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Archived News from January 2008

D`LARYEA HELPS BRING UP LATE SISTER`S YOUNG GIRLS
27th January 2008 22:11


Mansfield hero helping to bring up his late sister's children
EXCLUSIVE: Mansfield hero Jon is helping to bring up his late sister's young girls Daily Mirror
By James Nursey 26/01/2008
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Sport picturesMansfield star Jonathan D'Laryea is using his family heartache as an extra incentive for cup glory after being left to help raise his two young nieces since the tragic death of his sister.

Stags midfielder D'Laryea is still grieving for his late sibling Stephanie, who died two years ago aged just 32 from breast cancer. But the devout Christian remains focused on his football career for the sake of her two daughters - Kiesha, 14, and six-year-old Mia - now living with his parents in Manchester.

D'Laryea, whose twin brother Nathan plays for Rochdale, tries to get home as much as possible to see his nieces and contributes financially to their upbringing.

And as former Manchester City trainee D'Laryea 22, prepares to tackle Premier League Middlesbrough today, he admits having a good cup run with League Two strugglers Mansfield could have a big impact on his family.

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"I pray every night for my sister, who I believe is in heaven and I pray for her children - my nieces," said highly-rated D'Laryea, who is out of contract in the summer. "I want to do well in football not just for myself but for my family also. I want to help out with my nieces as much as I can. My mum and dad are doing really well looking after them and I try to do my bit."


The Sun:
Spice Girls came in for a cuppa
By BOB HAYES

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/article723891.ece


BOULD LOT ... Rory, Helen and Mick Boulding

MICK BOULDING certainly will not be star-struck when his Mansfield side take on Middlesbrough tomorrow.

After all, Boulding used to lodge with Tim Henman when the Stags striker was a professional tennis player.

And with sister Helen an accomplished singer-songwriter, Boulding thought nothing when Spice Girls Geri Halliwell and Mel B popped round.

Helen, 29, penned the chart hit Maybe That's What It Takes with Fame Academy star Alex Parks.

She has also worked with Take That's Gary Barlow, Squeeze's Chris Difford, Pink Floyd's Rick Wright and The Verve's Simon Tong among others.

Now Mansfield's 15-goal leading scorer will hope to be on song at home to Premier League Boro in the FA Cup fourth round.

Piano-playing brother Rory, 19, is also on the Stags' books and both Bouldings scored in their first-round win over Lewes.

Magical
Mick, 31, said: “A lot of musicians would come to our family house in Sheffield — people like Geri Halliwell and Mel B.

"But it never bothered me. In fact, I used to stay out of the way. They're just normal people who have a lot of hype around them.”

Mick was equally laid-back when he helped former club Grimsby in a magical Carling Cup run more than six years ago.

He played when the Mariners beat Liverpool 2-1 at Anfield before losing to Arsenal. Mick recalled: “I was up against Jamie Carragher at Anfield — he's the best I've played.

"Then Martin Keown marked me at Highbury. It was like playing in a phone box!

"I never bothered to get their shirts. Looking back, I suppose I should have done and passed them on.”

Mick has been in the sporting limelight most of his life. He said: “I started playing tennis at 12 and was spotted by Tony Pickard, who was Stefan Edberg's coach at the time.

“I was in the country's top 20 and made the national squad but it was a tough life. I played on the satellite tour but was on the road for 10 months a year going to places like South America, India and Africa.

“I saw countries where there is extreme poverty and it was a good schooling to what life is about. I wouldn't have got that grounding in football as you are more mollycoddled.

“I lodged with Tim Henman. We became good mates and used to train together.”

Mick insists Tuesday's game at relegation rivals Lincoln is more important.

He said: “There is no pressure in the Middlesbrough tie. The Cup run is like a mini-success for Mansfield when the League is going so wrong.

“We beat relegation when I was at Grimsby. But this is tougher because going out of the League is about people losing their jobs, paying mortgages and all that stuff. Mansfield is a club that belongs in the League.”



BBC TV Interview with Billy Dearden: here


Earlier radio clip (7th Jan):
BBC Radio Tees preview - interview with Martin Shaw here

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Daily Mail
Why I wrestled with Tiger Tim
By NEIL MOXLEY
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/sport/football.html?in_article_id=510238&in_page_id=1779

Last updated at 00:29am on 25th January 2008

Tim Henman is well known as a football fan and if he tunes in to Mansfield Town's FA Cup visit of Middlesbrough tomorrow lunchtime he may well get a shock.

Michael Boulding, the retired tennis star's one-time flatmate, will be taking centre court — playing up front as Mansfield try to plot their own day in the spotlight.

There was time when the two shared the same dream. Boulding was one of the top 20 tennis players in the country during his teenage years and part of the national development squad, where he met Henman.

Boulding, 31, said: "Tim was great fun. I know some people find him dour but he was always up to mischief and had a sharp sense of humour.

"I remember once when we were sharing a house in London. I was 15 and Tim was a couple of years older. He's a huge wrestling fan and used to practise his moves on me.

"One of his specialities was 'The Tombstone' and one night we got into a scuffle and ended up falling through the door, which was made of glass. Our landlady caught us — I dread to think what she thought we were doing!

"There was also the time Tim came to stay with us. My brother Rory, who'd only have been four at the time, was picked up by Tim. Rory didn't take too kindly to that and 'dotted' him one on the nose, causing it to bleed."

Boulding does not paint an alluring picture of top-flight tennis, maintaining his first love was always football.

"I drifted into tennis, I hadn't picked up a racket until I was about 12 and then I met Tony Pickard. He was coaching Stefan Edberg, who was No 1 in the world at the time. He thought I had a bit of talent and encouraged me.

"Three years later I was part of the national squad. Being near the bottom of League Two with Mansfield is pretty similar to tennis when I was trudging around the world.

"The difference is that with tennis, no one cares. At the top end, they do. It's fairly glamorous, like golf. But when you're travelling around Uzbekistan, India or central Africa playing satellite tournaments it is far from that."

He recalls going to Romania shortly after the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu had been overthrown with the country in chaos. He said: "The water kept cutting off for three or four days at a time. You were training and playing matches and washing yourself with bottled water. The food was awful, too. We were there for a couple of weeks and were properly malnourished.

"We were having 'soup' with one chicken bone in it. Fortunately, we had energy bars to get us through. We kept fantasising about our next port-of-call, Luxembourg, talking about the first meal we would have. But when we eventually got there we could only manage about five mouthfuls each because our stomachs had shrunk."

Boulding played in India for five weeks and came back a stone lighter.

"When you're desperate for ranking points, you'll go anywhere. It was a little bit like a badge of honour going to places like that."


Court prince: teenager Michael

Boulding has clearly packed a lot into his 31 years — he has a helicopter pilot's licence — but is not the only well-known member of his family. His sister Helen, 29, is a singer-songwriter whose new album is due out next month, while 19-year-old brother Rory will appear alongside him tomorrow at Field Mill and a younger sister, Laura, plays rounders for England.

"I didn't get any gold discs from my sister but Marti Pellow of Wet Wet Wet gave me a platinum one. I gave him a racket — I was being sponsored by Wilson at the time — and a week later I received the disc in the post."

Michael turned to football after his tennis career. Following a stint at Mansfield he signed for Grimsby, where he was spotted by Graham Taylor during the former England manager's second spell at Aston Villa.

But his time in the Premier League was all too brief. "I hadn't served my apprenticeship. I could have done with another season in the Championship," he said.

After returning to Grimsby, he moved on to Barnsley before temporarily turning his back on the game. "My year at Oakwell was indifferent. The manager who signed me, Gudjon Thordarsson, was fired after three games. Paul Hart came in and I ended up on the left wing. I see it as the graveyard shift out on the left. If you're a player, you should be able to play anywhere but I felt stifled there. I got disillusioned."

He was offered a contract at Crewe by Dario Gradi but, to his horror, was again asked to play on the left wing.

"There was other stuff I wanted to do with my life. I decided I'd had enough. But I regretted going out of the game straight away. I went to work with my dad, who owns a property company, working as a site manager. After six months out, I realised I wanted to get back into football.

"It took me a full season. Mind you, I started back here playing on the left wing, so the joke was on me.' Despite a hamstring injury, Boulding has scored 15 goals this season. Could he be the weekend's first FA Cup hero?

"The biggest game I've ever played in was for Grimsby in a Carling Cup game at Liverpool. We won that game but the FA Cup is a lot bigger.

"The Premier League is basically the best players in the world but it's sport, so who knows? In tennis, I beat that German lad, Rainer Schuettler, who got to the final of the Australian Open a few years ago before Andre Agassi beat him. That was my best result. Sometimes things like just that happen."


The Guardian
Downing looms large but Mullins takes long-term view with shorthand
Stuart James
Friday January 25, 2008
http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,2246769,00.html

Homework for most footballers involves watching clips of future opponents but the word has a very different meaning for Mansfield Town's Johnny Mullins. As he gears up to face Middlesbrough's Stewart Downing in an FA Cup fourth-round tie at Field Mill tomorrow, the right-back is also busy preparing for another examination as he seeks to master the shorthand skills that could help launch a new career.
Aware of the precarious nature of his profession after rejection at first Chelsea and then Reading, the 22-year-old has enrolled on a journalism course at Stafford University. His decision to combine professional football with academic work has prompted amusement within the dressing room but his team-mates have come to realise that Mullins' forward-thinking should not be mocked. "Journalism is something that has interested me for a long time and, if I can't play football, I'd like to write about it," he said.

"The lads give me a bit of stick but a few of them are now contemplating doing the course. I think they appreciate what I'm doing. I'm at the shorthand stage at the moment, which I'm finding difficult. I'm not an A-star student but it's good to go home knowing you've been to university and you're filling your day with something worthwhile."
Mullins has had no problem occupying his time this week. Mansfield's tie against Middlesbrough has captured the imagination, with Gareth Southgate's Premier League players taking on a club who are next to bottom in League Two and facing a battle for survival.

While Middlesbrough's players report to a state-of-the-art training ground, Mansfield have been practising on a school pitch. "It's a massive gulf," said Mullins, who set up the winning goal in the previous round. "The lifestyle of a Premiership player is far greater than what we have in League Two. But I'm not complaining. I'm doing what I love to do which is playing football. I'm not saying I don't want to be where the Middlesbrough players are but we're playing football every day and that's not the worst job in the world. In my opinion it's the best."

Mullins, now in his second season at Mansfield, has been inundated with ticket requests and 20 members of his family are expected to watch the match. At one time he might have hoped to face Premier League opposition every week but there is no trace of bitterness about Reading's decision to let him go in 2006. "I look back at it as something to push me on, not get me down," said the London-born defender.

He is, though, aware that a good performance against Downing would not go unnoticed. "I would love to play against him. It's a good opportunity to have a chance against one of the best players and an international midfielder, and that's a big carrot.

"I would like to see what he has got to offer and see what the difference is. We all want to play at the highest level and this is a chance for all of the Mansfield players."

Their preparation could not have gone any better, with the squad yesterday continuing their FA Cup ritual of a pre-match hike in the Derbyshire Dales. "We met at the pub, jumped in the minibus, parked up and set off on the four-mile walk," revealed Mullins. "We made sure no one fell off the cliff and then stopped at the pub for pie, mushy peas and gravy.

"If we beat Middlesbrough, we'll be able to do it again."



The Independent
FA Cup Countdown: Life at the bottom stirs memories for Henman's former housemate
The travails of a rookie tennis professional has left the former Aston Villa striker Mick Boulding well prepared for the hardship of Mansfield's existence, writes Jon Culley

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/fa-league-cups/fa-cup-countdown-life-at-the-bottom-stirs-memories-for-henmans-former-housemate-773721.html


Mansfield striker Mick Boulding in his Premiership days with Aston Villa
Getty Images

There are common bonds in football that transcend the widest of gulfs and when Mansfield's Billy Dearden extends a comradely manager's handshake to Gareth Southgate of Middlesbrough at lunchtime tomorrow the FA Cup will have rejoined another long broken connection. When these clubs last met, 21 years ago, they were rivals in the old Third Division. Nowadays, with 78 league places between them, they exist in all but the literal sense in different worlds.

After 46 years in football, and with retirement beckoning, 64-year-old Dearden has seen hard times but none tougher, perhaps, than now. Mansfield are next to bottom of League Two, not in serious debt but somewhat shackled financially as owner Keith Haslam attempts to sell the club. Lately, they have been training at a local school after their own facilities were flooded. Middlesbrough used to do something similar until Steve Gibson built them a £7m training complex.

"The modern breed of manager – I don't think they could handle this," Dearden says. "Gareth's gone straight from playing into management in the Premiership and that's the name of the game now. I don't begrudge that. If you are a top player and your chairman says, 'come and be manager', you are not going to say 'no'.

"But I don't think they could handle it lower down, some of them. We used to come here every morning and never know where we would be training. The supporters' club paid £5,000 to get us our own place.

"It's not all laid on for the players – they pay the lady who cooks out of their own pockets. But we try to do things right. It has been under water for the last couple of weeks, mind, but you can't do anything about the weather."

Life at Mansfield is a challenge, even for the £200-a-week junior professionals who have known nothing better, let alone a player who has been to the Premiership and can speak of it from first-hand experience. Yet for top-scorer Mick Boulding, once of Aston Villa and, as it happens, once nearly of Middlesbrough, it is an existence for which an earlier incarnation prepared him strangely well.

Given that this previous life, before his hankering for football finally won him over, was as a tennis professional, such a statement might seem hard to justify. But, as Boulding explained, there is more than one planet in the tennis universe, too. While his one-time housemate, Tim Henman, was getting to know Paris and New York – and, of course, SW19 – Boulding's habitats were more likely to be Uzbekistan, Central Africa and Eastern Europe.

"I played on the satellite circuit for four years," he says. "Everyone had to do it, even Tim. You were stretched financially, but you would go anywhere and put up with anything for ranking points.

"People talk about staying in hotels where the water in the taps is brown but I've been to places where they had no water at all, like Romania, where it would be turned off for two or three days at a time.

"It was not long after the fall of Ceaucescu and the place was in turmoil. Yet there we were trying to play tennis, being driven six hours across country in a van, having to wash in bottled water and with so little food that we lived mostly on a soup made from hot water and marrow bone.

"I remember going on to Luxembourg from there, talking endlessly about the first proper meal we would eat, but then finding our stomachs had shrunk so much we were full after a few mouthfuls.

"In a way, there are similarities in that life with playing football at the bottom of the league. The difference with tennis is that no one else cares. You'll be sitting in your hotel room on your own asking yourself what you could have done differently, whereas at football there are a few thousand people telling you what they think as you walk off the pitch. That is the great thing about football is that so many people care."

He and Henman were close enough for a while to have shared youthful scrapes, once falling through a glass door together while grappling in a larky fight at their London digs and being obliged to calm a furious landlady by paying for the damage.

Contact now is largely in the past – "I think the last time I spoke to him was to ask for tickets for Wimbledon and, funnily enough, he has never asked me for Mansfield tickets" – but Boulding does not begrudge Henman's success. Indeed, he had his own taste of the top, albeit briefly.

"I really only drifted into tennis," he says. "I met Tony Pickard, who was coaching the world No 1 Stefan Edberg, but actually lived not far from my family's home in Sheffield, and he persuaded me I had the talent to give it a go.

"But whereas I didn't take up tennis until I was 12, I'd played football since I could walk and that was always what I wanted to do. I knew I'd regret it if I got to the age where it was too late, so after talking with my father I gave up tennis in 1999."

It did not take long for his ability to be spotted, by Doncaster Rovers, with whom he trained, and then, as it happens, Mansfield. More success soon followed. Transferred to Grimsby, then in the second tier, in 2001, he played only a season at Blundell Park, including a memorable victory over Liverpool in the Carling Cup, before a trio of Premiership clubs began competing for his signature.

"I was offered a trial at Middlesbrough and Everton were interested too, but I joined Aston Villa," he says. "Graham Taylor was very persuasive and when I went there for a meeting they put a contract in front of me on the day, so it was difficult for me to walk away. Looking back it all happened so quickly, it was too much, too soon. It was a chance I could not turn down but I hadn't really had my apprenticeship in football and I was suddenly in the Premier League. I got a bit lost.

"We played pre-season at Villa, including two InterToto Cup games, with three up front – Peter Crouch in the middle, Darius Vassell on the right and me on the left. But when the season started we ended up playing 4-4-2, with Gareth Barry on the left and I didn't get a look in.

"I ended up going to Sheffield United on loan, injured my ankle and went back to Villa. By the time I got fit again I just wanted to play and with knowing everyone at Grimsby it seemed the logical thing to do to go back."

From there, via an unhappy spell at Barnsley, where he was so disillusioned that he effectively quit the game, he has come full circle to Field Mill and another flirtation with the big time, if an appearance on Match of the Day Live can be so described.

And unlike, perhaps, some among the opposition, his appreciation of the FA Cup is undimmed.

"For the smaller teams it is still a massive opportunity. When you are at the bottom of the league like we are, to play against a Premier League side... it does not get any better. It's like a player from the satellite circuit taking on Roger Federer."

Boulding has other, glamorous connections – his sister Helen's success as a singer-songwriter has enabled him to share the company of Bryan Adams, Wet Wet Wet singer Marti Pellow and Take That's Gary Barlow among others – yet does not bemoan that football as seen from his current outpost is hardly rock 'n' roll.

"Not at Mansfield, it isn't," he says. "But I don't really think about what it might have been like in the Premiership. It was a big disappointment to leave Villa but you have to be positive.

"Last season it was a matter of getting back my feel for the game. This time I started off fit and I'm just trying to do as well as I can and see what happens."



BBC online
Stags skipper ready for Cup test
By Owen Phillips

Hopefully our lads can say "I had him in my pocket" or "I "skinned him". They want to compare themselves against the top class lads

Mansfield Town skipper Jake Buxton may struggle to hold back the tears when he leads out his hometown club against Middlesbrough in the FA Cup.

Two years ago Buxton was part of the side that pushed Newcastle all the way before losing 1-0 in the third round.

"It was a massive occasion," Buxton, 22, told BBC Radio Nottingham ahead of Saturday's fourth round Field Mill tie.

"I was proud and felt like I was going to cry when I ran on the pitch and I wasn't even captain then."
The Stags made a mockery of their lowly league position that day, and it was only a goal by Geordie legend Alan Shearer that stopped them earning a money-spinning replay.

But despite the home draw this time around, a shock in this year's FA Cup journey against Premier League giants from Teesside looks even less likely.

The Stags are second bottom of the entire Football League with just five league wins all season. They have lost seven of their 12 home league matches and have only scored 17 goals in those matches.

But Buxton, who is born and raised in nearby Sutton-in-Ashfield, believes anything is possible. "We've done all the hard work," he said.

"We put in the graft against the lower sides, got a great result at Brighton and we've been rewarded with a home tie against Middlesbrough who are beatable.

"It's my hometown club, in front of the nation, with my family watching and hopefully I can put on a performance and the lads can put on a performance that we can be proud of."

Buxton says his side are determined to prove that they are much better than their perilous league position suggests.

"You can't let the occasion go to your head," he said. "We need to put a performance on to show everybody we are a decent side and that we are capable of matching the best sides in the country."

The major cause for optimism is the fact that the Stags have played some excellent football in the FA Cup so far. Not least in the last round where they pulled off a major surprise by beating League One side Brighton.

Buxton is hoping for more of the same: "When we are underdogs we seem to bring out the best performances," Buxton explained. "In the Cup against Brighton I thought we passed them off the park.

"We've shown that we do perform against the better sides and Boro are lot better than teams in our league. Hopefully we can play them at their own game and put them under pressure.

"Boro have a massive squad with lots of quality, international players.

"It will be a great test to be up against them. Hopefully our lads can say "I had him in my pocket" or "I matched him" or "skinned him". They want to compare themselves against the top class lads.

"A lot of the lads will not go on to Premier League standards which is reality.

"But on Saturday we can try to match them and try to beat them. If you look after your personal battles and all 11 do that, then we'll have a chance.

"We want to go out, give the best performance we can and come away with our heads held high - no matter what the score is.

"We went to Brighton and won when nobody gave us a chance."

The BBC's FA Cup fourth-round coverage starts with Mansfield v Middlesbrough (1230 GMT) on Saturday, 26 January.


 

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