Don Howe, a highly respected former Arsenal player, manager and coach, died on Wednesday, aged 80.
Howe won 23 caps for England and was also part of the national team for two of their most successful tournaments, working as an assistant to both Bobby Robson and Terry Venables as they reached the semi-finals of the 1990 FIFA World Cup and Euro 96.
“It is terribly sad news and our thoughts are with Don’s family at this time,” English Football Association chairman Greg Dyke said. “He is widely regarded as being in the vanguard of coaching in England and I know that his loss will be keenly felt amongst the coaching fraternity, in particular and not least by Roy Hodgson, who was close to Don.”
Photo: AP
Howe made more than 300 appearances for West Bromwich Albion between 1952 and 1964, and in 2004, he was named as one of the Baggies’ 16 greatest players.
He was named Arsenal captain when he moved to the north London outfit, but the final two years of his playing career were marred by a broken leg that forced him to retire.
Howe became Arsenal’s reserve team coach under Bertie Mee, then stepped up to first team coach in 1968. Arsenal won the English league title and FA Cup double in 1970-1971, with Howe playing a crucial role as Mee’s assistant.
He returned to his old club West Brom as manager later that year, but they were relegated to the second tier in 1972-1973.
Howe was back at Arsenal as assistant coach in 1977 and took over as manager six years later.
He earned praise for giving debuts to youngsters such as Tony Adams, David Rocastle and Niall Quinn, but did not win any silverware and resigned in 1986.
However, Howe underlined his coaching expertise in 1988 when his influential role on Wimbledon’s backroom staff was widely credited with helping Bobby Gould’s team to their famous shock FA Cup final victory over Liverpool.
Howe returned as Arsenal youth team coach in 1997, before retiring in 2003.
“Don possessed a marvelous ability to get the very best out of players with his coaching techniques and provide them with the perfect preparation for matches,” Arsenal chairman Chips Keswick said. “He was the very best at what he did — and he did it with us, at Arsenal, for decade after decade.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier