Pencil the evening of Thursday May 25th into your diary as the FA have announced they are planning to arrange what they're calling a "B" friendly in London to give players outside Sven's starting eleven a run-out ahead of travelling to Germany for the World Cup.
Though a specific venue has yet to be finalised Belarus are being lined up to face a team that could be almost entirely composed of players based in the capital. Tottenham could provide half of that contingent through Ledley King, Michael Carrick, Jermaine Jenas and Jermain Defoe while Darren Bent and Luke Young of Charlton, along with Shaun Wright-Phillips of Chelsea and his club mate Wayne Bridge, currently on loan to Fulham, are also likely to feature. We'll let you know as soon as further details are announced.
Another man who might yet get back into that squad is Arsenal's Sol Campbell (pictured). You can assess his progress at Barnet's Underhill stadium tonight where he's set to feature in Arsenal's reserve outing against last Saturday's Premiership opponents, Charlton. Robin van Persie might also benefit from another game after he joined Campbell in last week's specially arranged behind closed doors friendly against Brighton before featuring for the last twenty minutes of Saturday's game.
And Arsenal and Charlton met once again yesterday in the semi-final of the FA Cup as highlighted on this site. A crowd of over 1,000 at Bishops Stortford witnessed an echo of 1993's men's FA cup final victory with Jayne Ludlow emulating Andy Linighan's powerful injury time header to give the Gunners a 2-1 win. Arsenal Ladies will now meet Leeds in the BBC televised final at 1pm on Bank Holiday Monday May 1st. Millwall's New Den is the venue.
Boreham Wood gave Woking a tough examination, but the visitors will take a 1-0 advantage into next Saturday's FA Trophy semi-final second leg. Tom Hutchinson's late goal separated the teams.
Autograph hunters might want to get as close as they can to the new Wembley stadium site on Tuesday. Some people will be on the pitch, but it won't be all over just yet as 18 of the 1966 world cup's finalists, including Martin Peters, George Cohen, Alan Ball and Franz Beckenbauer, pose for morale boosting photographs where the new turf will (eventually) be. After removing their squad numbered safety hats they'll make their way to various diplomatic functions. Sir Geoff Hurst looks to be a notable absentee, though Roger Hunt will be there to assure the Germans that he wouldn't have turned away if he hadn't been certain it had gone in. The match's least famous official, Slovakian linesman Dr Karol Galba, will be on hand to say how it looked from his angle.
Image of Sol Campbell via Maurisico's Flickr stream.
