Articles
2007/2008 Season

The club's belated Christmas dinner will be taking place at the Tower Hotel on Friday 18th January, starting at 7.30pm. As usual, the night is a male-only, shirt and tie affair, and will cost £15 for the meal (which needs to be paid in full before the night). Can everyone who wants to attend please fill in the form below to let us know what they would like to eat and confirm that they will be attending.

 

Your name:
Starters:
• Roasted Plum, Tomato and Basil soup
• Warm Chicken Caesar Salad with Garlic Croutons and Parmesan Shavings
• Oak Smoked Salmon with Fennel Salad
• Crispy Duck Wonton with Spring Onion and Hoi Sin Sauce
Mains:
• Risotto of Wild Mushrooms and Stilton with Parmesan Shavings
• Coq au Vin
• Steak and Batemans Ale Pie with Potato Puree
• Pan Fried Salmon with Wilted Spinach and Lemon Butter Sauce
Desserts:
• Warm Sticky Toffee Pudding with Pecan Toffee Sauce
• Raspberry and Mascarpone Crème Brulée
• Apple and Cinnamon Crumble with Crème Anglaise
• Warm Dark Chocolate Brownie with Vanilla Ice Cream

The evening's entertainment will be, of course, up to the same high Tower Athleic standards as usual. We will be operating a giant game of Chase the Ace (with novelty oversized playing cards!), with each person having just one life to try and win the game. Top prize will be £50, with £30 for second place and £20 for finishing third. There will also be a raffle with some great prizes on offer, along with an auction of four strictly limited edition and higly sought after items! After the meal will come the reprise of last years' exceedingly popular Deal or No Deal game, where a team of four lucky players will compete to play for a share of a £150 grand prize. And, as with last years' game, whatever the team fail to win from the £150 prize pot will be shared amongst the audience for beers and merrymaking. The cost of all these events is £10, which enters you for the Chase the Ace game, Deal or No Deal and gives you a strip of raffle tickets. A portion of this money raised will go to help bolster waning club funds, whilst the rest will all be returned in prizes.

 

So get your drinking boots on, prepare your Deal or No Deal envelope-opening stances and choose your meal wisely - it's not long now until the best night of the year!

 

The draw for the fourth round of the Lincolnshire County Sunday Cup was made today, with the Tower finding themselves with yet another away day to a Grimsby and Cleethorpes League side on 2 December. The Tower were the second of the 32 remaining teams out of the hat, drawn to play away against Excel FC of the Grimsby and Cleethorpes Fourth Division, just one higher than last weeks opponents Holton le Clay.

 

Our dedicated scouts have already been trawling the archives for information on Excel, and have managed to find out the record of their results so far this season. Currently languishing in 7th position in the table (out of 11 teams) they have played 7 games in the league, winning 2, drawing 3 and losing 2, scoring 16 and conceding 19. They have progressed to the fourth round of the County Cup thanks to a 6-2 second round win over Grimsby 7th Division side GTI Haulage, followed by a 5-3 away win at Ruskington last weekend. Their full table of results for this sesaon can be seen below.

 

Date	Home side	Score	Away side	Competition
4 Nov 07	Ruskington	3 v 5	Excel FC	County Cup Round 3
28 Oct 07	Waltham RBL	1 v 6	Excel FC	Memorial Cup Preliminary
.	(5th in Divison 8)	.	.	.
21 Oct 07	East Coast	2 v 0	Excel FC	League
14 Oct 07	Excel FC	2 v 1	Laceby RBL	League
7 Oct 07	GTI Haulage	2 v 6	Excel FC	County Cup Round 2
.	(9th in Divison 7)	.	.	.
23 Sep 07	North Lincs Continental	6 v 0	Excel FC	Senior Chal. Cup Round 1
.	(3rd in Divison 1)	.	.	.
16 Sep 07	Excel FC	3 v 7	MFS United	League
9 Sep 07	Laceby RBL	2 v 2	Excel FC	League
2 Sep 07	Excel FC	4 v 4	Quality Paving	League
26 Aug 07	Excel FC	0 v 0	East Coast	League
19 Aug 07	Excel FC	5 v 3	Fairdeal Carpets	League

 

 

The Grimsby and Cleethorpes Sunday League Division 4 table currently lookes like this:

 

 

Pos		P	W	D	L	F	A	Pts
1	Quality Paving	9	7	1	1	32	18	22
2	Whitespot OB	8	7	0	1	29	9	21
3	Classic Signs 86	7	5	0	2	18	19	15
4	Spiders Madrid	8	4	1	3	20	15	13
5	Laceby RBL	6	3	2	1	9	6	11
6	East Coast	7	3	1	3	19	11	10
7	Excel FC	7	2	3	2	16	19	9
8	MFS United	9	2	0	7	18	27	6
9	Fairdeal Carpets	7	2	0	5	10	21	6
10	Nick's Takeaway	6	1	2	3	10	16	5
11	F Rogers Raiders	8	0	0	8	10	30	0

 

 

So it looks like it's another away day for the Tower, and who knows - should the interest be large enough perhaps even another coach (but this time filled with some people who know more than one verse and a chorus of a song!)

 

It has been a long saga many years in the making, but the board of the Tower Athletic today made a huge announcement in their usual Monday morning press conference, catching the bewildered media totally off-guard. Whilst expecting to hear about the fall-out from the Stags match on Sunday, and perhaps updates as to the status of injured players, the press were given the following statement by a club spokesman:

 

"It is with pride that we are able to announce, with immediate effect, that the Tower Athletic football club will be moving from its home at Claytons Sports Association on Lee Road, to a brand new home at Bishop Grosseteste College. The deal was struck this week by club Chairman Gary Rook after long negotiations, and will see the club play their seven remaining home matches at Bishop Grot, with a view to using the facilities their for the foreseeable future."

 

The new facilities at Bishop Grot (artists impression)

"It is our understanding that the new sports hall build by the college recently contains brand new changing room and shower facilities, and we even beleive these showers will actually have hot water coming out of them. Not only that, but most importantly of all, there is ample parking at pitchside, making life for our gallant band of supporters much more bearable in the cold winter months, where they will now be able to sit in their cars and watch the game."

 

The news was met with general delight by all gathered at the press conference, who were all keen to see the club freed from certain obligations and restrictions and open up into a new era. Gaffer Karl Hanson was said to be thrilled by the prospect of a new ground, as was cheif negotiator, Chairman Gary Rook. With many good memories being left behind at Claytons, it is perhaps with an air of nostalgia that the club should leave its old home. But early reports from club scouts at the new ground suggest a good playing surface and plenty of space for the club's legions of fans, so perhaps a whole new chapter in the story of this illustrious football club could just be about to begin in their brand new home. (for a location map of the new ground see the 'Our Ground' page under 'Club Info')

 

The front page of today's Daily Mirror

Anyone attending the Stags game at the weekend can't have failed to notice a shadowy figure ourking around the edges of the pitch. No sooner was he there than he had disappeared into the morning mist, leaving those who saw him wondering whether this ghostly appirition was just a mirage, an echo of times past and merely a trick of the mind.

 

But anybody opening today's tabloid newspapers will see that the visit on Sunday morning of David Jerman, the club's illustrious former striking superstar, could well be something more than just a passing hello. Jerman spoke briefly with the club management on Sunday, before taking a stroll around the pitch and soaking up the atmosphere that he himself used to be a part of. When questioned as to whether he was considering a move 'back home' to the Tower, his repsonse was cagey, defensive, non-committal. Perhaps. Fitness permitting. The words of a man who looks likely to sign on the dotted line in the coming months, surely?

 

The Daily Mail took a typically negative angle

Jerman's record at the club was the stuff of legend. In the glory-soaked prmotion season of 2004/05 he was a regular strike partner to top-scorer Pete Rea, scoring 12 times in just 21 appearances. Between 21st November 2004 and 30th January 2005 he netted 9 times in 11 matches, helping his team secure the much coveted promotion to the Premier league for the first time in their history. Arguably his finest hour was denied to him when, after scoring twice away at Premiership side Friendship in the Ron Eaglen Cup, he was cruelly denied the goal which would have given his side a shot at extra time and himself a hat-trick, as an excellent looping shot from range bounced off the bar.

 

So only time will tell as to whether this former crowd favourite will once again grace the hallowed colours of the Tower. But one thing is for sure - should the former starlet return, season ticket sales will surely increase, as will tabloid column inches for this most colourful of footballing characters.

 

It has been the source of all the major controversy and speculation over the past couple of weeks, and it seems that Jose Mourinho's departure from Chelsea even caused possible ructions at the lowly Tower Athletic. Following the shock departure of the 'Special One' late on Thursday night, Spurs Chairman Daniel Levy was not the only one making hurried enquiries as to Mourinho's availability for management. Allegations have surfaced today that the Tower board made an approach to the Portugese manager on Friday morning, just hours after his departure from Stamford Bridge.

 

Admittedly, it was a strange place to hold a meeting

The news was supposed to be kept under wraps so as not to destabilise the team before the crucial tie away at Cherry on Sunday, but an unnamed source within the Tower press office managed to leak taped conversations from the boardroom to the the press, letting the cat out of the bag. In the recordings, Chairman Gary Rook can be heard talking to Director David Buttcrack about the possibility of sacking current manager Karl Hanson and replacing him with Mourinho.

 

This shock revelation will come as some surprise to Hanson himself, who is said to have known nothing of the moves afoot. Having only been in the job for a couple of games, most Tower fans beleived he had the full backing of the board and would be in the job for many seasons to come. Despite suffering a frustrating pre-season, Hanson has managed to stabilise the team and take them up to their highest placing ever in the Premiership.

 

But the story took another twist at the weekend, as Hanson led the Tower to one of their best victories ever, over last year's runners-up Cherry Willingham. Now, the board have been backed into a corner, as support for Hanson is at an all time high, and bringing in another mananger, even one of Mourinho's stature, would be almost impossible.

 

Manager Karl Hanson: Shocked to hear of these rumours

Seeking to repair any damage done by the affair, the club were today denying all of the allegations, placing their full support behind Karl Hanson. Board spokesan Meetun Toovedge spoke to the media this morning to attemtp to clear up any confusion caused. "The board have never, and would never be interested in installing a new manager at the club, least of all Jose Mourinho. We are delighted with the job Karl is doing so far, and would never dream of replacing him. Andy anyway, we couldn't afford his wages."

 

So despite the denials, it seems this sorry saga must have an effect on the players and, most noteably, the manager. Has the relationship between the two 'big egos' of the Tower, manager Karl Hanson and Chairman Gary Rook become unstable? Only time will tell. But one thing is for sure - Jose won't be sampling the Tower's free chips in the foreseeable future.