won

Despite being a lifelong Sunderland fan, Chandler admits basing his team on Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle – with entertainment even placed above winning.

“There was a standing joke in the team, two or three at the back? One time we chased a game with two at the back,” he says.

“The Premier League can be so boring; fans want to be entertained, that’s what we promised.”

Chandler was already a Whitley Bay hero when he was appointed manager by chairman Paul McIlduff, having scored the winner in the 2002 FA Vase final against Tiptree United at Villa Park.

After a slow start as the then-35-year-old with no prior managerial experience found his bearings, Chandler built a talented team which became the envy of non-league football nationwide.

“We played good football. We had pace on the wing, fantastic midfielders, and strikers who were deadly,” says McIlduff, who has been Whitley Bay chairman since 2001.

“When we brought them in, it was about fitting the psychology of the dressing room. No-one thought they were better than anyone else, they played for each other.”

A growing influence in the side was the ‘Whitley Bay Maradona’.

Paul Robinson came through Newcastle United’s academy before a career spent across various non-league clubs in the north-east – including Whitley Bay from 2007 to 2013.

Like several other players and staff, he worked with Chandler both in his day job at software company Sage and at Hillheads Park.

“He was my manager at work and football, I was sick of him,” he tells BBC Sport. “But it helped get time off for matches.”

And it meant he also had an understanding boss if his mind drifted at work.

“Zoning out happened regularly, picturing scoring and winning, what the opposition would be like – hoping they were rubbish so we could have an easy stroll,” he says.

Perhaps Robinson’s greatest Whitley Bay moment came in the 2010 FA Vase semi-final second leg, when his last-minute diving header in the driving rain secured a 6-5 aggregate victory over Barwell, sparking a pitch invasion.

“Everyone goes to the finals, you were there, you could enjoy it,” says Robinson, who is now academy head at South Shields.

“But the rounds before were the bigger games. At home, we would get 2,000 or 3,000 at every game. You felt like a real player. You associate those memories with 90s FA Cup you never think it will happen in non-league.”

Chandler played in a 2-0 win over Preston in round two as they reached the FA Cup third round for the first and only time in the 1989-90 season, and they also progressed to round two the following campaign.

Those seasons of success – made The Bay a feared side for non-league clubs across England, and meant they were ready for the big games in a way most amateur sides are not.

“One quarter-final against Biggleswade [in 2009], they turned up in suits and ties,” says Robinson. “We thought, this is their day out, their cup final. We won 5-2.

“By the end, teams were turning up afraid of us. We had it won beforehand.”

Daley Cross, manager of the England team, said of Lucy’s role: “She was just trying to do her best for him and trying to find a way to motivate him.

“His wife did drop in the conversation that he used to play at Manchester United as a schoolboy. So that got our ears twitched instantly.

“You could tell from him being on the pitch, even though he was so fresh into his journey, that he knew the football game and he would be such an incredible asset to us.

“You can be in a dark place, at the time of diagnosis, through your treatment or even post-transplant. So to have us exist to help and inspire people means that we are getting some incredible footballers.

“And that really is the power of it: to that transplant community or to the world, showing people that when you’ve had organ failure, your life isn’t over. There is a chance for you, and you can go and resume and live your life.”

As the recipient of a donor heart, Jackson has to manage his exercise workload more carefully than his team-mates, many of whom have had kidney transplants, the most common transplant in the UK.

His role in the side tends to involve 10-minute bursts, rather than playing for the duration of matches.

An Australian indoor fitness athlete apologized Thursday for continuing to participate in a recent competition after apparently soiling herself.

Joanna Wietrzyk, a 24-year-old Melborne resident, could be seen with what appears to be fecal matter on parts of her body as she competed in a Hyrox event Saturday in Beijing, China. Despite that, she was permitted to stay in the race — even though the running-workout event involves the shared use of equipment by multiple competitors — and eventually was declared the winner with a time of 1 hour, 1 minute and 23 seconds.

Wietrzyk has decided to “retroactively withdraw from the race and forfeit the points I earned,” she indicated in a Sept. 18 statement posted on Instagram.

“I want to offer my sincere apology to the people of China, my fellow competitors, the spectators and the HYROX organizers for what happened during the race in Beijing,” Wietrzyk wrote.

“I felt completely fit and healthy at the start of the race, with no reason to expect any illness. Looking back, I regret the decision to not have stepped off the track. I recognize that I should have made a different choice. I take responsibility for my decision to continue and am deeply sorry for the discomfort and disruption it caused.

“I know my actions had an impact beyond myself, and I am genuinely sorry to everyone who was affected. I am learning from this experience and will carry those lessons with me, including remembering that there is more to life than racing and knowing when it is right to step away.”

The message contrasted from that of a post Wietrzyk made earlier in the week that, according to the Athletic, also included a selfie of the athlete apparently in a hospital bed.

“Go hard or go home … a win is a win,” the since-deleted post reportedly said. “In all seriousness, thank you for all the support. I’ll be back soon.”

First introduced in 2017, Hyrox indoor fitness competitions are made up of eight 1-kilometer (.62-mile) runs that are separated by intense exercises at eight different workout stations (ski ergometer, sled push, sled pull, burpee broad jump, rowing, farmer’s carry, sandbag lunges and medicine ball squat/throw). Wietrzyk holds the world record in the women’s event with a time of 54:26 set earlier this year.

Hyrox co-founder Moritz Fürste posted a statement Sunday on Instagram apologizing for “the recent events in China” and indicating that the competition has taken unspecified steps to prevent another such occurrence.

“I apologise to all that were directly or indirectly affected, as well as to everyone who felt like we did not handle the situation like we should have,” Fürste wrote. “HYROX made a mistake by not reacting immediately during the race. In the end it is my job to foresee these potential incidents — and I did not.

“Of course, we started improving event processes, plus making rulebook changes immediately. As of this moment, there are new rules and procedures in place to prevent situations like this from happening again.”

EMPORIA, Kan. — Adam Hamilton has spent decades trying to bring people to Jesus as founder of the nation’s largest United Methodist church. Now he wants to bring Kansas voters to the polls as the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate.

A first-time candidate, Hamilton faces an unusual balancing act between political ambition and spiritual obligation. His pastoral role has given him rare prominence for a Democrat in a state where Republicans have won every Senate race for nearly a century, and some in his party are hoping for an upset victory over incumbent Sen. Roger Marshall.

But conservatives are also trying to use Hamilton’s religious leadership against him. They suggest that his sermons prove he’s too liberal for Kansas or even that he’s a heretic for suggesting that non-Christians have a path to salvation after death.

Marshall said in an interview that Hamilton is “too woke for Kansas.”

Hamilton isn’t turning the other cheek. If Jesus were standing before them now, he said, “Roger Marshall would call him ‘woke.’”

Only a few ordained ministers have served as senators over the past 100 years and just one — current Democrat Raphael Warnock of Georgia — remained an active pastor. If elected, Hamilton plans to continue as senior pastor at his Church of the Resurrection in the Kansas City area, preaching 12 to 18 times a year.

As Hamilton tries to win over center-right churchgoers as well as secular liberals, he’s promising that he wouldn’t use his perch in Washington to evangelize. He’s on unpaid leave, going 11 weeks without giving a sermon this summer, although he peppers his remarks with biblical references, discusses Jesus’ teachings with voters and spends several hours weekly on pastoral duties such as hospital visits.

“I need that interaction with people and the caring for people,” he said after a meet-and-greet at a coffee shop in Emporia, a university town of 24,000 that’s smaller than his congregation 110 miles to the northwest.

Hamilton brings skills that built a huge church to a tough race

Hamilton, 61, built his church from a few members meeting in a funeral home chapel in 1990 into a 25,000-member congregation with nine locations across the Kansas City area. He’s demonstrated an ability to raise money and has gained national attention by writing more than 30 books, mostly on Christian theology.

Hamilton describes himself as a centrist, running partly on “bringing people together.” His congregation, he notes, is nearly evenly split between Democrats, Republicans and independents.

Republican-leaning Kansas has a sizable bloc of moderate voters, protects abortion rights and regularly elects Democratic governors. But Democrats haven’t come within 10 points of winning a Senate race in more than 50 years, and they haven’t won one since 1932.

Marshall, 66, is focused on rallying rural conservatives, a strategy that perennially works for Republicans. A fifth-generation farm kid who became an obstetrician, the senator is fluent in agriculture policy. He jibed that suburbanite Hamilton “doesn’t know a heifer from a steer.”

Marshall also warned that the Senate could fall under Democratic control if Hamilton wins the race.

“His party is too crazy for Kansas,” Marshall said.

The campaign has included an allegation of heresy

This year’s race is unusual because of attacks from the Christian right branding Hamilton a heretic.

At issue is a 2022 sermon, reposted on X after Hamilton won the Democratic primary in August. Hamilton cited New Testament passages to argue that non-Christians can receive “the saving grace of Jesus” after death, avoiding eternal torment in Hell.

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas declared that Hamilton had rejected “the central tenets of Christianity,” quoting a verse in the Gospel of John where Jesus declares, “No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Marshall thanked Cruz for raising the issue, suggesting the sermon was “one of hundreds” of examples of Hamilton being out of step with Kansans.

Hamilton acknowledged that some Christians agree with Cruz — but cited other prominent Christians who might share his own view, including Methodist founder John Wesley and “Chronicles of Narnia” author C.S. Lewis.

“If he’s going to call me a heretic, he’s not the first,” Hamilton said. “He won’t be the last.”

Hamilton seeks to reassure voters wary of church-state mix

Hamilton also has faced skepticism from Democrats wary of mixing government with religion.

Republican conservatives routinely highlight their faith, suggesting that God wanted them to seek office and profusely thank God after winning.

This year during Lent — the 40 days of self-reflection and repentance before Easter — Hamilton said he skipped a meal each day and prayed about entering the Senate race.

“I’m never 100% sure about the will of God, so I tell people I am 87.2% sure I am supposed to be doing this,” he said. “The Kansas voters will decide whether I’m supposed to win, but I feel like I was being called to step into the arena.”

In Emporia, Hamilton said that as a senator, he’d “fight for the rights of all people, whether they have any faith or not.”

“I’m not running for the Senate to make everybody in this country Christian or United Methodist,” he said.

Nolan Guyer, a 72-year-old Navy veteran and retired nuclear plant operator, said he initially worried about voting for a minister, but Hamilton won him over enough that he donated to the pastor’s campaign.

“I don’t think it’s the government’s business to teach morals, and that is a preacher’s job,” Guyer said.

Some familiar issues are prominent

Republican political action committees have attacked Hamilton as so radical on climate change that he urged his congregation to repent for eating beef. They base that allegation on a misleading stitching together of two parts of a 2020 sermon, with one clip showing Hamilton calling Christians “to repentance” for not protecting God’s creation and a second, earlier clip of him saying that “maybe changing your diet” is among personal actions that could reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Another ad claimed that Hamilton’s church helped pay for a drag queen story hour for children — a claim his campaign denies.

Marshall blamed Hamilton for a split in the United Methodist Church over allowing LGBTQ+ clergy, something it did in 2024. While Hamilton did support that change — at least since 2019 — he also had worked to prevent a split by backing a plan for a local option on whether to ordain or marry LGBTQ+ people.

Hamilton said his views on human sexuality and same-sex marriage evolved gradually, as he came to know gay and lesbian people in his congregation. His church now has a Queer Inclusive Collective ministry and participates in Pride events.

“One small part of my ministry has been trying to make sure that people who felt alienated from the church and pushed away knew that Christ welcomed them and they were loved by our congregation,” Hamilton said.

Hamilton’s watchwords include ‘decency’ and ‘affordability’

One of Hamilton’s assertions, that he is “running on decency,” resonated with Jann Briggs. She’s a retired teacher from Reading, a small town where the Methodist church is across the street from the Miracle Cafe.

Briggs and several friends came to Hamilton’s event in Emporia with a copy of his latest book, “Holy Spirit: God’s Presence and Power at Work in Us.” He signed it for them.

“Finally, somebody who’s speaking the right words,” Briggs said.

Hamilton is also focusing on affordability, a key issue for Democrats this year. He has criticized Republican cuts to federal programs for the poor, such as food assistance and Medicaid coverage.

“I just want to know, when did it become ‘woke’ to care for your neighbor?” he asked.

Hanna writes for the Associated Press.