wonky in places.  But such is the nature of this beast – climate change should make a beginner's head spin, and as Romm makes clear, addressing it is going to be messy, politically charged, and a daunting battle."  The Environmental Defense Fund review opined, "Straight Up is well-researched, provides insightful political analysis, and showcases compelling data on the economic benefits of climate change solutions."

Ross Gelbspan reviewed the book for Grist magazine, writing that Romm's "unfailing sense of priorities shines through his startlingly thoughtful and brutally blunt writing."  Gelbspan continues, "while one wishes Romm would have stitched the blog posts together into a more coherent narrative – and omitted a few that addressed transitory, fleeting events – his book is absolutely on point in its insistence that climate change long ago ceased to be a scientific issue and, instead, is most clearly a political one."  Gelbspan agrees with Romm that "a central reason that most political conservatives and libertarians deny the reality of human-induced climate change 'is that they simply cannot stand the solution.  So they attack both the solution and the science.'  I don't recall reading that simple truth in [traditional media,] virtually all of which treat the climate debate as though it actually had some legitimacy."  He also agrees with Romm that the major media "have failed, in the name of 'journalistic balance', to distinguish between legitimate, peer-reviewed scientific research and the deliberate obfuscation by a cadre of climate skeptics, many of whom have been funded by coal and oil companies.  As a result, the public has no idea that we are already at a point of no return in terms of staving off climate chaos."  Gelbspan notes, "Romm happens to favor both efficiency and concentrated solar thermal power.  But, his technological preferences aside, he's right on point when he describes the call for more R&D as a stalling tactic to avoid coming to grips with the threat.  As Romm writes, 'deployment completely trumps research'."  However, Gelbspan criticizes Romm for "wandering", at the end of the book, "into the question of why climate advocates are so bad at 'messaging.'  It may be a valid question. ... But I'm afraid the issue [is] a diversion from the real question facing all of us at this moment of history. ... We are already beginning to see crop failures, water shortages, increasing extinctions, migrations of environmental refugees, and all manner of potential breakdowns in our social lives.  Where Straight Up falls short is in its failure to deal with this reality head on."  Still, he says, "This is not at all to minimize the value of Romm's book.  To the contrary, if you think the most pressing task today is to limit the coming damage through a transition to non-carbon technologies, I can't think of a better place to start than by reading Straight Up."

Later assessments
In June 2010, FDL Book Salon said of the book, "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. By pulling together the very best content from the blog and thoughtfully organizing it in a logical way, the book achieves ... cohesiveness. ... [What makes Romm's] writing on climate change and energy policy so valuable is his comprehensive knowledge of the subject matter."  A review the same month in the New Zealand climate blog Hot Topic contains a detailed summary of the book.  A July 2010 review in RenewableEnergyWorld.com agreed with Romm that "with the little time we have left to avert climate chaos, we must devote most of our resources to deploying existing technologies like solar, wind and geothermal that we know can bring atmospheric carbon back down down to safe levels."

In July 2010, Bill McKibben wrote in Washington Monthly:
Romm ... knows his climate science ... cold. Trained as a physicist, he is unintimidated by scholarly work, and is able to synthesize huge amounts of complex data. He has been a persuasive voice for the most important truth about global warming: that it is a far worse problem than either politicians or the general public understand.  In his posts and in his previous book Hell and High Water Romm has made the stakes clear. "If we stay anywhere near our current emissions path," he writes, the century will bring "staggeringly high temperature rise ... [and] sea level rise. ...  Dust bowls will cover the southwestern United States and many other heavily populated regions around the globe.  Massive species loss will occur on land and sea – affecting 50 percent or more of all life."  These changes ... are relatively uncontroversial middle-of-the-road projections. ... Romm's willingness to repeat these concerns ... has been essential in emboldening a few opinion writers – Tom Friedman, for instance – to keep this message in the mainstream media. ...  Romm has been consistent in insisting that we have much of the technology necessary to at least begin tackling the problem. He regularly documents the gains we could easily squeeze from commonsense efficiencies ... [and current technologies,] the plug-in hybrid car, for example. ...  Romm is very clear on the economics of climate change: any large-scale adjustment, while not cheap, is affordable, and neglecting the issue as we have done will prove to be very expensive in the long run.  Indeed, it's hard to read him without understanding just how disingenuous and shortsighted is the Republican argument that we should ignore global warming because it will cost us money. ...  The [2009] McKinsey report ... estimate[s that] most of the first few decades of carbon trimming will actually make us money. ...

The second half of Straight Up ... covers the politics of climate.  [Romm has been] a tireless foil to the "right-wing disinformation machine" that has tried – with great success ... to delay action by confusing and disheartening Americans about global warming.  The right's basic message ... is not supported by the evidence.  It is, however, supported by both a good deal of fossil-fuel industry cash and a good deal of wishful thinking from all of us who are so used to the lifestyles underwritten by cheap fossil fuel.  It requires a thick skin to take on the daily task of dealing with the disinformers, but Romm has the taste for this kind of blood sport, and the talent as well.  He coined the term "anti-science syndrome" (and its rude acronym) for the campaign to undermine the scientific consensus.  He's waged memorable wars with, say, Lord Monckton ... who dropped his earlier campaign to quarantine all AIDS sufferers. ...   Romm is also stern with progressives, mostly for their poor messaging on climate issues. ...  In fact, my main dispute with Romm's work is his relentless focus on Washington. Since the advent of the Obama administration he has devoted a great deal of his fierceness to attacking anyone who questions the legislative solutions to climate change put forward by the Democrats in the White House and Congress. ...  It's not that his message is absurd.  We do desperately need action from Washington on climate change. ...  But Romm's hyper-realism may ignore more important political possibilities. He's paid less attention to the emerging popular movement on climate change than to the machinations of the Senate, but if we're actually going to get change on the scale we need, it's quite possible it won't happen without an aggressive, large, and noisy movement demanding that change. And Romm, who would have a good deal of useful things to say to such a movement, hasn't been very interested.

See also

Individual and political action on climate change
Carbon diet
Climate change response
Economics of global warming
Effects of global warming
Global warming controversy
The Hype about Hydrogen
 List of environmental books
 List of books about renewable energy
Mitigation of global warming
Politics of global warming
Who Killed the Electric Car?

References

External links
Straight Up at Island Press
Romm's climate blog

2010 non-fiction books
2010 in the environment
Current affairs books
Environmental non-fiction books
Climate change books
Political books
Books about energy issues
Island Press books

Straight Up (book)


Ellas Otha Bates McDaniel (December 30, 1928 – June 2, 2008), known professionally as Bo Diddley, was an American guitarist and singer who played a key role in the transition from the blues to rock and roll. He influenced many artists, including Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Animals, George Thorogood, Syd Barrett, and The Clash.

His use of African rhythms and a signature beat, a simple five-accent hambone rhythm, is a cornerstone of hip hop, rock, and pop music. In recognition of his achievements, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, the Blues Hall of Fame in 2003, and the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame in 2017. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Diddley is also recognized for his technical innovations, including his use of tremolo and reverb effects to enhance the sound of his distinctive rectangular-shaped guitars.

Early life
Bo Diddley was born in McComb, Mississippi, as Ellas Otha Bates (also stated as Otha Ellas Bates or Elias Otha Bates). He was the only child of Ethel Wilson, a  sharecropper's teenaged daughter, and Eugene Bates, whom he never knew. Wilson was only sixteen, and being unable to support a family, she gave her cousin, Gussie McDaniel, permission to raise her son. McDaniel eventually adopted him, and he assumed her surname. Diddley denied ever having the name "Otha" in a 2001 interview, saying "I don't know where they got that 'Otha' from", but his web site, maintained by his estate, confirms it as his middle name.

After his adoptive father Robert died in 1934, when Diddley was five years old, Gussie McDaniel moved with him and her three children to the South Side of Chicago; he later dropped Otha from his name and became Ellas McDaniel. He was an active member of Chicago's Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church, where he studied the trombone and the violin, becoming so proficient on the violin that the musical director invited him to join the orchestra, in which he played until he was 18. However, he was more interested in the joyful, rhythmic music he heard at a local Pentecostal Church and took up the guitar; his first recordings were based on that frenetic church music. Diddley said he thought that the trance-like rhythm he used in his rhythm and blues music came from the Sanctified churches he had attended as a youth in his Chicago neighborhood.

Career
Inspired by a John Lee Hooker performance, Diddley supplemented his income as a carpenter and mechanic by playing on street corners with friends, including Jerome Green, in the Hipsters band, later renamed the Langley Avenue Jive Cats. Green became a near-constant member of McDaniel's backing band, the two often trading joking insults with each other during live shows. In the summers of 1943 and 1944, he played at the Maxwell Street market in a band with Earl Hooker. By 1951 he was playing on the street with backing from Roosevelt Jackson on washtub bass and Jody Williams, who had played harmonica as a boy but took up guitar in his teens after he met Diddley at a talent show, with Diddley teaching him some aspects of playing the instrument, including how to play the bass line. Williams later played lead guitar on "Who Do You Love?" (1956).

In 1951, he landed a regular spot at the 708 Club, on Chicago's South Side, with a repertoire influenced by Louis Jordan, John Lee Hooker, and Muddy Waters. In late 1954, he teamed up with harmonica player Billy Boy Arnold, drummer Clifton James and bass player Roosevelt Jackson and recorded demos of "I'm a Man" and "Bo Diddley". They re-recorded the songs at Universal Recording Corp. for Chess Records, with a backing ensemble comprising Otis Spann (piano), Lester Davenport (harmonica), Frank Kirkland (drums), and Jerome Green (maracas). The record was released in March 1955, and the A-side, "Bo Diddley", became a number one R&B hit.

Origins of stage name
The origin of the stage name Bo Diddley is unclear. McDaniel said his peers gave him the name, which he suspected was an insult. Diddly is a truncation of diddly squat, which means "absolutely nothing". Diddley also said that the name first belonged to a singer his adoptive mother knew. Harmonicist Billy Boy Arnold said that it was a local comedian's name, which Leonard Chess adopted as McDaniel's stage name and the title of his first single. McDaniel also stated that his school classmates in Chicago gave him the nickname, which he started using when sparring and boxing in the neighborhood with The Little Neighborhood Golden Gloves Bunch.

In the 1921 story "Black Death", by Zora Neale Hurston, Beau Diddely was a womanizer who impregnates a young woman, disavows responsibility, and meets his undoing by the powers of the local hoodoo man. Hurston submitted it in a contest run by the academic journal Opportunity in 1925, where it won an honorable mention, but it was never published during her lifetime.

A diddley bow is a homemade single-string instrument that survived in the American Deep South, especially in Mississippi. Played mainly by children, the diddley bow in its simplest form was made by nailing a length of broom wire to the side of a house, using a rock placed under the string as a movable bridge, and played in the style of a bottleneck guitar, with various objects used as a slider. The apparent consensus among scholars is that the diddley bow is derived from the monochord zithers of central Africa.

Success in the 1950s and 1960s
On November 20, 1955, Diddley appeared on the popular television program The Ed Sullivan Show. According to legend, when someone on the show's staff overheard him casually singing "Sixteen Tons" in the dressing room, he was asked to perform the song on the show. One of Diddley's later versions of the story was that upon seeing "Bo Diddley" on the cue card, he thought he was to perform both his self-titled hit single and "Sixteen Tons". Sullivan was furious and banned Diddley from his show, reputedly saying that he would not last six months. Chess Records included Diddley's cover of "Sixteen Tons" on the 1963 album Bo Diddley Is a Gunslinger.

Diddley's hit singles continued in the 1950s and 1960s: "Pretty Thing" (1956), "Say Man" (1959), and "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover" (1962). He also released numerous albums, including Bo Diddley Is a Gunslinger and Have Guitar, Will Travel. These bolstered his self-invented legend. Between 1958 and 1963, Checker Records released eleven full-length Bo Diddley albums. In the 1960s, he broke through as a crossover artist with white audiences (appearing at the Alan Freed concerts, for example), but he rarely aimed his compositions at teenagers. Diddley was among those musicians who capitalized on the mid-1960s surfing and beach party craze in the United States, and released the albums Surfin' with Bo Diddley and  Bo Diddley's Beach Party. These featured heavy, distorted blues, played on his Gretsch guitar with bended notes and minor key riffs, unlike the clean, undistorted sounds of the Fender guitars used by the California surf bands. The cover of Surfin' with Bo Diddley had a photograph of two surfers riding a big wave.

In 1963, Diddley starred in a UK concert tour with the Everly Brothers and Little Richard along with the Rolling Stones (a little-known band at that time).

Diddley wrote many songs for himself and also for others. In 1956, he and guitarist Jody Williams co-wrote the pop song "Love Is Strange", a hit for Mickey & Sylvia in 1957, reaching number 11 on the chart.  Mickey Baker claimed that he (Baker) and Bo Diddley's wife, Ethel Smith, wrote the song. Diddley also wrote "Mama (Can I Go Out)", which was a minor hit for the pioneering rockabilly singer Jo Ann Campbell, who performed the song in the 1959 rock and roll film Go Johnny Go.

After moving from Chicago to Washington, D.C., Diddley built his first home recording studio in the basement of his home at 2614 Rhode Island Avenue NE. Frequented by several of Washington, D.C.'s musical luminaries, the studio was the site where he recorded the Checker LP (Checker LP-2977) Bo Diddley Is a Gunslinger. Diddley also produced and recorded several up-and-coming groups from the Washington, D.C. area. One of the first groups he recorded was local doo-wop group the Marquees, featuring Marvin Gaye and baritone-bass Chester Simmons, who moonlighted as Diddley's chauffeur.

The Marquees appeared in talent shows at the Lincoln Theatre, and Diddley, impressed by their smooth vocal delivery, let them rehearse in his studio. Diddley got the Marquees signed to Columbia subsidiary label OKeh Records after unsuccessfully attempting to get them a contract with his own label, Chess. The OKeh label rivaled Chess in the promotion of rhythm and blues. On September 25, 1957, Diddley drove the group to New York City to record "Wyatt Earp", a novelty song written by Reese Palmer, lead singer of the Marquees. Diddley produced the session, with the group backed by his own band. They cut their first record, a single with "Wyatt Earp" on the A-side and "Hey Little School Girl" on the B-side, but it failed to become a hit. Diddley persuaded Moonglows founder and backing vocalist Harvey Fuqua to hire Gaye. Gaye joined the Moonglows as first tenor; the group then moved to Detroit with the hope of signing with Motown Records founder Berry Gordy Jr.

Diddley included women in his band: Norma-Jean Wofford, also known as The Duchess; Gloria Jolivet; Peggy Jones, also known as Lady Bo, a lead guitarist (rare for a woman at that time); and Cornelia Redmond, also known as Cookie V.

Later years

In early 1971, writer-musician Michael Lydon, a founding editor of Rolling Stone, conducted a lengthy, rambling interview of Diddley, at his then home in the San Fernando Valley, California. Lydon described him as a "protean genius" whose songs were "hymns to himself", and led the published piece with a Diddley quote: "Everything I know I taught myself."

Over the decades, Diddley's performing venues ranged from intimate clubs to stadiums. On March 25, 1972, he played with the Grateful Dead at the Academy of Music in New York City. The Grateful Dead released part of this concert as Volume 30 of the band's concert album series, Dick's Picks. Also in the early 1970s, the soundtrack of the ground-breaking animated film Fritz the Cat contained his song "Bo Diddley", in which a crow dances and finger-pops to the track.

Diddley spent some years in New Mexico, living in Los Lunas from 1971 to 1978, while continuing his musical career. He served for two and a half years as a deputy sheriff in the Valencia County Citizens' Patrol; during that time he purchased and donated three highway-patrol pursuit cars. In the late 1970s, he left Los Lunas and moved to Hawthorne, Florida, where he lived on a large estate in a custom-made log cabin, which he helped to build. For the remainder of his life he divided his time between Albuquerque and Florida, living the last 13 years of his life in Archer, Florida, a small farming town near Gainesville.

In 1979, he appeared as an opening act for The Clash on their US tour.

In 1983, he made a cameo appearance as a Philadelphia pawn shop owner in the comedy film Trading Places. He also appeared in George Thorogood's music video for the song "Bad to the Bone," portraying a guitar-slinging pool shark.

In 1985, he appeared on George Thorogood's set, alongside fellow blues legend Albert Collins, on the Live Aid American stage to perform Thorogood's popular cover of Diddley's song Who Do You Love?".

In 1989, Diddley and his management company, Talent Source, entered into a licensing  with the sportswear brand. The Wieden & Kennedy-produced commercial in the "Bo Knows" campaign teamed Diddley with dual sportsman Bo Jackson. The agreement ended in 1991, but in 1999, a T-shirt of Diddley's image and "You don't know diddley" slogan was purchased in a Gainesville, Florida, sports apparel store. Diddley felt that Nike should not continue to use the slogan or his likeness and fought Nike over the copyright infringement. Despite the fact that lawyers for both parties could not come to a renewed legal arrangement, Nike allegedly continued marketing the apparel and ignored cease-and-desist orders, and a lawsuit was filed on Diddley's behalf, in Manhattan Federal Court.

Diddley played a blues and rock musician named Axman in the 1990 comedy film Rockula, directed by Luca Bercovici and starring Dean Cameron.

In Legends of Guitar (filmed live in Spain in 1991), Diddley performed with Steve Cropper, B.B. King, Les Paul, Albert Collins, and George Benson, among others. He joined the Rolling Stones on their 1994 concert broadcast of Voodoo Lounge, performing "Who Do You Love?" at Joe Robbie Stadium, in Miami.
 In 1996, he released A Man Amongst Men, his first major-label album (and his final studio album) with guest artists like Keith Richards, Ron Wood and the Shirelles. The album earned a Grammy Award nomination in 1997 for the Best Contemporary Blues Album category.

Diddley performed a number of shows around the country in 2005 and 2006, with fellow Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Johnnie Johnson and his band, consisting of Johnson on keyboards, Richard Hunt on drums and Gus Thornton on bass. In 2006, he participated as the headliner of a grassroots-organized fundraiser concert to benefit the town of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, which had been devastated by Hurricane Katrina. The "Florida Keys for Katrina Relief" had originally been set for October 23, 2005, when Hurricane Wilma barreled through the Florida Keys on October 24, causing flooding and economic mayhem.

In January 2006, the Florida Keys had recovered enough to host the fundraising concert to benefit the more hard-hit community of Ocean Springs. When asked about the fundraiser, Diddley stated, "This is the United States of America. We believe in helping one another". The all-star band included members of the Soul Providers, and famed artists Clarence Clemons of the E Street Band, Joey Covington of Jefferson Airplane, Alfonso Carey of The Village People, and Carl Spagnuolo of Jay & The Techniques. In an interview with Holger Petersen, on Saturday Night Blues on CBC Radio in the fall of 2006, he commented on racism in the music industry establishment during his early career. Diddley sold the rights to his songs early on, and until 1989 he received no royalties from the most successful part of his career.

His final guitar performance on a studio album was with the New York Dolls on their 2006 album One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This. He contributed guitar work to the song "Seventeen", which was included as a bonus track on the limited-edition version of the disc.

In May 2007, Diddley suffered a stroke after a concert the previous day in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Nonetheless, he delivered an energetic performance to an enthusiastic crowd. A few months later he had a heart attack. While recovering, Diddley came back to his hometown of McComb, Mississippi, in early November 2007, for the unveiling of a plaque devoted to him on the Mississippi Blues Trail. This marked his achievements and noted that he was "acclaimed as a founder of rock-and-roll." He was not supposed to perform, but as he listened to the music of local musician Jesse Robinson, who sang a song written for this occasion, Robinson sensed that Diddley wanted to perform and handed him a microphone, the only time that he performed publicly after his stroke.

Personal life

Marriages and children
Bo Diddley was married four times. His first marriage, at 18, to Louise Willingham, lasted a year. Diddley married his second wife Ethel Mae Smith in 1949; they had two children. He met his third wife, Kay Reynolds, when she was 15, while performing in Birmingham, Alabama. They soon moved in together and married, despite taboos against interracial marriage. They had two daughters. He married his fourth wife, Sylvia Paiz, in 1992; they were divorced at the time of his death.

Health problems
On May 13, 2007, Diddley was admitted to intensive care in Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska, following a stroke after a concert the previous day in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Starting the show, he had complained that he did not feel well. He referred to smoke from the wildfires that were ravaging south Georgia and blowing south to the area near his home in Archer, Florida. The next day, as he was heading back home, he seemed dazed and confused at the airport, and 911 was called, and he was immediately taken by ambulance to Creighton University Medical Center where he stayed for several days. He was then flown to Shands Hospital in Gainesville, FL, where it was confirmed that he had suffered a stroke. Diddley had a history of hypertension and diabetes, and the stroke affected the left side of his brain, causing receptive and expressive aphasia (speech impairment). The stroke was followed by a heart attack, which he suffered in Gainesville, Florida, on August 28, 2007.

Death
Bo Diddley died on June 2, 2008, of heart failure at his home in Archer, Florida at the age of 79. Grandson Garry Mitchell, his managers, Margo Lewis and Faith Fusillo, bass player and band leader, Debby Hastings, and many family members, were with him when he died at 1:45 am. EDT, at his home. His death was not unexpected. "There was a Gospel song that was sung, at his bedside, and when it was done, he opened his eyes, gave a thumbs up, and said, "Wow! I'm goin' to Heaven!" The song was
'Walk Around Heaven', and those were his last words."

He was survived by his children, Evelyn Kelly, Ellas A. McDaniel, Pamela Jacobs, Steven Jones, Terri Lynn McDaniel-Hines, and Tammi D. McDaniel; a brother, the Rev. Kenneth Haynes; and eighteen grandchildren, fifteen great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren.

His funeral, a four-hour "homegoing" service, took place on June 7, 2008, at Showers of Blessings Church in Gainesville, Florida. Many in attendance chanted "Hey Bo Diddley" as members of Diddley's band played a subdued version of the song.

A number of notable musicians sent flowers, including Little Richard, George Thorogood, Tom Petty and Jerry Lee Lewis. Little Richard, who had been asking his audiences to pray for Bo Diddley, throughout his illness, had to fulfill concert commitments in Westbury and New York City, the weekend of the funeral. He remembered Diddley at the concerts, performing his namesake tune. Eric Burdon, of The Animals, flew to Gainesville to attend the service.

After the funeral service, a tribute concert was held at the Martin Luther King Center in Gainesville, Florida, featuring guest performances by his son and daughter, Ellas A. McDaniel and Evelyn "Tan" Cooper; long-time background vocalist (and original Boette), Gloria Jolivet, and long-time bassist and bandleader, Debby Hastings, Eric Burdon, and former Bo Diddley & Offspring guitarist, Scott Free. In the days following his death, tributes were paid by then-President George W. Bush, the United States House of Representatives, and musicians and performers including B. B. King, Ronnie Hawkins, Mick Jagger, Ronnie Wood, George Thorogood, Eric Clapton, Tom Petty, Robert Plant, Elvis Costello, Bonnie Raitt, Robert Randolph and the Family Band and Eric Burdon. Burdon used video footage of the McDaniel family, and friends in mourning, for a video promoting his ABKCO Records release "Bo Diddley Special". Hastings is quoted as having said, "He was the rock that the roll was built on."

In November 2009, the guitar used by Bo Diddley in his final stage performance sold for $60,000 at auction.

In 2019, members of Bo Diddley's family sued to regain control of the music catalog held in trust by attorney Charles Littell. The family was successful in appointing a new trustee, music industry veteran Kendall Minter. The family was represented by Charles David of Florida Probate Law Group in the 2019 lawsuit.

Accolades
Bo Diddley was posthumously awarded a Doctor of Fine Arts degree by the University of Florida for his influence on American popular music. In its People in America radio series, about influential people in American history, the Voice of America radio service paid tribute to him, describing how "his influence was so widespread that it is hard to imagine what rock and roll would have sounded like without him." Mick Jagger stated that "he was a wonderful, original musician who was an enormous force in music and was a big influence on the Rolling Stones. He was very generous to us in our early years and we learned a lot from him". Jagger also praised the late star as a one-of-a-kind musician, adding, "We will never see his like again". The documentary film Cheat You Fair: The Story of Maxwell Street by director Phil Ranstrom features Bo Diddley's last on-camera interview.

He achieved numerous accolades in recognition of his significant role as one of the founding fathers of rock and roll.
 1986: Inducted into the Washington Area Music Association's Hall of Fame.
 1987: Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
 1987: Inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame
 1990: Lifetime Achievement Award from Guitar Player magazine
 1996: Lifetime Achievement Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation
 1998: Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
 1999: His 1955 recording of his song "Bo Diddley" inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame
 2000: Inducted into the Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame
 2000: Inducted into the North Florida Music Association's Hall of Fame
 2002: Pioneer in Entertainment Award from the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters
 2002: Honored as one of the first BMI Icons at the 50th annual BMI Pop Awards, along with BMI affiliates Chuck Berry and Little Richard.
 2003: Inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame
 2008: Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree posthumously conferred on Diddley by the University of Florida in August (the award had been confirmed before his death in June).
 2020: Induction into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame
 2010: Induction into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame.
 2017: Inducted into the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame.
 2021: Inducted into the New Mexico Music Hall of Fame.

In 2003, U.S. Representative John Conyers paid tribute to Bo Diddley in the United States House of Representatives, describing him as "one of the true pioneers of rock and roll, who has influenced generations".

In 2004, Mickey and Sylvia's 1956 recording of "Love Is Strange" (a song first recorded by Bo Diddley but not released until a year before his death) was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame as a recording of qualitative or historical significance. Also in 2004, Bo Diddley was inducted into the Blues Foundation's Blues Hall of Fame and was ranked number 20 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

In 2005, Bo Diddley celebrated his 50th anniversary in music with successful tours of Australia and Europe and with coast-to-coast shows across North America. He performed his song "Bo Diddley" with Eric Clapton and Robbie Robertson at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 20th annual induction ceremony. In the UK, Uncut magazine included his 1957 debut album, Bo Diddley, in its listing of the '100 Music, Movie & TV Moments That Have Changed the World'.

Bo Diddley was honored by the Mississippi Blues Commission with a Mississippi Blues Trail historic marker placed in McComb, his birthplace, in recognition of his enormous contribution to the development of the blues in Mississippi. On June 5, 2009, the city of Gainesville, Florida, officially renamed and dedicated its downtown plaza the Bo Diddley Community Plaza. The plaza was the site of a benefit concert at which Bo Diddley performed to raise awareness about the plight of the homeless in Alachua County and to raise money for local charities, including the Red Cross.

Beat

The "Bo Diddley beat" is essentially the clave rhythm, one of the most common bell patterns found in sub-Saharan African music traditions. One scholar found this rhythm in 13 rhythm and blues recordings made in the years 1944–55, including two by Johnny Otis from 1948.

Bo Diddley gave different accounts of how he began to use this rhythm. Ned Sublette says, "In the context of the time, and especially those maracas [heard on the record], 'Bo Diddley' has to be understood as a Latin-tinged record. A rejected cut recorded at the same session was titled only 'Rhumba' on the track sheets." The Bo Diddley beat is similar to "hambone", a style used by street performers who play out the beat by slapping and patting their arms, legs, chest, and cheeks while chanting rhymes. Somewhat resembling the "shave and a haircut, two bits" rhythm, Diddley came across it while trying to play Gene Autry's "(I've Got Spurs That) Jingle, Jangle, Jingle". Three years before his "Bo Diddley", a song with similar syncopation "Hambone", was cut by the Red Saunders Orchestra with the Hambone Kids. In 1944, "Rum and Coca Cola", containing the Bo Diddley beat, was recorded by the Andrews Sisters. Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away" (1957) and Them's "Mystic Eyes" (1965) used the beat.
 In its simplest form, the Bo Diddley beat can be counted out as either a one-bar or a two-bar phrase. Here is the count as a one-bar phrase: One e and ah, two e and ah, three e and ah, four e and ah (the boldface counts are the clave rhythm).

Many songs (for example, "Hey Bo Diddley" and "Who Do You Love?") often have no chord changes; that is, the musicians play the same chord throughout the piece, so that the rhythms create the excitement, rather than having the excitement generated by harmonic tension and release. In his other recordings, Bo Diddley used various rhythms, from straight back beat to pop ballad style to doo-wop, frequently with maracas by Jerome Green. His 1955 rhythm and blues hit, "Bo Diddley", had a "driving African rhythm and ham-bone beat". Beginning that same year, Diddley collaborated with various doo-wop vocal groups, using the Moonglows as a backing group on his first album, Bo Diddley, released in 1958. In one of the most well-known of his 1958 doo-wop sessions, Diddley added harmonies by the Carnations recording as the Teardrops, who sang smooth, polished doo-wop in the backgrounds on the songs "I'm Sorry", "Crackin' Up", and "Don't Let it Go".

An influential guitar player, Bo Diddley developed many special effects and other innovations in tone and attack, particularly the "shimmering" tremolo sound, and amp reverb. His trademark instrument was his self-designed, one-of-a-kind, rectangular-bodied "Twang Machine" (referred to as "cigar-box shaped" by music promoter Dick Clark), built by Gretsch. He had other uniquely shaped guitars custom-made for him by other manufacturers throughout the years, most notably the "Cadillac" and the rectangular "Turbo 5-speed" (with built-in envelope filter, flanger and delay) designs, made by Tom Holmes (who also made guitars for ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons, among others). In a 2005 interview on JJJ radio in Australia, he implied that the rectangular design sprang from an embarrassing moment. During an early gig, while jumping around on stage with a Gibson L5 guitar, he landed awkwardly, hurting his groin. He then went about designing a smaller, less-restrictive guitar that allowed him to keep jumping around on stage while still playing his guitar. He also played the violin, which is featured on his mournful instrumental "The Clock Strikes Twelve", a twelve-bar blues.

Diddley often created lyrics as witty and humorous adaptations of folk music themes. His first hit, "Bo Diddley", was based on hambone rhymes. The first line of his song "Hey Bo Diddley" is derived from the nursery rhyme "Old MacDonald". The song "Who Do You Love?" with its rap-style boasting, and his use of the African-American game known as "the dozens" on the songs "Say Man" and "Say Man, Back Again," are cited as progenitors of hip-hop music; for example, in the dialogue of the song, "Say Man", percussionist Jerome Green says the lines: "You've got the nerve to call somebody ugly. Why, you so ugly till the stork that brought you in the world oughta be arrested."

Discography

Studio albums

Collaborations
 Chuck Berry Is on Top, with Chuck Berry (Chess, 1959)
 Two Great Guitars, with Chuck Berry (Checker, 1964)
 Super Blues, with Muddy Waters and Little Walter (Checker, 1967)
 The Super Super Blues Band, with Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf (Checker, 1968)

Chart singles

Notes

References

Books
 Arsicaud, Laurent (2012). Bo Diddley, Je suis un homme. Camion Blanc editions.
 White, George R. (1995), Bo Diddley: Living Legend. Sanctuary Publishing.

External links

1928 births
2008 deaths
20th-century American guitarists
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African-American Christians
African-American guitarists
African-American rock musicians
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American adoptees
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American blues singers
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Bo Diddley


Pueblo is a 1973 American made-for-television war drama film starring Hal Holbrook, Ronny Cox and Andrew Duggan. It originally aired on ABC on March 29, 1973 as part of the network's ABC Theater series.  Essentially a videotaped stage production, Pueblo was the story of the capture and imprisonment of the crew of USS Pueblo, a US Navy vessel captured while spying off the coast of North Korea, in 1968.

The production starred Hal Holbrook as Captain Lloyd Bucher, commanding officer of Pueblo.  The structure of the play consists of Captain Bucher answering questions of two tribunals, with the scene switching back and forth between his interrogations by the North Koreans and the inquiry by the US Navy (after his return) into his possible misconduct in the Pueblo Incident.  As Bucher describes incidents during the capture of the ship and during the crew's subsequent captivity, the viewer is shown re-enactments of the same.

At the 26th Primetime Emmy Awards, the program and its performers were nominated for seven awards and at the ceremony on May 28, 1974, won five. Holbrook won two Emmy Awards for his performance in Pueblo, one as Best Lead Actor in a Drama and another for Actor of the Year. Director Anthony Page was nominated for Best Director in Drama a Single Program but did not win. The program won technical awards for Film Sound Editing, Film or Tape Sound Mixing, Video Tape Editing, and was nominated for Technical Direction and Electronic Camerawork. Pueblo received critical praise, with the New York Times stating, "Pueblo succeeds powerfully as television".

References

1973 television films
1973 films
1970s war drama films
American Broadcasting Company television specials
American war drama films
Films directed by Anthony Page
Filmed stage productions
1973 drama films
American drama television films
1970s American films

Pueblo (film)


One More Train to Rob is a 1971 American western movie by Andrew McLaglen and starring George Peppard, Diana Muldar, John Vernon, France Nuyen, Soon-Tek Oh, Hal Needham. It was distributed by Universal Pictures.

Cast
 George Peppard as Harker Fleet
 Diana Muldaur as Katy
 John Vernon as Timothy Xavier Nolan
 France Nuyen as Ah Toy
 Soon-Tek Oh as Yung
 Steve Sandor as Jim Gant
 Pamela McMyler as Cora Mae Jones
 Richard Loo as Mr. Chang
 Robert Donner as Sheriff Adams
 John Doucette as Sheriff Monte
 C.K. Yang as Wong
 Marie Windsor as Louella
 Timothy Scott as Slim
 Joan Shawlee as Big Nellie
 Hal Needham as Bert Gant
 Harry Carey, Jr. as Red

References

Other websites

1970s Western (genre) movies
1971 movies
American Western (genre) movies
Movies directed by Andrew V. McLaglen

One More Train to Rob


Moses Veerasammy Nagamootoo  (Tamil: மோசஸ் வீராசாமி நாகமுத்து; born 30 November 1947) is a Guyanese politician, writer and novelist who served as the Prime Minister of Guyana under former President David A. Granger from May 2015 to August 2020.

Life and career
Nagamootoo was born in the village of Whim, Berbice, British Guiana, in the present-day region of East Berbice-Corentyne, in present-day Guyana. He is of Tamil Indian descent. Nagamootoo worked as a teacher and journalist, and later became a lawyer.

After high school, he co-founded the De Edwards/Rosignal High School in the late 1960s. There he taught mainly economics and British Constitution with great passion and enthusiasm, which were new subjects to the aspiring students in the West Coast Berbice, Guyana area. One of his students went on to major as a PhD in economics and now teaches that subject at the University of California, Berkeley Extension, California, US.

He was elected to Parliament in 1992 as a People's Progressive Party MP and subsequently served as Minister of Information and Minister of Local Government. He remained in Cabinet under the presidencies of Cheddi Jagan, Samuel Hinds, Janet Jagan and Bharrat Jagdeo. He resigned as Minister in 2000 but remained an MP until 2011, when he resigned from the PPP, having first joined in 1964.

As a leader of the PPP, Nagamootoo received the fifth-highest number of votes (595) in the election to the PPP Central Committee at its 29th Congress on August 2, 2008.

Nagamootoo was rumoured to be a potential PPP candidate for president in 2011; however, he resigned from the party on October 24, 2011, citing the need for "more ideas and a new conversation about Guyana's economic and foreign policy future". He joined the opposition Alliance For Change (AFC) in October 2011 and was re-elected to Parliament.

Following the opposition's victory in the May 2015 general election, Nagamootoo was sworn in as prime minister and first vice-president on 20 May 2015. Nagamootoo briefly took charge of presidential duties on 12 June 2015 while President David A. Granger was visiting the United States.

As a writer
Moses Nagamootoo is the author of the novel Hendree's Cure (2001), which describes a world of Tamil fishermen who inhabited the Corentyne village of Whim in the 1950s and 1960s.

References

External links
 (Paywalled) Article on one of Nagamootoo's novels in Callaloo.
 Article on Nagamootoo in Stabroek News
 Article on Nagamootoo in Stabroek News
 Author information at Peepal Tree Press

1947 births
21st-century novelists
Government ministers of Guyana
Guyanese novelists
Guyanese politicians of Indian descent
Living people
Members of the National Assembly (Guyana)
People from East Berbice-Corentyne
People's Progressive Party (Guyana) politicians
Prime Ministers of Guyana
Vice presidents of Guyana
People of Tamil descent

Moses Nagamootoo


The Police (Scotland) Act 1967 (c. 77) is an Act of the United Kingdom Parliament which until 2013 had provided a framework for territorial police forces in Scotland to operate within. The Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012, passed by the Scottish Parliament set out arrangements for organisations to replace those set out in the 1967 Act.

The 1967 Act did not generally apply to any police force operating in Scotland whose jurisdiction is not defined by either local authority boundaries or by the national boundary of Scotland; certain individual sections deal with the necessary exercise of some police powers by specified non-Scottish or all-United Kingdom forces.

All Justice matters are devolved to the Scottish Government under the Scotland Act 1998, however, and Scotland has (and always has had) its own civil and criminal legal systems quite separate and distinct from those in England and Wales.

The Act lead to the repeal of Police (Scotland) Act 1956 with the exception of s.37. This act also repealed the whole of Police (Scotland) Act 1966.

Preamble
"An Act to consolidate certain enactments relating to police forces in Scotland and to the execution of warrants in the border counties of England and Scotland and to repeal certain provisions relating to the police in Scotland which have ceased to have any effect."

Section 41
See Assaulting a constable in the execution of his duty.

References

External links

1967 in Scotland
Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom concerning Scotland
Law enforcement in Scotland
United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1967
Police legislation in the United Kingdom

Police (Scotland) Act 1967


Maro Ajemian (July 9, 1921 – September 18, 1978) was an American pianist. Ajemian's career in contemporary music grew from her Armenian heritage. She became known as a contemporary pianist after performing the U.S. premiere of Aram Khachaturian's Piano Concerto, which she chose to play based on their shared Armenian heritage.

Ajemian studied at the Juilliard School of Music. On March 14, 1942, she gave the American premiere of Aram Khachaturian's Piano Concerto in D flat with the Juilliard Graduate Orchestra under Albert Stoessel. She later performed the piece on a cross-country tour. Following her performances of the Piano Concerto, Ajemian began meeting contemporary composers and, together with her sister, the violinist Anahid Ajemian, she became known as a champion of new music, presenting the premieres of many new works by American composers. Among these were John Cage, Alan Hovhaness, Henry Cowell, Ernst Krenek, Lou Harrison, and Gunther Schuller. Cage dedicated his Sonatas and Interludes to her and she made the first recording of them for Dial Records in 1951.

Ajemian was particularly fond of the music of Hovhaness, a fellow Armenian American, and co-founded a New York City-based organization, the Friends of Armenian Music Committee, which promoted his music during the 1940s, presenting annual concerts in such high-profile venues as Town Hall.  These concerts were well reviewed by such critics as Lou Harrison, Virgil Thomson, and Olin Downes, and served to launch Hovhaness into the national spotlight.

She died of heart valve failure at the age of 57.

References

1921 births
1978 deaths
Juilliard School alumni
American women classical pianists
American classical pianists
American people of Armenian descent
Contemporary classical music performers
Place of birth missing
20th-century classical pianists
20th-century American women pianists
20th-century American pianists

Maro Ajemian


John Conybeare (31 January 1692 – 13 July 1755) was Bishop of Bristol and one of the most notable theologians of the 18th century.

Conybeare was born at Pinhoe, where his father was vicar, and educated at Exeter Free School, Blundell's School and Exeter College, Oxford. He was elected a Probationary Fellow of Exeter College in 1710, took his B.A. degree in 1713 and was appointed a year later as Praelector in Philosophy.

On 27 May 1716 Conybeare was ordained as a priest by the Bishop of Winchester, Sir Jonathan Trelawney and took a curacy in Surrey. He returned to Oxford a year later and became a well known preacher.

His subsequent appointments included:

 Rector of St Clement's Church, Oxford, 1724
 Senior Proctor, Exeter College, Oxford, 1725
 Elected Rector of Exeter College, Oxford, 1730
 Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, 1733
 Bishop of Bristol, 1750

Conybeare was known for the publication of his book Calumny Refuted, an answer to the personal slander of Dr. Richard Newton.

Conybeare was the father of Dr William Conybeare, the well known rector of Bishopsgate, and grandfather to the Anglo-Saxon translator and poet John Josias Conybeare and the geologist William Conybeare. He is buried in Bristol Cathedral.

Bibliography
 A Defence of Revealed Religion Against the Exceptions of a Late Writer in His ntituled Christianity As Old As Creation, against Matthew Tindal, 1732
 Calumny Refuted: Or, An Answer To The Personal Slanders Published By Dr. Richard Newton, Published for J.J. and P. Knapton [etc.] (London), against Richard Newton, principal of Hart Hall, Oxford, 1735

References

1692 births
1755 deaths
People educated at Blundell's School
People educated at Exeter School
Bishops of Bristol
Alumni of Exeter College, Oxford
Deans of Christ Church, Oxford
18th-century Church of England bishops
Rectors of Exeter College, Oxford
Clergy from Devon
18th-century Anglican theologians

John Conybeare


Jamie Richard Vardy ( Gill; born 11 January 1987) is an English professional footballer who captains  club Leicester City as a striker.

After being released by Sheffield Wednesday at the age of 16, Vardy began his senior career with Stocksbridge Park Steels. He broke into the first team in 2007 and spent three seasons there before joining Northern Premier League Premier Division club FC Halifax Town in 2010. Scoring 25 goals in his debut season, he won the club's Players' Player of the Year award and then moved to Conference Premier club Fleetwood Town in August 2011 for an undisclosed fee. He scored 31 league goals in his first season at his new team, winning the team's Player of the Year award as they won the division.

Vardy signed for Leicester City in the Championship in May 2012 for a non-League record transfer fee of £1 million and helped the team win the Championship in 2014. In the 2015–16 Premier League season, he scored in eleven consecutive Premier League matches, breaking Ruud van Nistelrooy's record, and was voted the Premier League Player of the Season and FWA Footballer of the Year as outsiders Leicester won the title. He won the Premier League Golden Boot for the 2019–20 season, becoming the oldest player to win the award. By playing in the 2021 FA Cup final, he became the first ever player to play in every round of the competition, from the preliminary stages to the final.

Vardy made his international debut for the England national team in June 2015 and was selected for UEFA Euro 2016 and the 2018 FIFA World Cup. His last appearance for England was at the latter tournament, and later that summer, he asked not to be chosen for any more squads, unless there was an injury crisis.

Early life
Vardy was born in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, to Richard Gill and Lisa Crewes. His biological father walked out on the family when Vardy was still an infant. His mother later married Phil Vardy, and he took his stepfather's surname. Vardy grew up in the Hillsborough area of inner-city Sheffield. His stepfather was a crane worker and his mother worked at a solicitors' office. Growing up, he was a fan of Sheffield Wednesday where he idolised striker David Hirst. In the 1990s and 2000s, Vardy witnessed the intense rivalry in the city of Sheffield between fans of Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United that culminated in memorable Steel City derbies. On the rivalry, he notes: "It was always good when they were playing against each other. The atmospheres that you get were really good and people live for football. So games like this for Sheffield are massive and obviously bragging rights and everything that go with it." Being a lifelong Sheffield Wednesday fan, the rivalry led to Vardy performing some memorable celebrations against Sheffield United fans including Leicester City's 2–1 win against United where Vardy scored and celebrated in front of fans at Bramall Lane.

Club career

Early career

Vardy was in the youth system at Sheffield Wednesday, but was released when he was 16. He then played at Stocksbridge Park Steels, where he made his way through the reserve team and into the first team making his debut under manager Gary Marrow in 2007, earning £30 a week at the club. After impressive displays, a number of Football League teams became interested and in 2009 he spent a week on trial with Crewe Alexandra. A move did not materialise and he later turned down a short-term contract with Rotherham United.

In June 2010, manager Neil Aspin, a longtime admirer of Vardy's talents, signed him for FC Halifax Town for a fee of £15,000. He made his debut on 21 August 2010 in the home match against Buxton, scoring the winning goal in a match that ended 2–1 to his new club. Vardy had a successful first season with "the Shaymen" finishing as the club's top goalscorer with 25 goals from 37 appearances and being voted the Player's Player of the Season. Towards the end of the season he came close to scoring a hat-trick of hat-tricks but failed to find a third goal in Halifax's 3–1 win over Nantwich Town. His goals helped secure the Northern Premier League Premier Division title for the 2010–11 season. Vardy started the 2011–12 season with Halifax and scored three goals in the opening four matches of the season.

Fleetwood Town

After just over a year with Halifax, Vardy signed for Conference Premier club Fleetwood Town for an undisclosed fee. He made his debut the same day in a 0–0 home draw with York City. He scored his first goals for the club in his third appearance, scoring twice in a 3–2 win away to Kettering Town on 3 September. The following week he scored another two goals against Gateshead at Highbury Stadium, including one in added time. He scored twice for a third consecutive match when on in the 3–1 away win against Ebbsfleet United, but did not score again for just over a month until he scored a hat-trick in the away match against Alfreton Town on 18 October. On 20 September, he was given a straight red card in a 5–2 home win over Kidderminster Harriers, a match in which each team played for over an hour with ten men. Four days after his hat-trick, Vardy scored two more goals in a 4–1 win over Bath City, a result which left Fleetwood two points behind leaders Wrexham.

In the first round of the FA Cup on 12 November, Vardy scored the second goal in a 2–0 win over League One team Wycombe Wanderers. Fifteen days later, his goal in a 1–1 draw at Gateshead meant that he had recorded a goal in each of his last six appearances, totalling ten goals in that period; he won the Conference Premier Player of the Month award for November. On 13 December, Vardy confirmed a 2–0 win in added time as Fleetwood triumphed away to Yeovil Town in the Cup second round replay.

On 1 January 2012, Vardy scored twice in a 6–0 win over Southport, and six days later the team lost 5–1 at home to local rivals Blackpool in the third round of the Cup. After the match, Blackpool manager Ian Holloway made a £750,000 offer for him, which Fleetwood rejected, holding on for £1 million and a loan back to the club. He totalled six goals in his first four matches of the calendar year. On 21 February, he recorded a second hat-trick of the campaign, in a 6–2 win over Ebbsfleet United which left Fleetwood two points ahead of Wrexham at the top of the table. Vardy scored both Fleetwood goals in a 2–2 draw against Lincoln City on 13 April; Wrexham's draw against Grimsby Town the next day gave Fleetwood the Conference title and a first-ever promotion to the Football League. Vardy's 31 league goals saw him finish the season as the top scorer in the Conference Premier.

Leicester City

2012–2015

On 17 May 2012, it was announced that Vardy would be signing for Championship club Leicester City ahead of the 2012–13 season, for a reported fee of £1 million, a non-League record, which could potentially be worth up to £1.7 million with add-ons. The next day, he signed on a three-year contract until June 2015. On 14 August, Vardy made his debut for Leicester against Torquay United in the first round of the League Cup, playing the entirety of the match at Plainmoor and heading the final goal in a 4–0 win. Four days later he made his Football League debut at the King Power Stadium, a 2–0 win over Peterborough United in which he set up a goal for Andy King. He scored his first league goal in a 2–1 away defeat to Blackburn Rovers on 25 August. In September, he scored the winner in two 2–1 comeback victories, against Burnley and Middlesbrough. Vardy's first season at the club was marred by his own loss of form, prompting criticism from some City supporters on social media, and he even considered leaving football until manager Nigel Pearson and assistant manager Craig Shakespeare convinced him to continue with the club.

The following season brought a turn around in Vardy's fortunes as he established himself as a prolific scorer in the Leicester attack as the club took a commanding lead at the top of the table. Vardy scored and won a penalty kick in the local derby as Leicester beat high flying Derby County 4–1 on 10 January 2014 and reaffirmed their position at the top of the Championship. Vardy finished the season with 16 league goals as Leicester were promoted to the Premier League at the end of the season as champions, and was named Leicester's Players' Player of the season at the club's awards.

On 19 August 2014, Vardy extended his contract until the summer of 2018. After missing the first two matches of the season through injury, he made his Premier League debut on 31 August 2014, as a second-half substitute in a 1–1 draw at home to Arsenal. On 21 September, Vardy delivered a man of the match performance by scoring his first Premier League goal and setting up the other four as Leicester made a surprise comeback from 3–1 down to a 5–3 victory against Manchester United. On 11 April 2015, Vardy scored a 90th-minute winning goal in Leicester's 3–2 victory away to West Bromwich Albion. Impressive form throughout the rest of April, including another winning goal, against Burnley on 25 April, saw Vardy nominated for the Premier League Player of the Month award. Vardy and Leicester ended the 2014–15 season in a safe 14th position having picked up 22 points since 4 April, capping things off by opening the scoring in a 5–1 victory against Queens Park Rangers on the final day of the Premier League season on 24 May.

2015–16 season

Vardy started the 2015–16 season by scoring the opening goal as Leicester picked up a 4–2 victory at home against Sunderland on 8 August 2015. He scored the equaliser in Leicester's 3–2 comeback victory against Aston Villa on 13 September. With two goals in Leicester's 5–2 defeat by Arsenal on 26 September, Vardy reached seven league goals for the season, eclipsing his goal tally of the previous year.

On 24 October, he scored the only goal of a home win over Crystal Palace, the seventh consecutive Premier League match in which he scored, and his tenth goal of the league season. Vardy scored in his eighth league match in a row on 31 October, and became only the third player ever to do so in the Premier League after Ruud van Nistelrooy (twice) and Daniel Sturridge, in a 3–2 win over West Bromwich Albion. A week later, he won and scored a penalty to secure a 2–1 win over Watford, putting him on nine consecutive matches with a goal, behind Van Nistelrooy's Premier League record of ten. Vardy also became the first player in the Premier League to score in nine consecutive matches in a single season, as Van Nistelrooy's 10 matches were at the end of the 2002–03 season and the beginning of the 2003–04 season. For his run of good form, Vardy was the Premier League Player of the Month for October 2015, the first Leicester player to be given the accolade since goalkeeper Tim Flowers in 2000.

On 21 November, Vardy matched Van Nistelrooy's record of consecutive Premier League matches with a goal, opening a 3–0 win over Newcastle United. A week later, against Manchester United, he scored again to claim the record for himself. His run ended on 5 December when he did not score in a 3–0 win at Swansea City. Had he done so, he would have equalled the English top-flight record of 12 consecutive scoring matches set by Jimmy Dunne for Sheffield United in the 1931–32 season; the result nonetheless put Leicester top of the table. Following his goalscoring exploits, Vardy was again named as the Premier League Player of the Month for November, becoming only the fifth ever player to win the award in consecutive months. He was presented with a certificate from Guinness World Records for his achievement.

In January 2016, manager Claudio Ranieri declared that Vardy and Riyad Mahrez would be sold to no-one, describing them as "priceless". On 2 February, he scored both goals in a 2–0 win against Liverpool, the first being a long-distance volley described as "world class" by opposing manager Jürgen Klopp. Four days later, he signed a new contract to keep himself at Leicester until 2019, increasing his weekly salary to £80,000. On 10 April 2016, Vardy scored both goals (his 20th and 21st of the season) in Leicester's 2–0 win at Sunderland, becoming the first Leicester player since Gary Lineker in the 1984–85 season to score 20 goals in the top division of English football. The result also secured qualification to the UEFA Champions League for the first time in Leicester's history. A week later, Vardy scored the first goal of a 2–2 home draw against West Ham United, but was later sent off for diving in the penalty area under pressure from Angelo Ogbonna. He was charged with improper conduct for his reaction to the dismissal and was fined £10,000, as well as being suspended for two matches during a vital point of Leicester's eventually successful title campaign.

With 24 league goals, Vardy was the second-highest scorer in the Premier League for the 2015–16 season, alongside Sergio Agüero, only one goal behind Golden Boot winner Harry Kane. Vardy was one of four Leicester players in the PFA Team of the Year; he was later also named the FWA Footballer of the Year, and the 2016 Barclays Premier League Player of the Season.

2016–17 season

On 3 June 2016, Arsenal made a bid of £22 million for Vardy, triggering a release clause in his contract. Leicester offered him improved terms, and 20 days later he agreed to a new four-year contract, to be signed on his return from UEFA Euro 2016. Vardy rejected Arsenal's offer because Arsenal had not promised that he would be played in his normal position and because of the differences between the two club's tactics, with Arsène Wenger favouring possession and Leicester playing on the counter-attack.

On 7 August 2016, he scored in a 2–1 defeat to Manchester United in the 2016 FA Community Shield. Twenty days later, Vardy scored his first league goal of the season in Leicester's first win of the campaign, beating Swansea City 2–1. On 10 December, Vardy ended his ten-match drought within the opening five minutes against Manchester City. He ended up scoring another two for his first professional hat-trick to help Leicester to a 4–2 victory, their first win in five league matches. A week later, he was sent off in the first half of a 2–2 draw at Stoke City for a challenge on Mame Biram Diouf; Leicester appealed unsuccessfully against his three-match suspension.

Vardy scored his first Champions League goal on 22 February 2017 in a 2–1 away defeat to Sevilla in the first leg of the round of 16. On 18 April, he scored Leicester's equaliser in their second leg quarter-final match against Atlético Madrid, but nonetheless Leicester were eliminated 2–1 on aggregate.

2017–2019

Vardy began his sixth season at the club by netting two goals in the 4–3 away loss to Arsenal in the opening day of the 2017–18 season. On 16 October, Vardy made his 200th appearance for the club in the 1–1 draw against West Bromwich Albion. Two weeks later, he scored the opener of a 2–0 home win against Everton in Claude Puel's debut match as Leicester manager. On 23 December 2017, Vardy scored his 50th Premier League goal in a 2–2 draw against Manchester United.

By scoring twice in the final match of the season, a 5–4 away defeat by Tottenham Hotspur, Vardy reached 20-goal landmark in the Premier League for the second time in his career. Overall, he made 42 appearances in all competitions, scoring 23 times as Leicester finished the Premier League in 9th place. Vardy was the recipient of the BBC Goal of the Season award for a goal against West Bromwich Albion where he struck a first-time ball with his weaker foot that was looped over his shoulder at range by his strike partner Riyad Mahrez.

On 9 August 2018, just before the start of the 2018–19 season, Vardy signed a new four-year contract at Leicester, keeping him at the club until June 2022. Vardy started the season as a substitute, scoring a 92nd minute consolation goal in the 2–1 away defeat to Manchester United on the opening match of the season. He was sent off in the following match after a harsh tackle on Wolverhampton Wanderers defender Matt Doherty. On 9 March 2019, Vardy scored his 100th goal for Leicester, scoring two goals in a 3–1 home win over Fulham. On 28 April 2019, Vardy scored another two goals, this time in a 3–0 home victory against Arsenal, bringing his goal tally in league football for Leicester to 100.

2019–present

On 25 October 2019, Vardy scored a hat-trick in a 9–0 away win against Southampton. Vardy scored his 100th and 101st goal in the Premier League on 4 July 2020 in a 3–0 victory over Crystal Palace. He became the first Leicester player to reach the 100 goal milestone, and the 29th overall in Premier League history. Of those 29 players, only Ian Wright (28 years 286 days) made his debut in the competition at a greater age than Vardy (27 years 232 days).

With 23 goals, he won the Premier League Golden Boot for the first time in his career, followed by Southampton forward Danny Ings and Arsenal forward Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang both on 22 goals. The 33-year-old Vardy became the oldest player to win the award; Didier Drogba was the previous oldest when, aged 32, he led Chelsea to the 2009–10 Premier League title with 29 goals.

On 26 August 2020, Vardy signed a new contract with Leicester City until June 2023. On 27 September, he scored his second hat-trick against Manchester City in a 5–2 away win. On 25 October, he scored the only goal in a 1–0 win against Arsenal, to gain Leicester City their first away win against Arsenal since September 1973. On 6 December, while celebrating his last-minute goal in Leicester's 2–1 win against Sheffield United, Vardy slid into and destroyed a corner flag which was carrying the rainbow flag colours as part of Stonewall's Rainbow Laces campaign. Vardy later signed the flag and gave it to Foxes Pride, Leicester's LGBT+ supporters group. On 15 May 2021, he started in the 2021 FA Cup final as Leicester defeated Chelsea 1–0, the first time the club had ever won the Cup. By playing in the final, Vardy became the first player to play in every round of the competition, including the preliminary stages.

International career

On 21 May 2015, Vardy was called up to the England national team for the first time ahead of a friendly against the Republic of Ireland and a UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying match against Slovenia. He made his debut on 7 June in the goalless draw against the Republic of Ireland at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, replacing England captain, Wayne Rooney, for the final 15 minutes. On 30 August, Vardy was again called up to the England squad for the matches against San Marino and Switzerland in UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying, being selected in the starting line-up as England ran out 6–0 winners against San Marino in Serravalle six days later. Vardy scored his first international goal on 26 March 2016, equalising with a back heel from Nathaniel Clyne's cross, as a substitute in a 3–2 away win against Germany. He scored again, three days later, the opening goal in a 2–1 defeat to the Netherlands at Wembley Stadium.

Vardy made his tournament debut on 16 June, in England's second group match at UEFA Euro 2016, coming off the bench in the second half to score an equalising goal against Wales, helping his team come from behind to win the match 2–1. During the tournament, there were media rumours of a feud between Vardy and fellow striker Rooney, which were denied by manager Roy Hodgson.

He was named in the 23-man England squad for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. He was used sparingly during the tournament, starting only the final group stage match against Belgium as England reached the World Cup semi-finals for only the third time in their history. On 28 August 2018, Vardy stepped aside from the England national team, telling manager Gareth Southgate that he did not want to be considered for selection unless there was an injury crisis.

Player profile

Impact of playing non-League football
Vardy's journey to the top flight is unique by dint of his long spell in non-League football. Prior to his Premier League debut at the age of 27, he had already played in levels eight, seven, six, five and two of the English football league system. He has cited his late arrival in the Premier League as a key reason why he is able to maintain longevity in football and still play intensively into his mid-thirties, stating that "My legs feel great and people say the older you get your pace goes, but it's not affecting that side of things as of yet. Hopefully because I came into the game later, it means I've got longer to go."

Pundits have drawn parallels between Vardy's playing style and non-League football. Sky Sports pundit and former England assistant manager Gary Neville has said: "When he came onto the scene, he was raw and aggressive. I used to say he played like a non-league player in the Premier League. His game has become more polished, more smooth, [with] more subtlety".

Style of play
In 2020, FourFourTwo listed Vardy as one of the best strikers in world football due to his elite finishing ability, speed and positional awareness. Ian Wright, who also rose from non-League football to the Premier League and England national team, wrote in October 2015 that Vardy could be England's equivalent to Salvatore Schillaci at UEFA Euro 2016; Schillaci, another late bloomer, began the 1990 FIFA World Cup as a substitute behind more established players, and ended it as the top scorer. Wright, who first learnt of Vardy when his former Burnley teammate Micky Mellon signed him for Fleetwood, rates Vardy as a hard-working player with a good first touch, who creates constant work for defenders, and plays by instinct instead of being moulded by his managers. Although Vardy usually plays in a central role as a striker, he is a versatile player, who is capable of playing in several attacking positions, and has also been used as a winger.

In addition to his prolific goalscoring, Vardy is known for his high work rate, relentless running, direct approach, two-footedness and ability to link play. He is considered an extremely fast and dynamic striker, with good positioning, and an excellent sense of space in the area. These traits enable him to play on the last defender's shoulder, time his runs to beat the defensive line and stretch opponents, which, combined with his pace and clinical finishing, makes him a threat on counter-attacks which suits the style of Leicester City teams. Vardy is also an accurate penalty taker, having converted 26 penalties in the Premier League. He also has good aerial ability whilst also being capable of striking the ball powerfully with either foot. Gary Neville commented on how Vardy's approach influences teammates: "He sets the tempo and the tone for the rest of the team and gives no other player behind him any excuse for not working hard."

Lifestyle and approach to training
According to Leicester vice-chairman Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, Vardy drank heavily every night during his early days at the club, and would turn up at training still intoxicated. Srivaddhanaprabha discussed with Vardy what he expected in his life, and Vardy gave up drinking and took training more seriously from then on.

Other pundits, such as Jamie Jackson, have said Vardy refocused after the earlier night-club assault incident, and that the earlier arrival of Ella, his first daughter, was a stabilising force.

During UEFA Euro 2016, Vardy spoke to the media about his unusual lifestyle choices for a professional sportsperson. He said that he does not exercise in a gym, and that he consumes Red Bull caffeinated beverages and snus smokeless tobacco.

Personal life

Vardy is a lifelong fan of Sheffield Wednesday, one of the clubs in his home town.

Before turning professional, Vardy combined playing non-League football with a job as a technician making medical splints. In 2007, he received a conviction for assault following an incident outside a pub, and had to play with an electronic tag fitted for six months, while his curfew also limited his playing time at Stocksbridge Park Steels.

In August 2015, The Sun on Sunday published a video of Vardy at a casino the previous month, calling a man of East Asian origin a "Jap". He apologised for a "regrettable error of judgement" and was fined by Leicester, who put him on an educational course.

Vardy met Rebekah Nicholson in 2014 while she was working as a nightclub promoter. The couple married on 25 May 2016 at Peckforton Castle in Cheshire, with David Nugent as the best man. Vardy has four biological children, three with his wife, and one from a previous relationship. He is also a stepfather to two children from his wife's previous relationships.

In November 2015, Vardy launched V9 Academy, an annual week-long camp designed to offer coaching and guidance to 60 non-League players and offer them the opportunity to showcase their talent in front of scouts from league clubs. The same month, Stocksbridge Park Steels named their main stand after him. In December 2015, the Leicester-based food manufacturer Walkers brought out a limited edition 'Vardy Salted' crisp flavour, in recognition of Vardy's goalscoring run. Adrian Butchart, English writer of the Goal! series of football-related fiction films, finished a script in 2016 for a film about Vardy. Vardy is an ambassador for Dorothy Goodman School, a special needs school in Hinckley, Leicestershire.

On 15 June 2021, Vardy acquired a minority stake in American soccer club Rochester Rhinos, later renamed as Rochester New York FC. Vardy was a co-owner of the club with David and Wendy Dworkin, who bought the club in 2016. The club ceased operations in March 2023.

Career statistics

Club

International

England score listed first, score column indicates score after each Vardy goal

Honours
FC Halifax Town
Northern Premier League Premier Division: 2010–11

Fleetwood Town
Conference Premier: 2011–12

Leicester City
Premier League: 2015–16
FA Cup: 2020–21
FA Community Shield: 2021
Football League Championship: 2013–14

Individual
Premier League Player of the Season: 2015–16
FWA Footballer of the Year: 2015–16
Premier League Golden Boot: 2019–20
Premier League Player of the Month: October 2015, November 2015, April 2019, October 2019
Premier League Goal of the Month: March 2018
BBC Goal of the Season: 2017–18
PFA Team of the Year: 2015–16 Premier League, 2019–20 Premier League
Conference Premier Player of the Month: November 2011
Conference Premier Team of the Year: 2011–12
Conference Premier Top Goalscorer: 2011–12
Leicester City Player of the Season: 2019–20
Leicester City Players' Player of the Season: 2013–14, 2019–20

References

External links

Profile at the Leicester City F.C. website

1987 births
Living people
Footballers from Sheffield
English men's footballers
Men's association football wingers
Men's association football forwards
Sheffield Wednesday F.C. players
Stocksbridge Park Steels F.C. players
FC Halifax Town players
Fleetwood Town F.C. players
Leicester City F.C. players
Northern Premier League players
National League (English football) players
English Football League players
Premier League players
England men's international footballers
UEFA Euro 2016 players
2018 FIFA World Cup players
English people convicted of assault
Chairmen and investors of soccer clubs in the United States
Rochester New York FC non-playing staff

Jamie Vardy


Swangard Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Central Park in Burnaby, British Columbia. Primarily used for soccer, rugby, football, and athletics, the stadium also used to be home to the Simon Fraser Clan football team and the Vancouver Whitecaps while they were in the Canadian Soccer League (CSL) and various US-based Division 2 leagues. It opened on April 26, 1969, and has a capacity of 5,288.

History

In 1969, Vancouver Sun sports journalist Erwin Swangard raised nearly $1 million for the construction of an athletic stadium in Central Park in Burnaby, British Columbia. British Columbia Premier W. A. C. Bennett officially named the stadium after Swangard at its opening on April 26, 1969. Swangard was not present on the day of the opening, having been sent to start a newspaper in Nigeria.

Vancouver Whitecaps
The city of Vancouver launched a professional soccer team in 1986, named the Vancouver 86ers (now known as the Whitecaps). The Canadian Soccer League (CSL) club began playing in 1987 and made Swangard Stadium their home pitch. The stadium served its last season as the Whitecaps' home in 2010, as the club joined Major League Soccer (MLS) in 2011. As Swangard does not meet MLS standards for capacity, the City of Burnaby initially proposed to keep the team in Burnaby by renovating the stadium and expanding its capacity to 20,000 seats. This plan, however, fell through, and the Whitecaps eventually decided they wanted to move to a new, larger soccer-specific home at the Whitecaps Waterfront Stadium. Currently the Whitecaps are playing at BC Place Stadium and president of the organization, Bob Lenarduzzi has stated the club intends to stay at BC Place for the time being and plans for a new stadium are all on hold.

International events
The stadium's capacity was temporarily increased to 10,000 for the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup. In the past, it has hosted home games for the Canadian men's and women's soccer teams in Olympic and World Cup qualifying. In some cases, crowds in excess of 10,000 have witnessed games, with many of the fans standing. Swangard has also been the host stadium of the 2002 FIFA U-19 Women's World Championship.

Other events
In 2013, the Vancouver Riptide, a professional ultimate team competing in the American Ultimate Disc League, became a tenant of Swangard Stadium but they ended play at end of 2017 season and are being moved to Portland, Oregon for the 2020 season.

In June 2014, Simon Fraser Clan announced that Swangard Stadium would be their football team's home field for the 2014 season. The Clan returned to their campus again starting with the 2016 season.

It is also used very frequently for track and field meets in the Lower Mainland.

In March 2015, the first Quidditch Canada National Championship took place at the stadium.

The TSS FC Rovers played their home soccer games there starting in the 2017 season when they played in the USL League Two Northwest Division. The TSS FC Rovers Women's team of the Women's Premier Soccer League also use the stadium as their home. They started play in the 2018 season. Starting in the 2022 season, both men's and women's teams will play in the new League1 British Columbia (L1BC) soccer league.

The Whitecaps FC 2 of the MLS Next Pro, the reserve team of the Vancouver Whitecaps FC of Major League Soccer, will play all their home games at the stadium starting in March 2022.

References

External links
City of Burnaby's information on the stadium
Information from Vancouver Whitecaps Official Site

Athletics (track and field) venues in Canada
Buildings and structures in Burnaby
Canadian football venues in British Columbia
Multi-purpose stadiums in British Columbia
Soccer venues in British Columbia
Sport in Burnaby
Sports venues in British Columbia
Tourist attractions in Burnaby
Simon Fraser Red Leafs football
Ultimate (sport) venues
College football venues
Sports venues completed in 1969
1969 establishments in British Columbia

Swangard Stadium


Safar Ghahremani (Persian: صفر قهرمانی)  known as Safar Khan (Persian: صفر خان) (born in Ajab Shir, in Iranian Azerbaijan on 4 May 1921 and died on 10 November 2002 in Tehran) was an Iranian leftist dissident and a member of (The Tudeh Party) of Iran, who spent 32 years of his life in prison. Some say he was the longest serving political prisoner in the world. He was a prominent member of Fedaiyeins, the armed group of the autonomous government in Iranian Azerbaijan, that came to power right after World War Two and was crushed savagely by the Shah's regime a year later, causing the death of thousands of people in that region. Safar and his men continued the guerilla style resistance against the Shah's army for about a year until his arrest in 1947. Originally, he was sentenced to death but later that sentence was changed to life imprisonment. He endured physiological and physical torture for more than 30 years in Shah's prisons until his release in the fall of 1978, on the eve of Iranian revolution. After his release he went back to Tabriz and his home village and thousands of people  greeted him as a national hero.

References

Sources
 Misagh Parsa: Social Origins of the Iranian Revolution. New Brunswick : Rutgers University Press, 1989. P. 151.  Accessed on 7 February 2013.

External links

20th-century Iranian people
People from East Azerbaijan Province
1921 births
2002 deaths
Tudeh Party of Iran politicians

Safar Ghahremani


David Samuel Harvard Abulafia  (born 12 December 1949) is an English historian with a particular interest in Italy, Spain and the rest of the Mediterranean during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. He spent most of his career at the University of Cambridge, rising to become a professor at the age of 50.  He retired in 2017 as Professor Emeritus of Mediterranean History. He is a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He was Chairman of the History Faculty at Cambridge University, 2003-5, and was elected a member of the governing Council of Cambridge University in 2008.  He is visiting Beacon Professor at the new University of Gibraltar, where he also serves on the Academic Board.  He is a visiting professor at the College of Europe (Natolin branch, Poland).

He is a Fellow of the British Academy and a member of the Academia Europaea. In 2013 he was awarded one of three inaugural British Academy Medals for his work on Mediterranean history. In 2020, he was awarded the Wolfson History Prize for The Boundless Sea: A Human History of the Oceans.

Early life and education
Abulafia was born in Twickenham, Middlesex, into a Sephardic Jewish family. He was educated at St. Paul's School and King's College, Cambridge.

Academic career
Abulafia has published several books on Mediterranean history, beginning with his book The Two Italies in 1977. In this work, he argued that as far back as the twelfth century northern Italy exploited the agricultural resources of the Italian south, and that this provided the essential basis for the further expansion of trade and industry in Tuscany, Genoa and Venice. He edited volume 5 of the New Cambridge Medieval History and the volume on Italy in the central Middle Ages in the Oxford Short History of Italy; he also edited an important collection of studies of the French invasion of Italy in 1494-5 as well as a book on The Mediterranean in History which has appeared in six languages. He has given lectures in many countries including Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Finland, Norway, the United States, Dominican Republic,  Japan, China, Israel, the UAE, Jordan,  and Egypt.

One of his most influential books is Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor, first published in England in 1988 and reprinted many times in several Italian editions. Here he looks at an iconic figure from the Middle Ages from a new perspective, criticizing the views of the famous German historian Ernst Kantorowicz concerning Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, whom Abulafia sees as a conservative figure rather than as a genius born out of his time.

He has been appointed Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity by the President of Italy in recognition of his writing on Italian history, especially Sicilian history, and he has also written about Spain, particularly the Balearic islands. He has shown an interest in the economic history of the Mediterranean, and in the meeting of the three Abrahamic faiths in the Mediterranean. Not confining himself to the Mediterranean, he has also written a much-praised book on the first encounters between western Europeans and the native societies of the Atlantic (the Canary islands, the Caribbean and Brazil) around 1492; this book is The Discovery of Mankind: Atlantic Encounters in the Age of Columbus (2008).

In 2011, Penguin Books (and Oxford University Press in New York) published his The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean, a substantial volume that sets out a different approach to Mediterranean history to that propounded by the French historian Fernand Braudel, and ranges in time from 22,000 BC to AD 2010. The book, which received the Mountbatten Literary Award from the Maritime Foundation, became a bestseller in UK non-fiction and was widely acclaimed. It has been translated into Dutch, French, Greek, Turkish, Spanish, German, Arabic, Italian, Korean, Chinese, Romanian and Portuguese, with further translations under contract.

Abulafia wrote The Boundless Sea: A Human History of the Oceans, published by Penguin in the UK and by Oxford University Press in the US in October 2019. This book applies a similar method to his history of the Mediterranean, looking at the people who moved across the open sea, and emphasizing the role of maritime trade in the political, cultural and economic history of humanity. It won the 2020 Wolfson History Prize.

He was the chairman of Historians for Britain, an organisation that lobbies to leave the European Union. According to Abulafia, the process of European Integration is "a myth used to silence other visions of European community". He has written opinion pieces criticising the UK's membership in the European Union, accusing the idea of European unity of being based upon "historical determinism".
He recently wrote a article in the Daily Telegraph titled "It would be uncivilised to give Greece the Elgin Marbles", where he wrote that they belong "in London, in a great universal museum, not in the narrow confines of Athens's Acropolis".

Abulafia was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2023 Birthday Honours for services to scholarship.

Personal life
In 1979, Abulafia married Anna Brechta Sapir. The couple have two adult daughters.

Interviews
 "Humanity and the Great Seas: Conversation with David Abulafia", Hansong Li. Chicago Journal of History Issue VII, Autumn 2016.
 "Migration, Media and Intercultural Dialogue 2: Migration and Culture in the Mediterranean" The United Nations University Institute on Globalization, Culture and Mobility

Main works
 The Two Italies: Economic Relations between the Norman Kingdom of Sicily and the Northern Communes, Cambridge 1977
 Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor, London 1988
 A Mediterranean Emporium: The Catalan Kingdom of Majorca, Cambridge 1994
 The Western Mediterranean Kingdoms, 1200–1500: The Struggle for Dominion, London 1997
 The Discovery of Mankind: Atlantic Encounters in the Age of Columbus, New Haven, CT 2008
 The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean, Oxford 2011
 The Boundless Sea: A Human History of the Oceans, London 2019

Notes

References
 Who's Who 2011
 Debrett's People of Today 2011

External links
Historians for Britain Website

1949 births
Living people
21st-century English historians
English Jewish writers
English people of Spanish-Jewish descent
20th-century British Sephardi Jews
21st-century British Sephardi Jews
Alumni of King's College, Cambridge
Fellows of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
Historians of the Crusades
Historians of Sicily
Historians from Twickenham
British medievalists
Historians of the Mediterranean
Members of the University of Cambridge faculty of history
Fellows of the British Academy
Recipients of the British Academy Medal
Fellows of the Royal Historical Society
Members of Academia Europaea
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire

David Abulafia