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My Therapy
At my most recent Problem Gambling Support Group meeting via Skype (the same one posted on here weekly) it was my turn to do a therapy session. This is my journey from starting gambling until now. I thought it would be worth sharing here as someone may get something from it. It is a bit of a long read. My name is Mark and i’m a compulsive gambler. My last bet was April 2nd 2019. The day of April 2nd was a massive turning point in my life, it was the day I finally admitted to my long term partner, who is the mother of my two children, and to my parents that I was a compulsive gambler and needed help. The weekend prior was when I finally said to myself I’ve had enough, I had been betting for 14 years and it had beaten me so badly that I was a mess mentally and financially. Although no one knew that because I was an expert at hiding it. I started gambling like almost anyone in the UK or Ireland, The Grand National. The one day of the year where it seems like every man, woman and child has a bet on. The biggest horse race in the world. That and those glorious holidays spent in Portrush playing the 2p machines (penny fall machines). I don’t for one second blame those experiences for my gambling problem, they are just my first memories of gambling. One really vivid memory I have of gambling was when I was begging my dad for the latest Official Playstation Magazine, the one with the demo disc, and he was just sitting down to watch England play against someone and said to me “if Paul Scholes scores the first goal I will get you the magazine.” Now, I know for a fact win or lose my Dad would have gotten me the magazine, he just said that so I would give him peace to watch the match. Well I remember watching the game with him hoping with all my might Paul Scholes would score 1st and he did. That adrenaline rush, even at a young age (I was 13 years old at most I would say) was unbelievable. Now, again, I am not blaming that for my gambling addiction at all, it is just one of my first vivid memories but that mentality of gambling to get something I want for free would be a regular pattern throughout my gambling career. Once I turned 18 I opened my first betting account with Blue Sq and that started my online sports gambling journey. Friday nights were spent betting on Wolverhampton all weather horse racing and the Dutch and French 2nd Divisions. All harmless fun, controlled gambling, small stakes. I was still working part time at this stage, left school that summer and gambling was not in the way. Once I got my full time job though that all changed. The first time I could put my finger on when my gambling changed was the first day of the 2008/2009 football season. I’d been working full time for about 3 years and my gambling was still under control, well, at least I thought it was. My stakes were still low and I was doing football bets at the weekend for a bit of fun. I gambled, but it wasn’t causing me any issues. That Friday I walked into a Paddy Power and decided instead of placing a load of stupid football bets for £1 or £2 I’d pick three teams for the season and do a £20 treble each week. Sheffield United, Leicester City and Leeds United were the picks. Of course, the first weekend it landed (the only time it landed all season I think) and my betting changed from that moment. I genuinely can’t remember the odds but I must have lifted over £100 from that £20 stake and after that staking £1 or £2 just wasn’t appealing. What was the point in that when I could stake £20 and win more. From that moment my gambling started to get out of control over time. Then came the loans, the credit cards and the payday loans. At some point around this time I had opened a spread betting account due to a sign up offer. Now I did not have the first clue about spread betting but the offer was they gave you a free £100 or something to sign up so I did. I was still living at home at the time and we had one computer which everyone used. Well my Dad stumbled upon this website and was able to access the account (he’s not technically minded so I imagine I left it logged in) and he seen the betting history and he went mental at me. Now, I did explain that it was just bonus funds and I hadn’t actually deposited any of my own money but still the lecture came. It felt like a lecture at the time to me but he was just warning me of the dangers of gambling. Giving me examples of people he knew who had a problem and how easy it is for a gambling problem to begin. So I can never turn around and say that I wasn’t aware of the dangers, I was, my ego was just too big to listen. I paid lip service to the lecture and said I wouldn’t do it again and my Dad took me at my word and trusted me. So, I knew early on I had a problem. I self excluded from places over the years but never really wanted to quit. I was getting in debt but was able to continue with my lifestyle as I was living at home. I remember one day going to a cheque cashing place where I could write a cheque for £100, dated on my next payday, and they’d give me £90 there and then. I did two cheques for going out that weekend (and a couple of bets on the Aintree Festival) walked straight to the bookies and had the £180 on Denman to win the Aintree Bowl at even money. Denman was a monster of a horse, a machine. He could not lose...then he suffered the first fall of his career. Back I went to the cheque cashing place for another £90 so I could still go out that weekend. I wasn’t learning from my betting mistakes either as I was just borrowing more money to cover the cracks. I got a few debt consolidating loans over the early years to try and get a handle on my debt but it just gave me an excuse to take out more credit. The payday loans which I used to either gamble or cover my expenses for going out because I used all my money gambling. I would borrow money off my Dad and give him the puppy dog eyes when I paid it back and normally he’d only take half of what I owed him. He thought he was doing the right thing and he wanted me to have money to be able to go out with friends, I was just manipulating the situation. I moved out and into my friends house for a year and the gambling continued, although I had less money to gamble with. My credit rating was taking a battering but I was young and didn’t really care. Then I met my current girlfriend in February 2010 and we moved in together that September. The gambling continued and was getting worse. I made the smart move to get a second job to supplement my gambling…...at a greyhound track. I’d be earning about £20 a night but gambling £60 or £80. Insanity. We had our first child in April 2012 and not long after she found out I’d be gambling some of the money we’d saved. It wasn’t a lot of money, but she was pissed (rightfully so). I managed to talk my way out of it and that was when I became really good at hiding things. She took control of the rent money and any money for our son so that was never in danger thankfully. We had our daughter in 2016 but the gambling still continued. It may seem like I have glossed over an important period of time there but the truth is I can’t really remember any of the details. The only details I am able to recall with any great clarity are coming up but I just want to touch on a couple of things from this period. This was a time when I had the biggest wins of my gambling career, two separate occasions. One was an insane run of luck where I couldn’t lose all weekend and ended up with enough money for me, my partner and our Son to have our first and only foreign holiday. Another time I had a £5 free bet and landed a treble at Sandown, all Gary Moore horses and won £3.5k. That money went towards decorating the nursery for my soon to be born Daughter, my partner got money, my Mum and Dad and her Mum and Dad. I bought a PS4 and gambled the rest from memory. The two reasons these moments stick in my head isn’t just the amounts, it’s the only time I walked away in profit, at least for the sessions in question and the reason is that I told my partner I had won the money. That was the only way I knew I wouldn’t gamble it all away because she would ask questions if the money I promised didn’t materialise. Another part of this time period I want to explore is how I was emotionally. I was 25 when we had our Son and he wasn’t planned. It was a shock to say the least and my life, as I knew it anyways, changed. No longer was I able to do what I wanted socially, I had a Son to provide for. I was working two jobs, money was tight, was I still gambling? Of course I was but slowly I started to strip everything else out of my life. We had our daughter when I was 29 and to be honest here, as much as it sadeness me I thought this way I resented having kids, especially at that age. I felt trapped at times, people I knew were able to do what they want but yet I had all this responsibility. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my kids during this time as well and they meant the world to me, but I do feel that I got into the thought process that I was trapped because of them and my only escape was into the world of online gambling. I would go through phases where I’d stop altogether for months on end, a year at one point which I imagine was around the time my partner found out about me using the savings for gambling, but I’d always go back to it thinking I was in control but I never was. When gambling I’d deposit £10, lose it, deposit another £10, lose it, rinse and repeat until all my money was gone. If I won it just meant I could gamble longer. It was never about the money. I thought it was, but really the money was the fuel that could keep me gambling longer. Most months I was skint a few days after payday and couldn’t gamble until the next payday. It may not sound like a lot of money but it was a relentless cycle month after month after month. At the end of 2016 I got an overdraft of £2k and gambled it all on soccer all around the world. Woke up and started gambling in Asia, moved across the globe into the Middle East, Africa, Europe and then fell asleep betting on South American football. It was out of control. Betting on Egyptian football on Xmas Day a particular lowlight. This was what my gambling looked like when I had money. All these bets were in-play as that’s how I gambled, watching a little graphic on Bet365 and thinking I could predict what was going to happen. I also gambled heavily on tennis as well, picking a player to win a set 6-0 was one of my favourites. Generally I would start with £10 as I mentioned and if the bet won I would keep “investing” all the money until it got to a certain amount, normally a couple of hundred quid. Once I got to that point I would raise my stakes significantly because I would tell myself it wasn’t my money. It wasn’t if I didn’t count all the loses it took to get to this point over the previous few days. I would then gamble that until it’s gone cursing myself for not taking the money when I had the chance. Placing the last of my money praying to a god I don’t believe in that if he could just make this bet land then I wouldn’t bet again. Once the money was done I would just sit there, looking at my bank balance, the lack of money, the direct debits due to come out in a few days, trying to figure out how I would survive the next 3-4 weeks until payday. Then I would dust myself off and start working on some budgets. What direct debits I could bounce, who I could ask to borrow money from or maybe what I could sell to fund another round of gambling to try and win my money back. Coming into 2018 I was in a “good place” with gambling, or so I thought. I was Matched Betting which was a way of making money via bookmakers offers. It worked well for a few months but it all went to shit in the Summer of 2018. Matched Betting introduced me to the casino side of things and I lost £3.5k on roulette. I’ll not go into the ins and outs of how I had that sort of money, lets just say I didn’t and I found a way to deposit via direct debit on PayPal and of course those all bounced. Luckily Paddy Power rewarded me by making me a VIP customer after that, every cloud and all that. So I was chasing big style and getting free £50 bonuses each week from them but I could never get enough money to stop, because no amount was ever going to be enough. Their offers of Money Back if Horse X wins are normally £10 max refund, I was getting £100 max refund. Eventually I was running out of ways to get money and when I started to bet less with Paddy Power they removed my VIP status. I did win £1000 on an NFL bet and lost the lot on roulette the next week. Another lowlight. The win on the NFL followed by the lose on roulette sticks in my mind because visually it summed up how miserable I was. I had promised my partner back at the start of the year that we would get the living room redecorated and I would pay with it from my Matched Betting and she was happy with that. Of course I explained it was risk free and nothing could go wrong and it wasn’t even gambling. Anyways, come November we are due to have our living room redecorated and of course I do not have the money for it so I have to go to my Mum and Dad. I give them some sob story about how when I was Matched Betting I made a mistake, layed off the wrong horse and lost my money so could then lend me it and don’t tell my partner. It was a complete lie and to be honest at the time I didn’t think they had bought it but they lent me the money. Turns out when I told them about my gambling problem back in April they had smelt bull shit but my Granda (on my Dad’s side) was ill in the hospital and he was stressed about that so he just let it slide. So the redecoration was on and it was going to take a couple of days. One Monday night I had a bet on the NFL and it landed, £10 at 100/1. Happy days, I can give my Mum and Dad back their money, it’s nearly Xmas, this is amazing luck. So on Tuesday night I sat in my half decorated living room and thought if I could just win a little bit more then things would be even better so loaded up the roulette. I lost it all sitting in the living room and during it I could literally see what the money would be paying for but it didn’t stop me, nothing would stop me. 2019 I could feel myself struggling. My life was consumed with gambling or working out how to get money to gamble and then how I was going to pay people back what I owed them. I was in a bad place, I was a bad person, lying, angry but still no one knew the truth. January had always been a tough month as I run several NFL Fantasy Football leagues for money and I am in charge of the money. Of course, that was always gambled away by me and January was the month people expected pay outs because the season was over. Usually I would have won enough money in my leagues to cover it or convince people to pay for next year with their winnings that I could cover it. This year I could not and I had the added pressure of owing people money. A lot of these people were friends of mine I knew personally, others were people I had gotten to know over a few years and only talked online. Either way I had stolen their money and gambled it away. I managed to use my Granda’s death in January as an excuse for why I had not paid people yet, I was in a bad way with the funeral etc, all the excuses, the truth is I was just trying to buy more time. Then came the weekend prior to April 2nd. I had just been paid and deposited some money into my Bet365 account and managed to get my balance up to £910 on Friday 29th March. I should say by this stage I was fully gambling on tennis. Not match winner, that took too long, generally set winner or next game winner as that was quicker. Now this £910 would have cleared some of my urgent debts to allow me to continue on gambling. All I had to do was withdraw, and I was going to…...once I got it up to a nice round £1000. As you can guess I lost the lot. £300-£400 on Benoit Paire was one of the worst hits but I was gambling like a mad man. That was how I bet when I had winnings, the stakes got out of control. By the time I was leaving work at 6pm on the Friday the whole £910 was gone. I was betting on ATP, Challenger, ITF, any tennis that was on I was betting on it. Back in the day I remember betting on a tennis match where they had one ball. Still a story that brings a smile to my face if I’m honest. A smile that consists of a mixture of shame and cringe. That Friday night I deposited whatever I had left in and managed to win back a good chunk of the money, but it still wasn’t enough. It still wasn’t what I had before. So the whole weekend went like that, up and down, up and down. I went to a family dinner and sat betting on my phone the whole night. That’s how my life has been the last number of years, i’m present at gatherings, or nights out but my mind is deep in my phone gambling away not giving a shit about anyone. Eventually the money ran out that weekend. I was a mess. I could have actually made it work financially and gotten through the month but mentally I was gone. I could tell my brain had put me into a nosedive and the only way this was all ending was in disaster. Maybe not this month, or this year but I was being flown towards rock bottom. I sat down on the Monday and wrote out everything that I owed, who I owed it to, a budget going forward. It was grim enough reading, £18k in the hole. The money wasn’t the issue, it was how it was making me feel, the time I’ve been wasting. The fact that I finally couldn’t take anymore, that I was ready to wave the white flag and say gambling has won, it defeated me. I found out when and where the nearest GA Meeting was to me and wrote that down too. So I found a set of balls and on the Tuesday I told my girlfriend. My attitude was that life can’t be any worse for me than it currently is. I was a mess, I cried, I honestly expected her to tell me to get out and I wouldn’t have blamed her, but she was amazing. She was angry obviously, but she was so supportive. Then I called my parents round and told them. They were disappointed, confused but also really supportive. Then the next day I told my closest friends who were again all really supportive. I owe them some money too and they’ve been great about setting up a payment plan to pay that back. I can imagine some people saying that I didn’t hit rock bottom in comparison to others, I felt that way myself to be honest. I felt like I had gotten off lightly but looking back the cycle I was in was soul destroying and although I didn’t cause the devastation others have caused I knew I needed to reach out for help as I couldn’t do it on my own. I registered for GAMStop and self excluded online for 5 years which has taken the avenue of online gambling away from me. A vital step if online is your vice. I also handed over control of my finances to my partner which again removed another temptation. I’ve since learned in recovery that gamblers need 3 things, time, opportunity and money, take away one of those and you won’t be able to gamble. I took away two with these simple steps. I then went to my first GA Meeting on Wednesday 3rd April. The time doesn’t suit me for that, Monday at 9pm is my meeting but I felt I needed to get to one ASAP. I don’t know what I expected GA to be, some sort of church run cult filled with a bunch of old men desperate for a bet but it’s one of the most amazing groups I’ve ever found. It’s a dumping ground for all my shit and it’s a place where I can listen to other people’s stories. Without sounding sexist, it’s something a lot of men could do with outside of addiction, a place to talk about life and how they are feeling. I take a 50 mile round trip every Monday to get there. When I was gambling if I had to travel 50 miles to get internet to gamble you can guarantee I’d have travelled every day. When I leave a meeting I am buzzing, for all the right reasons. I’m a lifer when it comes to GA now and I am fine with that. I am also a member of the Problem Gambling Support Group and we run three meetings a week via Skype. This group has been so influential to my recovery and I have met so many good people I now consider friends through it. The topic meeting style is completely different to what happens at my own GA so it fits into my recovery perfectly and gives me a different perspective. I have a sponsor, who has had a massive impact on my recovery. He has helped me work the Steps and is always there if I need him. At times it’s hard to tell who is sponsoring who but that sort of dynamic works well for me as I see him as a friend first and sponsosponsee second. I have also found a passion for writing about my journey and post my stuff on my blog, on GamCare and on the Reddit Problem Gambling Sub. I have been told my stuff is very good and people seem to get a lot from it. As I explained at a recent meeting I am still learning how to deal with praise, it makes me feel awkward. I’m not sure if it’s from years of not wanting to be the focus of people's attention because of the fear they might ask questions and my addiction would be exposed. Whatever the reason I am working on being able to accept praise and enjoy it and as I was told at the last meeting...a simple thank you is usually enough. I’ve been clean for over 9 months now, and I have not struggled with urges to gamble. My life is amazing, it always was but I was too wrapped up in my addiction to notice. I literally had everything I could ever want. I have an amazing partner and two amazing children along with my parents who are absolutely fantastic. I have my health, a job and my friends are another support network I couldn’t do without now. They stood by me when I admitted my problem and they gave me the belief that I could do this. Recovery is now my focus along with my family. The debt can be managed, stopping gambling is one day at a time, but the main focus of my recovery will be fixing my character defects, helping others, being open and honest to people and not being a selfish asshole. I would like to think those that know me now can at least drop the selfish part when describing me. I have put plenty of work into my recovery and I feel like I am getting the benefits out of it. I have a routine when it comes to meetings and they don’t impact on my family life. Is every day amazing? No it’s not. Some days are rather boring and some days are tough, but that’s life. Some days you have to make chicken salad out of chicken shit. I have accepted what I am, I am a compulsive gambler and I need to be the one who changes. No one else around me needs to change, I am the common denominator. I have noticed a change in myself and those closest to me. They all seem happier, more content, happy to have this me in their life and not the old me. I wasn’t a nice partner, father, son or friend when I was in active addiction. I don’t want to be the person I was before I started gambling either because I am pretty convinced he was an asshole as well. I am using this recovery to become the man I want to be, the man I can look in the mirror and be proud to be. As I said, I have accepted that I am a compulsive gambler and I cannot have a single bet because it will lead me back to active addiction. I have no issues with the gambling industry or people who gamble, I just know that I am unable to gamble as it ends in disaster. I feel there should be more discussion around problem gambling and the industry should be putting more money into helping problem gamblers and to help identify problem gamblers. It’s a fine line though, as I know if a bookie told me they felt I had a problem and wouldn’t accept a bet I’d have been angry and just went somewhere else. You need to be ready for recovery to fully embrace it. I never was until April 2nd. For the people in recovery we need to be ready to help those that get to the stage where they are ready for recovery. We are the ones who these people will come to rely on as we’ve been through it, you can tell when talking to someone who hasn’t had a gambling addiction they just don’t understand. Over the coming years I think there will be a significant rise in people looking for help with problem gambling. I don’t feel like my story is close to the worst out there and I have read and heard some people who have the opinion that you need to cause devastation before recovery will work. That’s bollocks and that sort of attitude is why GA is filled with old men and young people are reluctant to stay. I have come to believe it doesn’t matter how much you have lost, how many relationships you have destroyed or what age you are, all you need is a desire to stop gambling and that is the qualification for entering recovery. For now though, for me, my next bet won’t be about the money I lose, I’ll lose my partner and my children as well and that’s not a bet that I am not willing to make. Mark
Every weekday evening at around 9pm, in the Daily Mail’s headquarters in Kensington, west London, the slightly stooping, six-foot three-inch figure of Paul Dacre emerges into the main open-plan office where editors, sub-editors and designers are in the final stages of preparing pages for the next day’s paper. The atmosphere changes instantly; everyone becomes tense, as though waiting for a thunderstorm. Dacre begins with a low growl, like an angry tiger. His voice rises as several pages are denounced, along with those responsible. Imprecations reverberate across the office, sometimes punctuated by the strangely anomalous command to a senior colleague, “Don’t resist me, darling.” Pages must be replaced or redesigned, their order changed, headlines altered. New pictures are required with new captions. Dacre waves his long arms, hammers the air with his hands, shouts even louder and, if particularly agitated, scratches himself. Nobody tries to argue. For all the fear and exasperation – “He never thinks of logistics and he has no idea of what’s an unreasonable request,” says one former sub-editor – there is also admiration. Dacre, Fleet Street’s best-paid editor, who earned almost £1.8m in 2012, has been in charge of the Mail since 1992 and, by general consent, is the most successful editor of his generation. The paper sells an average of 1.5 million copies on weekdays, 2.4 million on Saturdays. Only the Sun sells more but, on Saturdays, the Mail has just moved ahead. Its 4.3 million daily readers include more from the top three social classes (A, B and C1) than the Times, Guardian, Independent and Financial Times combined. Its long-standing middle-market rival, the Daily Express, slightly ahead when Dacre took over, now sells less than a third as many copies. Under Dacre, the Mail has won Newspaper of the Year six times in the annual British Press Awards – twice as many prizes as any other paper. If anything, its authority and clout have grown in the past two years as Rupert Murdoch’s Sun has struggled with the fallout from the hacking scandal. Politicians no longer fear Murdoch as they once did. They still fear Dacre. The opposition from Murdoch’s papers to the government’s proposals that a royal charter should regulate the press is muted. Dacre’s Mail is loud and clear about the threat to “our free press”. Summoned twice before the Leveson inquiry – the second time because he had accused the actor Hugh Grant of lying in his evidence – he didn’t give an inch. Everyone who has ever worked for Dacre, who has just passed his 65th birthday, praises his almost uncanny instinct for the issues and stories that will hold the attention of “Middle England”. No other editor so deftly balances the mix of subjects and moods that holds readers’ attention: serious and frivolous, celebrities and ordinary people, urban, suburban and rural, some stories provoking anger, others tears. No other editor chooses, with such unerring and lethal precision, the issues, often half forgotten, that will create panic and fear among politicians. “He’s the most consummate newspaperman I’ve ever met,” says Charles Burgess, a former features editor who also occupied high-level roles at the Guardian and Independent. “He balances the flow of each day’s paper in his head.” “He articulates the dreams, fears and hopes of socially insecure members of the suburban middle class,” says Peter Oborne, the Mail’s former political columnist now at the Daily Telegraph. “It’s a daily performance of genius.” But Murdoch’s decline leaves the Mail under more scrutiny than ever. Is Dacre at last running out of road? Rumours circulate in the national newspaper industry that members of the Rothermere family, owners of the Daily Mail, are increasingly nervous of the controversy that Dacre stirs up, notably this year with its attack on Ralph Miliband, father of the Labour leader, as “the man who hated Britain”. More than any other editor since Kelvin MacKenzie ruled at the Sun – and, among other outrages, alleged that drunkenness among Liverpool football fans led to the Hillsborough disaster of 1989 – Dacre attracts visceral loathing. His enemies see the Mail, to quote the Huffington Post writer and NS columnist Mehdi Hasan (who was duly monstered in the Mail’s pages), as “immigrant-bashing, woman-hating, Muslim-smearing, NHS-undermining, gay-baiting”. The loathing is returned, with interest. In Dacre’s mind, the country is run, in effect, by affluent metropolitan liberals who dominate Whitehall, the leadership of the main political parties, the universities, the BBC and most public-sector professions. As he once said, “. . . no day is too busy or too short not to find time to tweak the noses of the liberalocracy”. The Mail, in his view, speaks for ordinary people, working hard and struggling with their bills, conventional in their views, ambitious for their children, loyal to their country, proud of owning their home, determined to stand on their own feet. These people, Dacre believes, are not given a fair hearing in the national media and the Mail alone fights for them. It is incomprehensible to him – a gross category error – that critics should be obsessed by the Mail’s power and influence when the BBC, funded by a compulsory poll tax, dominates the news market. It uses this position, he argues, to push a dogmatically liberal agenda, hidden behind supposed neutrality. Scarcely an issue of the Mail passes without a snipe and sometimes a full barrage in the news pages, leaders or signed opinion columns at BBC “bias”. To its critics, however, the Mail is as biased as it’s possible to be, and none too fussy about the facts. In the files of the Press Complaints Commission, you will find records of 687 complaints against the Mail which led either to a PCC adjudication or to a resolution negotiated, at least partially, after the PCC’s intervention. The number far exceeds that for any other British newspaper: the files show 394 complaints against the Sun, 221 against the Daily Telegraph, 115 against the Guardian. The complaints will serve as a charge sheet against the Mail and its editor. This year, the Mail reported that disabled people are exempt from the bedroom tax; that asylum-seekers had “targeted” Scotland; that disabled babies were being euthanised under the Liverpool Care Pathway; that a Kenyan asylum-seeker had committed murders in his home country; that 878,000 recipients of Employment Support Allowance had stopped claiming “rather than face a fresh medical”; that a Portsmouth primary school had denied pupils water on the hottest day of the year because it was Ramadan; that wolves would soon return to Britain; that nearly half the electricity produced by windfarms was discarded. All these reports were false. Mail executives argue that it gets more complaints than its rivals because it reaches more readers (particularly online, where the paper’s stories are repeated and others originate), prints more pages and tackles more serious and politically challenging issues. They point out that only six complaints were upheld after going through all the PCC’s stages and that the Sun and Telegraph, despite fewer complaints, had more upheld. But the PCC list, though it contains some of the Mail’s favourite targets such as asylum-seekers and “scroungers”, merely scratches the surface. Other complainants turned to the law. In the past ten years, the Mail has reported that the dean of RAF College Cranwell showed undue favouritism to Muslim students (false); the film producer Steve Bing hired a private investigator to destroy the reputation of his former lover Liz Hurley (false); the actress Sharon Stone left her four-year-old child alone in a car while she dined at a restaurant (false); the actor Rowan Atkinson needed five weeks’ treatment at a clinic for depression (false); a Tamil refugee, on hunger strike in Parliament Square, was secretly eating McDonald’s burgers (false); the actor Kate Winslet lied over her exercise regime (false); the singer Elton John ordered guests at his Aids charity ball to speak to him only if spoken to (false); Amama Mbabazi, the prime minister of Uganda, benefited personally from the theft of £10m in foreign aid (false). In all these cases, the Mail paid damages. Then there are the subjects that the Mail and other right-wing papers will never drop. One is the EU, which, the Mail reported last year, proposed to ban books such as Enid Blyton’s Famous Five series that portray “traditional” families. Another is local authorities, forever plotting to expel Christmas from public life and replace it with the secular festival of Winterval. It does not matter how often these reports are denied and their flimsy provenance exposed; the Mail keeps on running them and its columnists cite them as though they were accepted wisdom. The paper gets away with publishing libels and falsehoods and with invasions of privacy because the penalties are insignificant. Often the victims can’t afford to sue and, if they can, the Mail group, with £282m annual profits even in these straitened times, can live with the costs. The PCC, even when its rules allow it to admit a complaint, has no powers to impose fines or to stipulate the prominence of corrections. Besides, many victims don’t pursue complaints because they fear the stress of going to war with a powerful newspaper. They included the late writer Siân Busby who, the paper wrote in 2008, had received “the all-clear from lung cancer” after “a gruelling year”. In fact, the diagnosis had come less than six months earlier and she hadn’t received the “all-clear”. More important, as her husband, the BBC journalist Robert Peston, explained in the James Cameron Memorial Lecture in November this year, she wanted to keep the news out of the public domain to protect her children. “The Mail got away with it,” Peston said. “As it often does.” (The Mail, in a statement after the lecture, said the information had been obtained from Busby herself and that the reporter had identified himself as a Mail writer.) In his 2008 book Flat Earth News, the Guardian journalist Nick Davies compared the paper to a footballer who, to protect his goal, will deliberately bring down an opponent. “Brilliant and corrupt,” Davies wrote, “the Daily Mail is the professional foul of contemporary Fleet Street.” Even a list of official complaints and court cases doesn’t quite capture why the Mail attracts such fear and loathing. It has a unique capacity for targeting individuals and twisting the knife day after day, without necessarily lapsing into inaccuracies that could lead either to libel writs or censure by the PCC. For instance, as publication of the Leveson report on press regulation approached, the Mail devoted 12 pages of one issue – and several more pages of subsequent issues – to an “exposure” of Sir David Bell, a name then almost entirely unknown even to well-informed members of the public. A Leveson assessor and former Financial Times chairman, Bell was allegedly at the centre of a “quasi-masonic” network of “elitist liberals”, bent on gagging the press and preventing freedom of expression. This network, based on the “leadership” training organisation Common Purpose, had spawned the Media Standards Trust, of which Bell was a co-founder, which in turn had spawned the lobby group Hacked Off, an important influence on Leveson. To the Mail, this was a perfect illustration of how well-connected liberals, through networks of apparently innocuous organisations, conspire to undermine national traditions and values. The paper also targets groups, often the weak and vulnerable. The Federation of Poles in Great Britain complained to the PCC that the Mail ran 80 headlines between 2006 and 2008 linking Poles to problems in the NHS and schools, unemployment among Britons, drug smuggling, rape and so on. Most of the stories, as the federation acknowledged, were newsworthy and largely accurate. The objection was to the way they were presented and to the drip, drip effect of continually highlighting the Polish connection so that, as the federation’s spokesman put it, the average reader’s heart “skips a beat . . . with either indignation or alarm”. The PCC eventually brokered a settlement that led to publication of a letter from the federation.  Yet there is something magnificent about the Mail’s confidence and single-mindedness. Other papers, trimming to focus groups, muffle their message, but the Mail projects its world-view relentlessly, with supreme technical skill, from almost every page. It is a paper led by its opinions, not by news. It is not noted for big exclusives, nor even for rapid reaction. “We were often known as the day-late paper,” a former reporter recalls. “Dacre wouldn’t really be interested in a story until he’d seen it somewhere else. We would sometimes give our exclusives to other journalists. Dacre surveys all the other papers, selects the right lines for the next day and follows them.” Although Dacre has little enthusiasm for new technology – he still doesn’t have a computer on his desk – his paper is perfectly primed for the age of instant 24-hour news, when the challenge is not so much to find and report news as to select, interpret and elaborate on it. Long before other papers recognised the merits of a features-led or views-led approach, the Mail under Dacre was doing it. The Mail gives its readers a sense of belonging in an increasingly complex and unsettling world. Part of the trick is to make the world seem more threatening than it is: crime is rising, migrants flooding the country, benefit scroungers swindling the taxpayer, standards of education falling, wind turbines taking over the countryside. Almost anything you eat or drink could give you cancer. Above all, the family – “the greatest institution on God’s green earth”, Dacre told a writer for the New Yorker last year – is under continuous assault. The Mail assures readers they are not alone in their anxieties about this changing world. It is a paper to be read, not on trains or buses or in offices, but in the peace and quiet of your home, preferably with an old-fashioned coal fire blazing in the hearth. “Readers like certainty,” says a former Mail reporter. “Newspapers that have a wavering grip on their ideology are the ones that struggle. The Mail is like Coke. It’s consistent, reliable. Dacre is one of the best brand managers in the business. He lives the brand.” Dacre lives mostly in the shadows. His two appearances before the Leveson inquiry gave the wider public a rare glimpse; apart from Desert Island Discs in 2004, he never appears on television or speaks on radio. If the Mail needs to defend itself (and it deigns to do so only in the most desperate circumstances), the job is assigned to an underling. Requests for on-the-record interviews are invariably refused, as they were for this article. A rare exception was made for the British Journalism Review, whose then editor, Bill Hagerty (a former editor of the People), interviewed Dacre in the tenth year of his editorship. There was also that audience with the New Yorker last year. Public lectures are equally unusual for him, though he gave the Cudlipp Lecture (in memory of Hugh Cudlipp, a Daily Mirror editor who was an early hero of his) in 2007, and addressed the Society of Editors in 2008. Even former staff members mostly prefer not to be quoted when talking about Dacre. If they agree to be quoted, they wish the quotations to be checked with them before publication. BBC Radio 4 used actors for several contributions to a recent profile. The journalists’ fear is not only that they may be cut off from future employment or freelance work – “The Mail pays far better than anybody else and you don’t want to jeopardise the £2,000 cheque that might drop through the letter box,” said one writer – but also that the Mail may hit back. These concerns are shared by many politicians, who are equally reluctant to be quoted. Dacre has few social graces and even less small talk. His body language is awkward, his manner prickly. He seldom smiles and, according to one ex-columnist, “He doesn’t laugh, he just says, ‘That’s a funny remark.’” He treats women with old-fashioned courtliness, opening doors and helping them with coats, but is otherwise uncomfortable with them, perhaps because he was one of five brothers, went to an all-male school and has no daughters. He speaks gruffly, with a slight north London accent and an even fainter trace of his father’s native Yorkshire. He sometimes buries his rather florid face deep in his hands, as though exasperated with the world’s inability to share his simple, common-sense values. He became notorious for the ripeness of his language – so frequent was his use of the C-word, almost entirely directed at men, that his staff referred to “the vagina monologues” – but when Charles Burgess told him women didn’t like hearing it he was profusely apologetic. On Desert Island Discs, he confessed to shouting at staff. “Shouting creates energy,” he said. “Energy creates great headlines.” He still shouts, but in recent years, as an insider reported, “He’s no longer the expletive volcano he once was; his barbs these days tend to concern the brainpower of his target and their supposed laziness.” He owns three properties: a home with a mile-long drive in West Sussex (known to Mail staff as Dacre Towers), a more modest weekday residence in the central London district of Belgravia and a seven-bedroom house in Scotland with a 17,000-acre shooting estate. He is a member of the Garrick Club, and sometimes takes columnists to lunch at Mark’s Club in Mayfair, which one recipient of his hospitality described as “very decorous, the sort of place you could have gone to in the 19th century”. He sent both of his sons to Eton. There are no stories of past or present indiscretions involving women, alcohol or drugs. Jon Holmes, a contemporary at Leeds University who is now a sports agent, recalls him as “a very cold fish; he never, ever, seemed to go out in a group for a drink or a meal or anything”. A former Mail reporter says: “We’d all be in the Harrow [a Fleet Street pub, heavily frequented by Mail journalists], and he would come in, buy a half-pint, take it to the opposite end of the bar, drink alone, and leave without speaking.” He has an apparently stable and successful marriage to a woman he met at university, which has lasted 37 years. He frequently attends Church of England services, but is not a believer. He likes and sometimes goes out to rugby union matches, the opera and theatre – the last partly because his wife, Kathleen Dacre, is a professor of theatre studies and partly because he has a son who is a successful director and producer with surprisingly avant-garde leanings. Asked what television he watched, he once mentioned Midsomer Murders and nothing else. He mostly eschews the trappings and opportunities of wealth and power. It is impossible to imagine him as a member of the Chipping Norton set or anything like it. He rarely dines or lunches with the powerful or fashionable, nor does he attend glitzy parties and social events. Frequently, he lunches in his office on meat and two veg. Sometimes he will lunch with politicians, but he has little respect or liking for them as a class and thinks it wise to keep his distance; Oborne recalls how, one evening, he ignored at least five increasingly urgent requests to take a call from a senior Tory minister. He declines nearly all invitations to sit on committees; his chairmanship of an official inquiry into the “30-year rule” (under which Whitehall records were kept secret for three decades) was unusual. “Editorship is not for him a route to something else,” says a former employee.
Dacre was born and spent much of his childhood in Enfield, an unremarkable middle-class suburb of north London whose inhabitants, he told the New Yorker, “were frugal, reticent, utterly self-reliant and immensely aspirational . . . suspicious of progressive values, vulgarity of any kind, self-indulgence, pretentiousness and people who know best”. Though his parents divorced late in life, his family was then (at least in his eyes) stable, happy and secure. But the more important clue to him and his relationship with the Mail’s Middle England readership is the Sunday Express of the 1950s and 1960s under the editorship of John Gordon and then John Junor. “That paper,” Dacre told the Society of Editors, “was my journalistic primer . . . [It] was warm, aspirational, unashamedly traditional, dedicated to decency, middlebrow, beautifully written and subbed, accessible, and, above all, utterly relevant to the lives of its readers.” Talking to Hagerty, he described Junor’s Sunday Express as “one of the great papers of all time”. After leaving school in Yorkshire at 16, his father, Peter Dacre, joined the Sunday Express at 21 and stayed there for the rest of his working life – mainly as a show-business writer but also, for short periods, as New York correspondent and foreign editor. Each Sunday that week’s paper was discussed and analysed over the Dacre family dinner table. It was then in its heyday, selling five million copies a week, and it didn’t go into severe decline (it now sells under 440,000) until the 1980s. It was a formulaic paper, which placed the same types of stories and features in exactly the same spots week after week. As Roy Greenslade observes in Press Gang, his post-1944 history of national newspapers, it was “virtually devoid of genuine news”; what it presented as news stories were really quirky mini-features, starting, as Greenslade put it, “with lengthy scene-setting descriptions or homilies”. Its staple subjects were animals, motor cars and wartime heroes. Its biggest target was “filth”, in the theatre, the cinema, books, magazines and TV programmes. It particularly deplored any assault on the delicate sensibilities of children. Dacre’s father criticised the BBC in 1965 for the unsuitable content of its Sunday teatime serials. Lorna Doone, he wrote, ended “gruesomely”, with a man drowning in a bog, and in the first episode of a spy serial the actors used such expressions as “damn”, “hell” and “silly bitch” at a time supposedly reserved for “family viewing”. “Have the men responsible for these programmes,” asked the elder Dacre, “forgotten that there can be no family without children? What kind of men are they? Do they have families of their own?” Another piece denounced the BBC’s Sunday evening play for “an overdose of twisted social conscience”. The young Dacre was hooked by newspapers. He only ever wanted to be a journalist and he always had his eyes on editing: “I’m a good writer, but not a great writer,” he told Hagerty. As a child in New York, during his father’s posting there, he would wake to the clattering of the ticker-tape telex machine outside his bedroom. In school holidays, he worked as a messenger for Junor’s Sunday Express and then spent a gap year before university as a trainee on the Daily Express. At the fee-charging University College School in Hampstead, north London, he edited the school magazine, and once ran, he told the Society of Editors, “a ponderous, prolix and achingly dull” special issue about the evangelist Billy Graham. It “went down like a sodden hot cross bus”, teaching him the essential lesson, which the Mail remembers every day on every page, that the worst sin in journalism is to be boring. To his disappointment, his application to Oxford University failed. He went instead to Leeds, where he read English and edited Union News, taking it sharply downmarket from, in his own description, “a product that looked like the then Times on Prozac” to one that ran “Leeds Lovelies” on page three. It won an award for student newspaper of the year. The paper supported a sit-in (led by the union president, Jack Straw, later a Labour cabinet minister), interviewed a student about “the delights of getting stoned”, wrote sympathetically about gay people, immigrants and homeless families, and called on students to help in “breaking down the barriers between the coloured and white communities of this town”. At the time, he subsequently claimed, he was left-wing, though Jon Holmes, who worked on Dacre’s Union News, says: “I never heard him express a political view except in favour of planned economies for third-world, though not first-world, countries.” His left-wing period, as he calls it, continued until the Daily Express, which he joined as soon as he left Leeds, sent him to America in 1976. He stayed there for six years, latterly working for the Mail. “America,” Dacre told Hagerty, “taught me the power of the free market . . . to improve the lives of the vast majority of ordinary people.” The Mail brought him back to London in the early 1980s and made him news editor. According to various accounts, he would “rampage through the newsroom with arms flailing like a windmill”, shouting “Go, paras, go” as he despatched reporters on stories. He climbed the hierarchy until in 1991 he became the editor of the London Evening Standard, then owned, like the Mail, by the Rothermeres’ Associated Newspapers. Circulation rose by 25 per cent in 16 months and Rupert Murdoch sounded him out about the Times editorship. To stop him leaving, the Mail editor David English resigned his chair, recommended that Dacre should replace him, and moved “upstairs” as editor-in-chief, another title that Dacre eventually inherited after English died in 1998. Dacre’s editorship has been more successful than his mentor’s but most staff do not love him as they did English. English, though capable of great coldness to those who fell into disfavour and no less likely to fly off the handle, had charm and charisma. “He would be delighted when you rang,” a former foreign correspondent says, “and he’d want to gossip and know about everything that was going on. Sometimes we’d talk for an hour. But Paul doesn’t give good phone.” He will invite writers into his office, push a glass of champagne into their hands and start saying their latest story is rubbish even as he does so. “And you hardly got time to finish the bloody drink,” a former reporter complains. A former executive says: “His track record for creating columnists is nil. He buys them up from elsewhere. He doesn’t home-grow talent because he doesn’t nurture and praise it. That’s where he’s unlike English.” Dacre is a passionate and emotional man. Though the story that he sometimes sheds tears as he dictates leaders is probably apocryphal, nobody who has worked with him doubts that he is sincere in the views he and the Mail express. “He’s not an editor who wakes up in the morning and wonders what he should be thinking today,” says Simon Heffer, a Mail columnist. Another columnist, Amanda Platell, a former editor of the Sunday Mirror and press secretary to William Hague during his leadership of the Conservative Party, says: “When I was an editor, I had to second-guess my readership because they weren’t my natural constituency. Paul never has to do that.” But while his views are mostly right-wing, he is not a reliable ally for the Conservative Party, or for anyone else. This aspect of his way of working is little understood. More than most editors, it can be said of him that he is in nobody’s pocket, not even his proprietor’s. He inherited from English a paper that was slavishly pro-Tory (“David was always in and out of No 10,” said a long-serving Mail editor), firmly pro-Europe and read mainly by people in London and the south-east. Dacre changed the politics of the paper and the demographics of its audience. Today, it is resolutely – some would say hysterically – Eurosceptic and a far higher proportion of its readership is from Scotland and the English north and midlands. The Mail has ceased to take its line from Tory headquarters or to act as a mouthpiece for Conservative leaders. Indeed, every Tory leader since Margaret Thatcher has fallen short of Dacre’s exacting standards. That applies particularly to John Major and David Cameron. According to a former columnist, Dacre regards the latter as “brash, shallow, unthinking and self-advancing” and he takes an equally jaundiced view of Boris Johnson. Twice he backed Kenneth Clarke for the party leadership, despite Clarke’s enthusiasm for the EU. Clarke is a model for the politicians Dacre generally favours even if he disagrees with most of what they say: earthy, authentic, unpretentious, consistent in their values. Jack Straw and David Blunkett – both, like Clarke, from humble backgrounds – are other examples. For a time, Dacre took a relatively kindly view of Tony Blair, having been impressed by the future prime minister’s “tough on crime” approach as shadow home secretary. But he was always suspicious of Blair’s socially liberal views on marriage, gays and drugs and he told Hagerty that once Labour attained power, he saw the new government as “manipulative, dictatorial and slightly corrupt”. He wished, he added, that Blair had “done as much for the family as he’s done for gay rights”. Gordon Brown, however, was smiled upon as no other politician had ever been. The two men developed a strange friendship, involving meals together and walks in the park, which one Mail columnist described to me as “the attraction of the two weirdest boys in the playground”. Brown, Dacre told Hagerty, was “touched by the mantle of greatness . . . he is a genuinely good man . . . a compassionate man . . . an original thinker . . . of enormous willpower and courage”. At a Savoy Hotel event to celebrate Dacre’s first ten years as editor, Brown was almost equally effusive, describing the Mail editor as showing “great personal warmth and kindness . . . as well as great journalistic skill”. “We tried to tell Dacre,” says a former Mail political reporter, “that Brown was not a very good chancellor and the economy would implode eventually. But frankly, Dacre has poor political judgement. They were united by a mutual hatred of Blair. Both are social conservatives; they’re both suspicious of foreigners; they both have a kind of Presbyterian morality. Dacre would say that Brown believes in work. It’s typical of him that he seizes on a single word as the key to his understanding of someone else.” It is inconceivable that the Mail would ever back a party other than the Conservatives in a general election, but Dacre’s support can be cool, as it was in 1997 and 2010. Although he described himself to Hagerty as “a Thatcherite politically” and though self-made entrepreneurs are among the few people who can expect favourable coverage in the Mail, Dacre is, to most neoliberals, a tepid and inconsistent supporter of free enterprise. Nor is he a neocon. The Mail opposed overseas military interventions in Iraq, Libya and Syria. It has denounced Guantanamo Bay, extraordinary rendition and torture. It may be hard on immigrants and benefit scroungers, but it is often equally hard on the rich and famous, pursuing overpaid bosses of public-service utilities to their luxurious homes, exposing “depravity” among the well-heeled and high-born, and rarely treating TV and film celebrities with the deference that is the staple fare of other tabloids. Many Mail campaigns have centred on liberal or environmental causes: lead in petrol, plastic bags, secret justice, the extradition to the United States of the hacker Gary McKinnon, and so on. For a time, the Mail furiously campaigned to stop Labour deporting failed (black) asylum-seekers to Zimbabwe, even though, almost simultaneously, it was berating ministers for allowing too many illegal immigrants to stay. Other campaigns, such as those against internet porn and super-casinos (both of which influenced government action), though reflecting the Mail’s conservative social agenda, highlighted issues that concern many on the left. Dacre’s most celebrated campaign, which even some of his enemies regard as his finest hour, was to bring the killers of Stephen Lawrence to justice. In 1997, over the five photographs of those he believed were responsible, he ran the headline “MURDERERS” and, beneath it, asserted: “The Mail accuses these men of killing. If we are wrong, let them sue us”. It was hugely courageous, but did it exonerate the Mail from accusations of racism? Critics point out that the paper rarely features black people except as criminals, though this is not exceptional for the nationals. The “soft” features on women, fashion, style and health are illustrated almost entirely by white faces and bodies.
Dacre’s somewhat belated support for the Lawrence campaign was prompted by a personal connection: Neville Lawrence, Stephen’s father, had worked as a decorator on Dacre’s London house of the time, in Islington. The Mail’s campaign, critics argue, was based on substituting one frame of prejudice for another. Young Stephen eschewed gangs and drugs, did his homework and wanted to go to university. His parents were married, aspirational and home-owning. In everything except skin colour, the Lawrence family represented Middle England, while his white alleged killers were low-class yobs who threatened the safety of all respectable folk. In that, as in much else, Dacre’s Mail recalls 1950s Britain, which rather patronisingly welcomed migrants from Asia and the Caribbean as long as they behaved as though they and their ancestors were English. “If you’re in twinset and pearls, your colour is irrelevant,” says a former Mail journalist. “And Dacre’s attitude to gays changed when he realised it’s possible to be an extremely boring gay person.” The Mail’s attitudes to drugs are also redolent of the 1950s. Writing about the disgraced Co-operative Bank chairman Paul Flowers, Stephen Glover – the Mail columnist whose views, according to insiders, track Dacre’s most closely – criticised commentators who “concentrated on his financial unsuitability”, placing “relatively little emphasis” on his “moral turpitude”. Most of all, the Mail seems determined to uphold the 1950s ideal of womanhood: the stay-at-home mother who dedicates herself to homemaking and prepares a cooked dinner for her husband on his return home every night. That, the paper’s defenders say, is something of a caricature of the Mail’s position. It objects not so much to working mothers as to middle-class feminists who insist that women can “have it all”. English aimed at turning the Mail into “the women’s paper”, and succeeded: it became the only national newspaper where women accounted for more than half the readership. That remains true, and yet Dacre sometimes seems determined to drive them away. The paper subjects women’s bodies, clothes and deportment to relentless and detailed scrutiny, and often finds them wanting, particularly in the thigh and bottom department. It gives prominent coverage to research that warns of the negative effects of working mothers on children’s lives. The Mail’s poster girl is Liz Jones, the columnist and fashion editor celebrated for her self-hatred and misery. “She has so much,” says another Mail journalist, “lots of money, expensive houses, the newest clothes. But she’s never had a child, she hasn’t kept hold of a man, and she’s unhappy. The message is: it’s what happens to you, girls, if you pursue worldly success. You can succeed but, oh boy, you will suffer for it.” The Mail’s punishing hours, requiring news and features executives to stay at the office until late into the evening (not uncommon in national newspapers), and its largely unsympathetic attitude to part-time employment make it an unfriendly environment for working mothers. When Dacre took over at the Mail, he immediately appointed a female deputy, which, said another woman who then had a senior role in the group, “was quite a statement”. But the paper now has few women in its most senior positions, other than the editor of Femail (though sometimes even that post is occupied by a man), and few staff have young children. Yet in some respects, the Mail, even though it does not recognise the National Union of Journalists, is a good employer. Unlike the Mirror, it is not under a company ruled by accountants who single-mindedly seek “efficiencies”. Unlike the Times and the Sun, it does not have a proprietor who touts his papers’ support to the highest bidder. Unlike the Guardian and Independent, it is not beset by financial problems. The proprietor, Viscount (Jonathan) Rothermere, whose great-grandfather Harold Harmsworth founded the paper with his brother Alfred in 1896, allows his editors wide freedom, as did his father, Vere Rothermere, who appointed Dacre. The Mail, alone among national newspapers, has had no significant rounds of editorial redundancies in recent years and its staffing levels (it employs about 400 journalists) are comparable to what they were a decade ago. Dacre’s paper is his sole domain; MailOnline is run separately (though Dacre, as editor-in-chief, has oversight) and although the website carries all daily and Sunday paper stories, much of its content is self-generated and the editorial flavour is distinct. Dacre demands, and mostly gets, a generous budget, paying high salaries for established editorial staff and columnists and high fees for freelance contributors. Journalists are driven hard but, at senior levels in particular, they rarely leave, not least because Dacre is as loyal to them as they mostly are to him. Outright sackings are rare and nearly always accompanied by large payoffs. Those who do leave often reach the top elsewhere. The current editors of both Telegraph papers – Tony Gallagher at the daily and Ian MacGregor at the Sunday – are former Mail executives. Despite more than two decades at the helm, Dacre shows few signs of slowing down. After heart trouble some years ago – which caused an absence of several months from the office – his holidays, which he usually takes in the British Virgin Islands, have become slightly longer and more frequent. But he still routinely puts in 14-hour days. Nevertheless, speculation about his future has grown among journalists on the Mail and other papers. At the end of November, Dacre sold his last remaining shares in the Daily Mail and General Trust, the Mail’s parent company, for £347,564; he disposed of the majority in 2012. His latest contract, signed on his 65th birthday, is for one year only. Geordie Greig, the 53-year-old editor of the Mail on Sunday, is widely regarded as the most likely successor, though Martin Clarke, the abrasive publisher of the phenomenally successful MailOnline, now the most visited newspaper website in the world, is also tipped and Jon Steafel, Dacre’s deputy, is favoured by most staff. The surprising announcement in November that Richard Kay, the paper’s diarist and a long-standing friend of Dacre’s, is to leave his position looks like another straw in the wind, particularly given that his almost certain replacement is Sebastian Shakespeare, previously the diary editor at the London Evening Standard, where Greig was editor before he moved to the Mail on Sunday. Fleet Street rumour has it that Kay is being moved because he upset friends of Lady Rothermere, the proprietor’s wife, and that she is also behind the abrupt departure of the columnist Melanie Phillips, apparently on the grounds that her style – particularly during a June appearance on BBC1’s Question Time – is too shrill. Lady Rothermere, it is said, is desperately keen to oust Dacre in favour of Greig. Senior Mail sources pooh-pooh such tales, but they stop short of outright denials that Dacre is nearing the end of his days on the paper.
Have the following bundles up for sale today. All prices include the cost of shipping within the US, will ship via USPS media mail with tracking. Payments through PayPal only please. All albums in the bundles grade at VG/VG or better unless otherwise noted and are a combination of original US pressings, early US reissues and the occasional import - no modern reissues here. Not looking for any trades at the moment, but feel free to comment/PM with any questions! The Beach Boys Bundle - $18 shipped Holland The Best Of Beach Boys Concert Spirit Of America Pat Benetar Bundle - $18 shipped In The Heat Of The Night Crimes Of Passion Precious Time Live From Earth Tropico Seven The Hard Way Phil Collins Bundle - $15 shipped Hello, I Must Be Going! No Jacket Required Face Value Al Di Meola Bundle - $15 shipped Cielo e Terra Scenario Casino Land Of The Midnight Sun Emerson, Lake & Palmer Bundle - $20 shipped Brain Salad Surgery Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends - Ladies And Gentlemen In Concert Love Beach Works Vol. 2 Trilogy Genesis Bundle - $20 shipped Wind & Wuthering A Trick Of The Tail Abacab Three Sides Live Genesis Billy Joel Bundle - $20 shipped Glass Houses Songs In The Attic 52nd Street Streetlife Serenade The Nylon Curtain Kansas Bundle - $20 shipped Leftoverture Kansas Song For America Masque Point Of Know Return Steve Miller Band Bundle - $18 shipped Fly Like An Eagle The Joker Children Of The Future Sailor Nazareth Bundle - $25 shipped Expect No Mercy Close Enough For Rock 'N' Roll Hair Of The Dog Play 'N' The Game No Mean City Stevie Nicks Bundle - $15 shipped Bella Donna The Other Side Of The Mirror The Wild Heart Gary Numan Bundle - $20 shipped The Pleasure Principle I, Assassin The Alan Parsons Project Bundle - $18 shipped Pyramid Tales Of Mystery And Imagination - Edgar Allan Poe Eve I Robot Rainbow Bundle - $35 shipped Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow On Stage Long Live Rock N' Roll Down To Earth Lou Reed Bundle - $25 shipped Transformer New Sensations Rush Bundle - $35 shipped All The World's A Stage 2112 Caress Of Steel Fly By Night Permanent Waves Sinatra Bundle - $20 shipped Sinatra's Sinatra September Of My Years The Nearness Of You She Shot Me Down The Sinatra Family Wish You A Merry Christmas Cat Stevens Bundle - $20 shipped Back To Earth Catch Bull At Four Teaser And The Firecat Foreigner Tea For The Tillerman Styx Bundle - $20 shipped The Grand Illusion Pieces Of Eight Crystal Ball Paradise Theatre Kilroy Was Here U2 Bundle - $28 shipped Rattle And Hum Boy Under A Blood Red Sky Stevie Ray Vaughan Bundle - $30 shipped Stevie Ray Vaughan And Double Trouble – Live Alive The Vaughan Brothers – Family Style Yes Bundle - $28 shipped 90125 Going For The One The Yes Album Close To The Edge Yesterdays Tales From Topographic Oceans Neil Young Bundle - $28 shipped After The Gold Rush Landing On Water (Cover VG-) Trans Journey Through The Past Hawks & Doves Everybody's Rockin' BUNDLES BELOW SOLD Beatles Bundle - $35 shipped Sgt. Peppers (Orange Capitol label) The Early Beatles (VG-) Beatles '65 (Green Capitol label) Abbey Road Hey Jude (Orange Capitol label) Black Sabbath Bundle - $35 shipped Starter bundle on these guys. Please note that all four have a very slight edge warp in a certain spot that cause my tonearm to bob a bit but no issues with skipping. Live At Last Never Say Die Technical Ecstacy Sabotage (Cover VG-) Blue Öyster Cult Bundle - $25 shipped Agents Of Fortune On Your Feet Or On Your Knees Extraterrestrial Live Some Enchanted Evening The Revolution By Night Fire Of Unknown Origin Crosby, Stills, Nash (And Young) Bundle - SOLD CSN – Allies CSNY – American Dream CSNY – So Far CSNY - Deja Vu The Stills-Young Band – Long May You Run Deep Purple Bundle - $25 shipped Deep Purple Made In Japan Who Do We Think We Are Come Taste The Band Fleetwood Mac Bundle - $25 shipped Rumours Behind The Mask Tango In The Night Jethro Tull Bundle - $16 shipped Aqualung Too Old To Rock N' Roll: Too Young To Die Heavy Horses War Child John Lennon Bundle - $25 shipped Shaved Fish Double Fantasy Rock N' Roll Mind Games Walls And Bridges Paul McCartney Bundle - $24 shipped Ram Red Rose Speedway McCartney Band On The Run Wings Over America Simon/Garfunkel Bundle - $20 shipped Art Garfunkel – Watermark Paul Simon - Greatest Hits Simon And Garfunkel - The Graduate OST Simon And Garfunkel - Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme Simon And Garfunkel - Sounds Of Silence Talking Heads Bundle - $50 shipped Remain In Light Talking Heads: 77 True Stories Love For Sale 12" Single The Who Bundle - $25 shipped It's Hard Who Are You Tommy Live At Leeds The Kids Are Alright Quadrophenia (VG-) ZZ Top Bundle - $25 shipped SOLD Tres Hombres Afterburner Fandango Deguello El Loco
My computer had a mini heart attack last night and I wasn't about to do this on a cellphone... So here's the latest happenings with a slight delay! All my information comes from VisitIndiana so the list is not 100% comprehensive. If you know of anything that's missing, please post and share with everyone! If you've ever been to any of these events, or if you go this week, please share your experiences Also be sure to visit the city-specific subreddits This Week Only Northwest Indiana
Delphi
Ouibache Music Festival - July 27, 730-930pm, at Delphi Opera House. This quintet of locally grown musicians formed in 2000 celebrating American Roots music with a flair for jazz and anything else. Proceeds from the concert will benefit the missions of the Ouibache Music Festival and the Delphi Opera House
Michigan City
Old Lighthouse Museum S.S. Eastland Memorial - July 27 at the Old Lighthouse Museum. At 11am, the 104th Anniversary Memorial of the S.S. Eastland will commence, Station Michigan City Coast Guard will place a wreath in Trail Creek where Indiana Transportations dock was located. Father Lev of the Holy Trinity Orthodox Church will say memorial prayers. Speakers will tell the horrific story of the Eastland tragedy. WEFM 95.9 live radio will be at the museum from 9am-noon. The museum will be open free of charge today only from noon-4pm.
Gatsby at the Gardens - July 27, 6-9pm, at Friendship Botanic Gardens. Step into a Great Gatsby Garden Party! Enjoy a speakeasy evening set in the 1920's. Stroll the gardens, sip some giggle water, play bocce or badminton or cut the rug while listening to live jazz. $45; 21+event
Monticello
Main St. Tour & Taste of White - July 26, 500-1130pm, at Downtown Monticello. Concert-style music and delicious food/beverages. You won't want to miss this night of entertainment!
New Carlisle
New Carlisle Hometown Days - July 26-28 at 300 E Michigan St. New Carlisle Hometown Days is a 3 day family fun-filled weekend. Friday night we offer fireworks, parade on Sat, car show, famous wiffleball contest, kiddie tractor pull, bouncy houses, games, various vendors, food and entertainment.
Plymouth
Downtown Tractor Show - July 27, 8am-3pm, at 124 N. Michigan St. The streets of Downtown Plymouth will be filled with Tractors, Garden Tractors, Pedal Tractors and Hit-n-Miss Engines! There will also be food trucks with yummy treats to purchase. Autumn Leed and the River City Band will be playing from 12:00 pm til 2:00 pm. This is a FREE, family-friendly event!
Rensselaer
Jasper County Fair - July 20-27 at the Jasper County Fairgrounds on State Road 114. The annual fair includes rides, games, demolition derby, food vendors, craft vendors and more!
Whiting
U.S. Military All-Star Baseball Game - July 22, 7-10pm, at Oil City Stadium. The U.S. Military All-Stars will return to Northwest Indiana for a stop on this year’s Red, White & Blue Tour as they continue the mission of promoting the awareness of all Americans in support of the honorable sacrifices our armed forces make. The team is comprised of active duty servicemen from all branches of service around the world.
25th Annual Pierogi Fest - July 26-28 throughout Whiting. Taking place in Whiting, Indiana, Pierogi Fest® celebrates Eastern European food and culture with a wacky familial twist. Pierogi Fest® welcomes all to celebrate Eastern European heritage while poking a little fun at the same time.
Valparaiso
Festival of Magic - July 26-28 at the Aftermath Cidery and Winery. Join Aftermath Cidery and Winery for a family-friendly trip to everyone's favorite boarding school! Visit all locations on your map to complete the scavenger hunt and win a prize: Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, King's Cross, the Leaky Barrel, and more! Each location will offer both Adult Potions and drinks for Little Wizards and Witches
Northeast Indiana
Angola
Park-inn Movies: The Sandlot - July 25, 930-1130pm, at Potawatomi Inn. Bring your blanket or lawn chair to the lawn overlooking Lake James. Admission is free to Inn Guests, Campground Guests and with paid admission to Pokagon State Park. (Weather Permitting).
Auburn
Auburn Downtown Cruise-In - July 25, 530-800pm, at Courthouse Square. Join classic car enthusiasts around Courthouse Square downtown. See restored cars and other special vehicles of interest at this free event. Bring your family and stroll the streets, shop, have dinner in one of our local restaurants. There will be door prizes and a Crew's Choice Award for the most popular car. All show vehicles should arrive no earlier than 5:30 pm. Please enter at the corner of 7th & Cedar in order to check in and receive registration forms. All Cruise In's are held in Downtown Auburn around the square (Cedar, 9th, and Main.)
Berne
Berne Swiss Days - July 25-27 throughout Berne. The Swiss Day Celebration is a time for Berne to share it’s heritage with authentic Swiss costume, great food, craft vendors and merchandise. Residents and visitors alike enjoy the friendly competitions for all ages. From the 5K race to Big Wheel Competition for the younger ones to the Steintoss, there is something for everyone. On stage and around the festival you can hear Swiss music. Watch as couples dance the polka to live music on stage.
Fort Wayne
Allen County Fair - July 23-28 at the Allen County Fairgrounds. We welcome families to the 30th Annual Allen County Fair July 23rd to July 28th at the Allen County Fairgrounds, located off Carroll Road in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The 2019 Allen County Fair is home to Allen County 4-H and features many animal shows, projects and events throughout the week. In addition to 4-H festivities, the fair offers a full food court, carnival rides, and lengthily list of family-fun events. Highlighted events include: free ice cream social, hot air balloon fight/glow, 4X4 truck pull, demo derbies, kids day, live music, peddle truck races and much more.
Fort Wayne Pride Fest - July 26-27 at Headwaters Park. The two day event features live entertainment, vendor market, a beer tent, food plaza, workshops, tournaments, KidSpace and fun with the community! There are a variety of opportunities available for businesses and individuals who are looking to support Pride in the Fort including sponsorship, vendors, and volunteering. Pride is committed to bringing events throughout the year to build a stronger LGBTQ community outside of the festival. Check out our events page for more info.
Colonial America on the Frontier - July 27-28, 10am-6pm, at The Old Fort. Enjoy the sights, sounds, and smells of the American Revolution at Fort Wayne’s Historic Old Fort. The Continental Army and British forces will be on hand to provide live demonstrations throughout the day on period specific artillery and military maneuvers. Re-enactors will also bring to life the daily activities of this time period through demonstrations on period cooking, gardening, blacksmithing, and much more! The Fort will be open to the public: 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. on Saturday, July 27, and 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, July 28. Tours of the Fort will be offered throughout the weekend.
Goshen
Elkhart County 4-H Fair - July 19-27 at the Elkhart County 4-H Fairgrounds. he fair hosts nationally known musical artists during their 5-night concert series. A sanctioned rodeo, PPL tractor pull, and demolition derby are also highlighted at the free grandstand during fair week. Bring your appetite and explore famous food row. With more than 70 food stands, the fair takes pride in offering mouth-watering, once-a-year, fair favorites. Over 3,000 4-H livestock and more than 4,000 4-H still exhibits are shown during the 9-day event. Daily entertainment can be been found on every corner of the grounds, with multiple shows and exhibits included with your gate admission. Thrill seekers of all ages will want to visit the mid-way, complete with roller coasters, games and kiddie rides for the young fairgoers.
LaGrange
Amishland and Lakes Bicycle Tour - July 27-28, 6am-1pm, at Lakeland High School. Amishland and Lakes, based at Lakeland High School in LaGrange, Indiana, visits a world where lifestyles have remained almost unchanged for over a hundred years. One of the friendliest rides around, you’ll enjoy seeing and meeting families, women’s groups, regional cycling clubs, and tandem pairs who tell us they love our routes because they are so “tandem friendly.” There are wide open spaces, clean country air, friendly people and lots of great food. There is plenty to explore, experience and eat. Amishland and Lakes is famous for great SAG food (watermelons, peaches, blueberries, bananas, fresh baked cookies and more), and there are also Amish bakeries, restaurants and homemade ice cream parlors along the route. The routes range from 22 to 100 miles, offering smooth, quiet roads, where buggies are numerous and cars are few (both days begin and end at the High School). We also offer directions for a do-it-yourself Friday option to ride the Pumpkinvine Nature Trail. Camping is available at the 4-H Fairgrounds across from our start location. For more details go to http://amishlandandlakes.com
North Webster
11th Annual Dixie Day Festival and Arts & Craft Fair - July 27, 8am-5pm, at 102 S. Morton St. The Dixie Day festival honors the landmark sternwheel paddle boat. It also encourages everyone to visit North Webster. The Dixie Boat has been cruising Webster Lake every summer since 1929 and attracted more than 13,000 riders last season. Dixie Day Festival is a dream come true with a list of activities and events that continue to grow. Extra Dixie cruises will be added for Saturday afternoon of the festival as well as the regular evening cruises. What to expect: North Webster Fire Department Pancake/sausage breakfast - 7am until out, Arts and Craft fair- 10a- 4p, 5K Run like a Pirate/Walk like a Captain, Car, truck, and bike show 10a-3pm, Boat show- 8am-4pm, Delicious food trucks, Tractor Show 10a-3p, and Ride the Dixie Sternwheel on beautiful Webster Lake.
Shipshewana
Lauren Talley - July 23, 7-9pm, at the Blue Gate Theatre. Showtime: 7:00pm | Doors Open: 6:30pm Prices: Tickets Only - $19.95 | Dinner and Theater - $37.95
The Taylors - July 25, 7-9pm, at the Blue Gate Theatre. Showtime: 7:00pm | Doors Open: 6:30pm Prices: Tickets Only - $19.95 | Dinner and Theater - $37.95
Legacy Five - July 26-27, 7-9pm, at the Blue Gate Theatre. Showtime: 7:00pm | Doors Open: 6:30pm Prices: Tickets Only - $39.95 | Dinner and Theater - $57.95
Central Indiana
Carmel
SetonFest - July 25-27, 6-10pm, at St. Elizabeth Seton Catholic Church. SetonFest is a three-day festival that includes carnival rides, a different band each night, food, bingo, a casino, beer garden and more. Free parking and free admission.
Fishers
2019 Topgolf Tour - July 22, 6-11pm, at Topgolf Fishers. Team up, play and earn your way to Las Vegas and $50,000. There are 19 Regional Tournaments at Topgolf locations across the US, UK, and Australia, between June 18 and August 14. Playing a variety of Topgolf signature games that test strategy and accuracy, two-person teams compete against one another for a spot at the Topgolf Tour Championships in Las Vegas, with full VIP treatment. Only one team from each Regional Tournament makes it through to compete for the glory and a life changing prize. WHAT'S INCLUDED Entry into Topgolf Tour Regional Tournament, Minimum 2.5 hours of game play, Hot buffet, Official Topgolf Tour Insulated Water Bottle, $5 donation to Bunkers in Baghdad from every US player registration.
Frankfort
25th Annual Frankfort Hot Dog Festival - July 26-27 at Prairie Creek Park. Indiana's largest two-day hot dog festival features vendors, family fun, hot dog eating contests, dachshund races and HOT DOGS!
Gas City
Gas City Concerts in the Park Presents Keith Anderson - July 23, 7pm, at Gas City Park. This is a FREE concert brought to you by the Gas City Concerts in the Park committee.
Gas City Concerts in the Park Presents The Park Avenue Band - July 26, 7pm, at Gas City Park. This is a FREE concert brought to you by the Gas City Concerts in the Park committee
Indianapolis
Indy Shorts International Film Festival - July 25-28, 10am-10pm, at the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. The Indy Shorts International Film Festival, presented by Heartland Film and the organizers of the Heartland International Film Festival (HIFF), is an Academy Award®-qualifying fest dedicated to the art of short film! Last summer, Indy Shorts expanded as its own separate event from HIFF, becoming the largest short film festival in the Midwest - showcasing storytelling from around the world. All winners (Grand Prize and Audience Choice Awards) will play encore screenings at HIFF in October 2019. General ticket info at https://heartlandfilm.org/indyshorts/.
Athenaeum Soireé: An Affair on the Ave - July 25, 630-900pm, at Athenaeum Foundation, 401 East Michigan St. The Athenaeum Soireé: An Affair on the Ave is an annual fundraiser featuring pairings of culinary creations and delicious handcrafted beverages from local establishments as well as live entertainment, silent auctions and more at this business casual, 21+ indoor event.
7th Annual Iron Eagle Paddle & Run - July 27, 8am-6pm, at Eagle Creek Park. Athletes of all ages can explore Eagle Creek Park, one of the nation’s largest city parks, via land and water alternating between trail runs and a canoe/kayak leg. Starting at the beach, the race consists of a 2.5-mile trail run, 1.5-mile paddle and 2.5-mile trail run back to the beach. Participants can enter as an individual or 2-person team. They have the option to bring personal kayaks or canoes with life jackets and paddles, or rent a boat in advance from Eagle Creek Outfitters. Spectators are more than welcome to come show support. Awards will be presented to the top solo female, the top solo male, the top team and the top relay team. An after party will be held post-race at the Earth Discovery Center. 100% of proceeds benefit the Eagle Creek Park Foundation. To Register: Visit EagleCreekPark.org
Kokomo
RhumFest 2019 - July 27, 2-10pm, at Kokomo Arts Pavilion in Foster Park. Enjoy live music by local students and instructors of Rhum Academy of Music in Kokomo. Free admission. Bring everyone for a family-friendly day of great music, art, food, and fun in Foster Park. With back-to-back performances in a variety of styles and genres all day you are sure to hear some music you love!
Lafayette
Tippecanoe County 4-H Fair - July 20-27 at the Tippecanoe County Fairgrounds. All phases of agriculture, 4-H exhibits, wide variety of youth activities, carnival rides, games and mouth watering fair food.
Tuesday on the Trail Nature Walk - July 23, 6-7pm, at the Haan Museum of Indiana Art. Get a closer look at nature as a guide leads you on an educational walk along our Nature Trail. The trail is about a mile long loop in the Museum’s three acre woods making it feel very much like a wilderness experience in the middle of town. Meet at the Nature Trail Entrance located at the south side of the Carriage house just off the parking lot. Fee: FREE
Mooresville
Bicentennial Park Summer Concert: Random Reaction - July 27, 7-9pm, at Bicentennial Park. Located at the corner of Indiana and Main Streets, the park is convenient to local restaurants to enjoy before the show. Popular local group Random Reaction will take the stage on July 27. Live music begins at 7 pm; bring your lawn chairs or blankets. Free.
Portland
47th Annual Vintage Motorbike Show - July 24-28 at the Jay County Fairgrounds. The LARGEST vintage motor bike show in the USA. Join us to reminisce the Simplex, Mustang, Whizzer, Cushman motorbikes and more! $5 admission fee per person/per day charged at the Fairground's front gate. Gates open at 6 AM daily.
Southern Indiana
Brownstown
Jackson County Fair - July 22-28 at the Jackson County Fairgrounds. The Jackson County Fair is the biggest and best! Still a free fair, find building after building of exhibits, visit barns, enjoy the midway and delicious food. Great grandstand events and racing!
Corydon
Bluegrass on the Square - July 27, 4-8pm, at Historic Downtown Corydon. Since its inception in 2003, Bluegrass on the Square has featured some of the most well-known Bluegrass musicians in the region. Now in its 16th year. All concerts are free and open to the public. July 27 features Hog Operation and Ida Clare
Floyds Knobs
Master Gardeners and 4-H Llamas & Alpacas Club - July 27, 800am-1230pm, at 400 Block Laffollette Station. Join us for Two Special Events;; Master Gardeners will be a the Market answering your Gardening questions and Floyd County 4H Club will be bringing the Alpacas & Llamas.
Lincoln City
Purple Veins: a tribute to Prince - July 27, 630-900pm, at Lincoln Amphitheatre. Purple Veins aim to re-create the magical power and energy of a classic Prince show circa 1985: an all-out dance party with relentless funk, all the hits, tasty lesser-known classics, theatrical elements, and dance choreography woven into it. Their aim is to be all-inclusive, with an age range of 18 to 40 and multiple ethnicities within the band..to both reach his music to millennials who didn’t live through it and transport those that did back in time to their younger days. With a charismatic and soulful frontman, a huge ensemble (16 plus!) of the funkiest cats, sultriest singers, and hottest dancers Wisconsin has to offer, Purple Veins is THE tribute show of all Prince tributes.
Moores Hill
Country Roads Shop Hop - July 25-28, 10am-5pm, at Country Roads of Dearborn and Ripley Counties. Six Antique, Vintage and/or Home Decor shops will be combining forces to give you an unforgettable shopping week, with the chance to win big in the process! You can start and end at whichever shop you would like. Get your brochure stamped at each location and you’ll be entered to win our Grand Prize Drawing, $150 in gift certificates! ($25 from each participating shop) * Must be 18 yrs or older to be entered and Limit 1 per family* No purchase is necessary to receive a stamp, but it will be difficult not to purchase anything when you see what these amazing shops have to offer! Are you ready for some Antique, Vintage or Home Decor shopping and hopping? Hop all over the country roads and visit each participating shop! The Greenbriar Shop - Guilford, IN, The White Swan - Moores Hill, IN, The Blue Willow House - Dillsboro, IN, The Rustic Nail - Dillsboro, IN, The Whistle Stop - Milan, IN, The Huntington Carriage House - Milan, IN.
Spencer
Wild Women's Hike - July 27, 10am-12pm, at McCormick's Creek State Park, 250 McCormick's Creek Park Rd. All are welcome to join us for the monthly DNK hike at McCormick's Creek State Park! The hike is free, but there is an entrance fee to get into the park. We'll be meeting at the Wolf Cave Parking area for about a 2-mile hike. Click here for the park map: https://www.in.gov/dnparklake/files/mccormicks_creek_trail.pdf Can't wait to hit the trail with you!
ONGOING EVENTS Northwest Indiana
Chesterton
Chesterton's European Market - Saturdays May through October at Third St and Broadway, Downtown Chesterton. An outdoor family/artisanal market held in historic downtown Chesterton from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Gary
Gary Southshore Railcats at U.S. Steel Yard - Various days at US Steel Yard. A day at U.S. Steel yard is non-stop fun, and that's even without the baseball! The RailCats promise a wide array of laugh-out-loud between inning entertainment, great giveaways , jaw-dropping fireworks and a family-first, kid-friendly atmosphere!
Miller Woods Hike Sundays - Every Sunday at Miller Woods. The hike starts at the National Lakeshore's Paul H. Douglas Center and travels through varied habitats including rare and beautiful black oak savanna and offers incredible views of Lake Michigan and Chicago. Wear sturdy shoes and bring water and insect repellent. This hike is offered every Sunday from 1:30 to 3:30pm.
Hammond
61: An Exhibit Celebrating the 61st National Park - July 2 - Sep 21 at the Indiana Welcome Center, 7770 Corinne Dr. The 6,500-square-foot exhibit hall will be transformed to represent the 15,000 acres of diverse landscapes and highlight activities available to those that visit the park system. The exhibit will feature 12 trail stops. There will be interactive exhibits for children along the trail, selfie stations and a large “sandbox” for building sandcastles. Visitors will also have the opportunity to learn about the 1,100 native plant species, rare and migrating birds, as well as recreational opportunities like camping, hiking, kayaking and cross-country skiing. Interactive activities will also give children a chance to become a Junior Ranger!
Hobart
Summer Market on the Lake - Thursdays through the end of August at Festival Park, 111 E Old Ridge Road. Come enjoy outdoor shopping featuring fresh produce, baked goods, ethnic and gourmet foods, beer garden, local live entertainment, jewelry, handmade crafts and so much more.
LaPorte
LaPorte Farmer's Market - Saturdays July through the end of October at Monroe St and Lincoln Way. The LaPorte Farmer's Market strives to build and strengthen the local food movement in LaPorte by showcasing our region's bounty and economic opportunities locally.
Logansport
Summer Sundown Music Series - Sundays May through August. Bring the lawn chairs or blankets and enjoy Sunday evenings listening to a different musical artist each week. Each Sunday evening you will find yourself at a different park with new musical artist. Check online to see where and who will be appearing!
Michigan City
Michigan City Municipal Band Concerts - Thursdays in June, July, and August, at the Washington Park Guy Foreman Amphitheater. Experience free live musical performances under the stars near the shores of Lake Michigan in Washington Park. Seating available or bring your own chair. June-August, Thursdays 7:30pm.
Light Keeper Harriet Colfax Month - July 1-31, 1-4pm, at Old Lighthouse Museum, 100 Heisman Harbor Rd. Harriet Colfax came into the 1858 Light House in 1861 an served faithfully until her retirement in 1904. Learn more about his Great Lakes legend all month long. The Michigan City Historical Society commissioned a color portrait of Harriet by local artist Wendy Wilcox Kerman. Come and view the portrait and enjoy the historic museum and don't forget to browse the gift shop.
Michigan City's Farmers Markets - Saturdays July - October at 801 S Washington St. and 1500 Franklin St. Saturdays through October 26th, 2019. Michigan City's Farmers Market aims to provide our community with the freshest produce, providing a space filled with locally grown food and artisan goods
Portage
Market on the Square - Fridays June through August, 3-9pm, at Founders Square. There will be over 20 vendors selling unique crafts, fresh produce, honey, flowers, breads and jams. Plus local food vendors selling food. Bands from the region will begin at 6. Then to top off the evening we will have a family movie at dusk.
South Bend
Keepers of the Fire: The Pokagon Band of Potawatomi - April 2019 to January 2020 at The History Museum. The rich history, culture, and art of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi is shared in this vibrant exhibit about the thriving community. Through interviews and oral histories, sculpture and beadwork, art and artifacts, the exhibit immerses visitors in the traditions and teachings of the Pokagon Band.
South Bend Cubs at Four Winds Field - Various days at Four Winds Field. The South Bend Cubs are the Class A minor league affiliate of the World Series Champion Chicago Cubs. Over the past 30 seasons, the team has won five Midwest League titles and has captured 12 division titles. In 2015 the team was named Ballpark Digest's Team of the Year and received the John H. Johnson President's Award, the highest award in minor league baseball.
The Dinner Detective Murder Mystery Show - May 4th 2019 to May 2nd 2020, 6-9pm, at the DoubleTree by Hilton. America’s largest interactive murder mystery dinner show! The Dinner Detective provides a hilarious evening of murder mystery, a 4-course meal, and a prize package for the top sleuth. Just beware, the killer might be sitting right next to you!
Northeast Indiana
Fort Wayne
Fort Wayne TinCaps at Parkview Field - Various days at Parkview Field. The TinCaps are entering their 10th season at Parkview Field, which has been rated as Minor League Baseball's No. 1 Ballpark Experience four consecutive years.
Middlebury
Faces of Middlebury - May 17th to October 4th throughout Middlebury. Grab your cameras and the map to locate each “face of Middlebury” and insert your face for the perfect picture. Free maps are available at local businesses and organizations. Post your pics on Middlebury Then & Now’s Facebook page or on Instagram using #facesofmiddlebury. Can you find all of them, up to 30 "faces"?
Gangsters, Saloons and Buggies on Roofs Guided Tour - May 29th to September 25th at the Downtown Middlebury library. You wouldn't know Middlebury had a rough-and-tumble past, but behind today's modern facades lie tales of small-town mischief, hoods on the lam and possible mysterious passageways. Get the inside story and secrets from a local with this tour of downtown. Tours are offered at 10am every Wednesday and at 630pm the first Tuesday of each month. Walking tour is approximately 1 hour. Allow time after the tour to visit the unique shops and restaurants in the area. $5 Group tours are available by advanced reservation (call 574.825.5601)
Giant Toadstools and the World's Fair Guided Walking Tour - May 30th to September 26th at the Krider World's Fair Garden. Enjoy a guided tour through living history! The Krider family of Middlebury once captured the imagination of the world. This tour of the garden that bears their name opens a window to the family's nursery at the height of its creative powers. The beauty will take your breath away, just as it did at the Chicago World's Fair in 1933. Tours are offered at 10am every Thursday and at 630pm the first Tuesday of each month. Walking tour is approximately 1 hour. Allow time after the tour to visit the museum, unique shops and restaurants in the area. $5 Group tours are available by advanced reservation (call 574.825.5601)
Shipshewanna
A Simple Sanctuary, the new musical - March 28th to October 31st at the Blue Gate Theatre. She prayed the day would never come, but when her past comes calling, Melissa James has no choice but to flee. Pursued and living on the run, she finds desperate sanctuary and surprising friendship in Amish country. Part suspense, part romance, A Simple Sanctuary is a compelling story of love tested, the cost of freedom, and the solace found in true community.
Shipshewana Flea Market - Tuesdays and Wednesdays from May through September, 8am-4pm, at the Shipshewana Auction. Nearly 700 open-air booths on 40 acres await you at the Midwest’s Largest Flea Market. Food courts, restrooms, scooter rentals and rest areas are on site. Open rain or shine. Also open for Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, and new weekend markets on August 16-17 (MotheDaughter Days). Antique Auctions are every Wednesday inside the Antique & Miscellaneous building.
Shipshewana Breakfast Club - Fridays in July and August, 830-1100am, at the Blue Gate Theatre. Breakfast: 8:30am | Program: 10:00am Price: $26.00 - Includes Breakfast and Show These concerts will be held at the Blue Gate Theatre July 12 - Lynda Randle July 19 - Allison Speer July 26 - The Taylors Aug 2 - King's Brass Aug 9 - Doug Anderson Aug 16 - Old Time Preacher's Quartet Aug 23 - Soul'd Out Quartet Aug 30 - TBA
Central Indiana
Fishers
Kroger Symphony on the Prairie - Saturdays and Sundays at Conner Prairie. The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra's summer series provides music from classical, pop, and rock genres from mid-June through Labor Day weekend. See performance schedule online indianapolissymphony.org
Hamilton County
Celebrate the 10th Year of Tenderloin Tuesdays - Tuesdays in July throughout Hamilton County. Celebrating the 10th year, dine along the Tenderloin Trail™. Don’t miss Tenderloin Tuesdays™ in July along the tastiest trail. Each Tuesday restaurants offer special deals on the Hoosier delicacy. For a complete list of participating restaurants in Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Westfield and Northern Hamilton County, visit TenderloinTrail.com.
Indianapolis
Hot Wheels: Race to Win - May 18th to July 28th at The Childrens Museum of Indianapolis. Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines and hold on tight as we open our Hot Wheels: Race to Win exhibit celebrating speed, safety, design, and power. Get revved up for the special performances, activities, and the occasional pit stop.
Treasures of Ancient Greece exhibit - Jun 15 to Jan 5 at The Childrens Museum of Indianapolis. This once-in-a-lifetime immersive exhibition brings to Indianapolis more than 150 ancient objects and artifacts, many of which have never been seen outside of Greece. The ancient Greeks revered the human body, and many of the depictions are nude. Featured are bronze and marble statues, gold jewelry and funerary objects, exquisite pottery, artifacts of the world’s first democracy, and an extraordinary replica of the Antikythera Mechanism, known as the world’s first computer.
Mind Tripping Show - March 1st to December 28th, 8:30-10PM at the Hilton Indianapolis Hotel and Suites. Mind Tripping: a Comedy with a Psychological Twist is an interactive show by Christian & Katalina, the #1 Husband and Wife Comedy Mind Reading Act in the Nation. Be a part of a mind-bending, reality-twisting interactive theatrical show. Think Candid Camera meets the Twilight Zone. Be prepared to have your perceptions challenged and your expectations turned upside down
Naturally Inspired Art Exhibition - May 24th to August 21st at The Indianapolis Zoo. After the paintings have dried and been professionally framed by The Great Frame Up Downtown, they are displayed for the summer in the Schaefer Rotunda at White River Gardens. Plus, you also get to enjoy the works of some of our more artistically inclined animals. Who knows — you may see a penguin Picasso, a walrus Warhol, an elephant Escher and many others! The Naturally Inspired Art Show presented by The Great Frame Up Downtown is included with Zoo admission.
Nickelodeon’s PAW Patrol Adventure Play - February 23 to July 28th at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis. The hero pups of Adventure Bay are coming to The Children’s Museum, and they need your help. It’s time to run some rescue missions, as we work together to overcome challenges and help everyone in Adventure Bay. Enter the Lookout. Save the Day in Adventure Bay. Be a Helping Hero on Jake’s Mountain.
The National Bank of Indianapolis Summer Nights Film Series - Various days June-August, at The Amphitheater. You can watch movies under the stars every weekend at Newfields. Doors open at 7 pm, when you can enjoy a picnic dinner, music, and activities, followed by that night’s movie, which will begin when twilight turns to night (usually 9:30 pm). Over the summer, over 20 movies will be shown—everything from black-and-white classics to modern blockbusters. All you need is a picnic (with non-alcoholic beverages only), chairs (for the back row of each tier), and blankets (in case the chair row is full). You will also want sunscreen and bugspray. No alcohol, pets, candles taller than 12 inches, or knives permitted. And if you want to travel light with just a chair and blanket, concessions will be available to purchase. Check out discovernewfields.org/summer-nights-2019 to see available films and to purchase tickets once they are available.
Zoolapalooza Concert Series - Fridays in June and July, 530-830pm, at the Indianapolis Zoo. Under the Bicentennial Pavilion, this incredibly fun night out is a great way to kick off summer weekends on Friday evenings with terrific live music. Concerts are free for members and included with Zoo admission, so you can play all day and dance all night! Seating under the Bicentennial Pavilion includes open tables on a first-come, first-serve basis
The Generous Pour at The Capital Grille, July 8 - Sep 1, 5-9pm, at 40 W. Washington Street. The Capital Grille’s annual The Generous Pour wine event has returned for its eleventh year. This year’s theme is Legends of the Land, where guests can sip on any combination of seven select wines including the Maggy Hawk 2015 Pinot Noir, the 2015 Cenyth Red Blend, and the Arrowood 2013 Red Blend. Each is from California’s Jackson Family that tell a unique story of origin and sustainability. From July 8th through September 1, 2019, guests are offered a customized wine tasting paired with the restaurant’s classic menu items, including hand-carved steaks and fresh seafood and appetizers with a flavorful twist for $28 per person with dinner.
Kokomo
First Friday Kokomo - First Friday of every month, 530-9pm, at Downtown Kokomo. Activities include art, music, food, local vendors, shops, entertainment, kid's activities & much more! Visit their Facebook page for monthly themes and schedule of all activities!
Kokomo Jackrabbits at Kokomo Municipal Stadium - Various days at the Kokomo Municipal Stadium. Enjoy a day at the ballpark! The Kokomo Jackrabbits baseball team are members of the summer collegiate Prospect League. Games are held late May through early August and feature fun themes and giveaways. Lawn and stadium seating available, starting at $8.
Lafayette
Karl Martz and the Legacy of IU Ceramics - May 4th to July 27th, 1-4pm, at the Haan Museum of Indiana Art. Martz’s influence spread throughout Indiana and beyond through the ceramics program that he established at IU in 1945, and through his students. Many of Martz’s students went on to teach at universities, and others established successful careers as independent ceramic artists. The exhibition features works by Karl Martz, faculty that taught (or still teach) in the IU Ceramics Department, and students who went on to establish successful careers in ceramics.
Richmond
Summer Story Hour - Mondays, 10-11am, at the Physical Building of the Joseph Moore Museum. Join us each Monday in June and July at 10am for a special hour of stories! Each week will feature a different book about nature or science with a corresponding craft or activity. All ages are welcome and stories are chosen particularly for children in preschool - first grade.
Westfield
Indianapolis Colts 2019 Training Camp - July 25 - Aug 15 at the Grand Park Sports Campus. Join us at the Indianapolis Colts 2019 Training Camp! Every day you can enjoy watching practice, giveaways, food & drink specials, interactive games, and more. Download your free tickets at www.colts.com/camp.
Southern Indiana
Birdseye
Wildlife Cruises on Patoka Lake - Wednesdays May through October at the Patoka Lake Marina. Not just a boat ride: cruise the second largest lake in Indiana upon a climate controlled tour boat to search for osprey, eagles, blue herons, loons and other wildlife. Two hour cruises embark EVERY WEDNESDAY at 10am beginning in May and continuing through October. Voyagers are encouraged to capture on camera baby osprey in their nests, an eagle in flight, and busy beavers as the boat passes by.
Wine Cruises on Patoka Lake - Every other Friday starting June 7th, 730-930pm, at the Patoka Lake Marina. Sip wine paired with hors d'oeuvres/desserts while enjoying the sunset on Patoka Lake on our 60 person tour boat! Enjoy 5-7 tastings of wine from a featured Indiana winery, and choose 2 glasses of your favorite to enjoy after the tasting portion. Bottles of wine available for purchase as well as additional glasses. Call (812) 685-2203 to reserve your spot today! Only $50/person or $98/couple. Visit our website to view the winery lineup.
Clarksville
Shrek the Musical - July 3rd - Aug 18th, 6-10pm, at the Derby Dinner Playhouse. Somebody once told me everyone’s favorite ogre is back in the hilarious and twisted adventure based on the Oscar-winning smash hit film. Follow this unlikely green hero on a life-changing journey full of romance and dozens of zany misfit characters. The perfect show for any age! Ticket price includes dinner, show, tax & parking. AAA discount available.
Evansville
Evansville Otters at Bosse Field - Various days at Bosse Field. Locally owned and a member of the Frontier League, the Otters are the darlings of summer. Great ball play combined with fun promotions throughout the game guarantee an evening of fun family entertainment. To top it off, the games are played at Bosse Field, a stadium built in 1915 and the site of the filming of "A League of Their Own" in 1992. Come watch our Boys of Summer from May through August!
Floyds Knobs
Floyds Knobs Farmers Market - Saturdays May through October at 400 Block Laffollette Station. Floyds Knobs Farmers Market Opening May 11 - October 26 Every Saturday from 8:30 am to 1 pm. Were an Indiana Grown Market and host a variety of Great Events throughout Season.
French Lick
The Art of the Monon - April 1st to August 31st, 10am-4pm at the French Lick West Baden Museum. The Monon was Indiana’s railroad and touched every town in Orange County. See the Monon paintings of renowned railroad artist Howard Fogg and other rare Monon items.
Huntingburg
Dubois County Bombers at League Stadium - Various days at the League Stadium. League Stadium was home to the Rockford Peaches in the hit movie A League of Their Own. The vintage signage, scoreboard, and atmosphere remain. The Bombers play in vintage-inspired uniforms - pants are knickered, stirrups are worn. The crack of a wood bat against a baseball resounds through the stadium. You may hear Who’s on First over the audio. We even have our own Peaches at the games keeping everything in the stadium rolling, while our coaches and players keep it exciting on the field.
Rising Sun
Rock on Rising Sun - April 10th to September 30th on Main Street. Search and re-hide painted rocks hidden within the City of Rising Sun city limits. Spearheaded by a local resident, thousands of rocks are painted throughout the season for kids of all ages to find and re-hide. Participants are encouraged to paint their own creations and hide within the city limits. Photos of found rocks are asked to be uploaded to the Rock on Rising Sun
Introducing the 10 stadiums of the Euro 2016 in France!
Welcome to this post fellow redditors! With the Euro 2016 less than 6 months away, it is time to introduce the stadiums that will host the fixtures of this tournament. For each city, you will find an in-depth description of the stadium, a photo album and a link to the city guide made by UEFA. Let me know if I made some mistakes or oversights. I hope you enjoy the reading! Nota Bene:
All kick-off times of the fixtures are CET.
The names of the stadiums have been standardized for the Euro 2016 if their name is from a naming deal (this is the case for Bordeaux and Nice stadiums). The current names of the stadium can be found in brackets.
All inauguration dates of the renovated stadiums are for the renovation for the Euro 2016 except for the Parc des Princes where the renovations were too minor to consider an inauguration date.
BORDEAUX
City guide Photo album Name: Stade de Bordeaux (Matmut-Atlantique) Location: Cours Jules-Ladoumègue, 33300 Bordeaux, France Coordinates: 44° 53′ 49″ N 0° 33′ 48″ W Status: New stadium Start of construction: 11/04/12 End of construction: 04/30/15 Cost: € 184m Architect: Herzog & de Meuron Owner: City of Bordeaux Tenants: FC Girondins de Bordeaux Inauguration: 05/23/15 (Bordeaux - Montpellier, 2-1) UEFA Capacity (normal capacity): 42,000 (42,115) Attendance record: 42,115 (ASM Clermont Auvergne - Stade toulousain, 18-14, 06/06/15) Pitch: Hybrid grass AirFibr Major international football events: France – Serbia (2-1), 09/07/15 Other major sporting events: 2015 French Rugby Championship (Top 14) Semi-finals Major concerts: - Fixtures: Group stage
06/11/16, 18.00: Wales v Slovakia
06/14/16, 18.00: Austria v Hungary
06/18/16, 15.00: Belgium v Ireland
06/21/16, 21.00: Croatia v Spain
Quarter-finals
07/02/16, 21.00: W41 v W43
Trivia: The Stade de Bordeaux is a new stadium build for the Euro 2016 and the replacement of the old stadium of Girondins of Bordeaux, Stade Chaban-Delmas, that hosted the 1938 and 1998 World Cup. This stadium is the cheapest of the 4 new stadiums. It has been designed by Herzog & de Meuron, architects of the famous Allianz Arena, and features a "floating" roof supported by 900 stranchions. In september 2015, the stadium has been named "Matmut-Atlantique" for 10 years and a price of € 2m per year.
LENS
City guide Photo album Name: Stade Bollaert-Delelis Location: Avenue Alfred-Maës, 62300 Lens, France Coordinates: 50° 25′ 58″ N 2° 48′ 54″ E Status: Renovated Start of renovation: January 2014 End of renovation: July 2015 Cost: € 70m Architect: Cardete et Huet Owner: City of Lens Tenants: Racing Club de Lens Inauguration: 08/08/15 (Lens – Red Star, 1-1) UEFA Capacity (normal capacity): 35,000 (33,443) Attendance record: 48,912 (Lens - Marseille, 2-1, 02/15/92) Pitch: Natural grass Major international football events: Euro 1984; 1998 World Cup (Laurent Blanc golden goal leads France to the Quarter-Finals) Other major sporting events: 1999 Rugby World Cup; 2007 Rugby World Cup Major concerts: Matt Pokora and Magic System free concert for the RC Lens centenary (07/14/06); Johnny Hallyday (06/06/09) Fixtures: Group stage
06/11/16, 15.00: Albania v Switzeland
06/16/16, 15.00: England v Wales
06/21/16, 21.00: Czech Republic v Turkey
Round of 16
06/25/16, 21.00: WD v 3B/E/F
Trivia: The stadium was build back in 1932 by unemployed workers that found explosives shells and grenades during the construction. The stadium can accommodate the whole population of Lens and will still have more than 2,000 empty seats. It has the particularity to be the only stadium in France that has its supporters kop in the side stand and not in the curve as usual. It has been the location of a scene in the movie "Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis", leader of the all-time French box-office, where you can hear "Les Corons", famous song sung by Lens fans.
LILLE
City guide Photo album Name: Stade Pierre-Mauroy Location: 261 Boulevard de Tournai, 59650 Villeneuve-d'Ascq, France Coordinates: 50° 36′ 43″ N 3° 07′ 50″ E Status: New stadium Start of construction: 03/29/10 End of construction: 07/15/12 Cost: € 282m Architect: Valode & Pistre and Pierre Ferret Owner: Eiffage Lille Stadium Arena Tenants: LOSC Lille Inauguration: 08/17/12 (Lille – Nancy, 1-1) UEFA Capacity (normal capacity): 50,000 (50,157) Attendance record: 49,626 (France – Jamaica, 8-0, 06/08/14) Pitch: Natural grass Major international football events: France – Jamaica (8-0), 06/08/14 Other major sporting events: 2014 French Rugby Championship (Top 14) Semi-finals; 2014 Davis Cup Final (France – Switzerland, 1-3); EuroBasket 2015 knockout stage; 2017 World Men’s Handball Championship Major concerts: Rihanna concert (07/20/13); Patrick Bruel concert (09/06/14); Johnny Hallyday concert (10/09/15) Fixtures: Group stage
06/12/16, 21.00: Germany v Ukraine
06/15/16, 15.00: Russia v Slovakia
06/19/16, 21.00: Switzerland v France
06/22/16, 21.00: Italy v Ireland
Round of 16
06/26/16, 18.00: WC v 3A/B/F
Quarter-finals
07/01/16, 21.00: W38 v W42
Trivia: The Stade Pierrre-Mauroy is a new stadium build for the Euro 2016. It is the only stadium in France to have a retractable roof that can be closed or opened in half an hour. It also has a retractable pitch and can be used as a sporting arena. This stadium holds the attendance record for an European basketball game (26,922, Spain - France, 09/17/15) and for a Davis cup game (27,432, France - Switzerland, 11/21/14). The owner of the stadium also own the Millau Viaduct (world's tallest bridge structure and highest bridge in Europe) and the Channel Tunnel.
LYON
City guide Photo album Name: Stade de Lyon (Parc OL) Location: Chemin du Montout, 69150 Décines-Charpieu, France Coordinates: 45° 46′ 01″ N 4° 58′ 52″ E Status: New stadium Start of construction: 10/22/12 End of construction: 01/06/16 Cost: € 405m Architect: Populus Owner: OL Groupe Tenants: Olympique Lyonnais Inauguration: 01/09/16 (Lyon – Troyes, 4-1) UEFA Capacity (normal capacity): 59,000 (59,500) Attendance record: 55,169 (Lyon – Troyes, 4-1, 01/09/16) Pitch: Hybrid grass AirFibr Major international football events: 2019 Women’s World Cup Other major sporting events: 2016 Challenge Cup and Champions Cup finals (Rugby) Major concerts: - Fixtures: Group stage
06/13/16, 21.00: Belgium v Italy
06/16/16, 18.00: Ukraine v Northern Ireland
06/19/16, 21.00: Romania v Albania
06/22/16, 18.00: Hungary v Portugal
Round of 16
06/26/16, 15.00: WA v 3C/D/E
Semi-finals
07/06/16, 21.00: W45 v W46
Trivia: The Stade de Lyon is a new stadium build for the Euro 2016 and the replacement of the old stadium of Olympique Lyonnais, Stade de Gerland, that hosted the Euro 1984 and the 1998 World Cup. It is owned by Lyon and the only one of the 10 Euro 2016 stadiums to be owned by the football club that play in it. The stadium will be candidate to host the Europa League final in 2018.
MARSEILLE
City guide Photo album Name: Stade Vélodrome Location: 3, boulevard Michelet, 13008 Marseille, France Coordinates: 43° 16′ 11″ N 5° 23′ 45″ E Status: Renovated Start of renovation: March 2011 End of renovation: June 2014 Cost: € 267m Architect: SCAU Owner: City of Marseille Tenants: Olympique de Marseille Inauguration: 10/19/14 (Marseille – Toulouse, 2-0) UEFA Capacity (normal capacity): 67,000 (67,394) Attendance record: 65,148 (Marseille – PSG, 2-3, 04/05/15) Pitch: Hybrid grass AirFibr Major international football events: 1938 World Cup; 1998 World Cup (Dennis Bergkamp famous last minute goal against Argentina); Euro 1960; Euro 1984 (France vs Portugal epic semi-final) Other major sporting events: 2007 Rugby World Cup; 2010 Rugby Challenge Cup final; 2011 French Rugby Championship (Top 14) Semi-finals Major concerts: Johnny Hallyday (4 times); Pink Floyd (07/12/89); U2 (07/14/93); The Rolling Stones (06/20/90 & 07/05/03); The Police (06/03/08); AC/DC (06/09/09); Paul McCartney (06/05/15) Fixtures: Group stage
06/11/16, 21.00: England v Russia
06/15/16, 21.00: France v Albania
06/18/16, 18.00: Iceland v Hungary
06/21/16, 18.00: Ukraine v Poland
Quarter-finals
06/30/16, 21.00: W37 v W39
Semi-finals
07/07/16, 21.00: W47 v W48
Trivia: The Stade Vélodrome is named after the cycling track surrounding the pitch when it first opened in 1937. The stadium has hosted many sporting events during its history such as tennis, field hockey, boxing, motorsports, handball, boules, greyhound tracks, baseball, US football and cycling. It is the only stadium, beside the Parc des Princes, to have hosted the 5 international football tourmanents in France (1938 and 1998 World Cup, Euro 1960, 1984, 2016). Before the renovation, the stadium was roofless and opened to the elements and to the "Mistral", a famous wind blowing in the southeastern France.
NICE
City guide Photo album Name: Stade de Nice (Allianz Riviera) Location: Boulevard des Jardiniers, 06200 Nice, France Coordinates: 43° 42′ 18″ N 7° 11′ 33″ E Status: New stadium Start of construction: 08/06/11 End of construction: September 2013 Cost: € 245m Architect: Jean-Michel Wilmotte Owner: City of Nice Tenants: OGC Nice Inauguration: 09/22/13 (Nice – Valenciennes, 4-0) UEFA Capacity (normal capacity): 35,000 (35,624) Attendance record: 35,200 (France – Paraguay, 1-1, 06/01/14) Pitch: Natural grass Major international football events: France – Paraguay (1-1), 06/01/14; France – Armenia (4-0), 10/08/15 Other major sporting events: RC Toulon rugby matches (6 in total) Major concerts: - Fixtures: Group stage
06/12/16, 18.00: Poland v Northern Ireland
06/17/16, 21.00: Spain v Turkey
06/22/16, 21.00: Sweden v Belgium
Round of 16
06/27/16, 21.00: RB v RF
Trivia: The Stade de Nice is a new stadium build for the Euro 2016 and the replacement of the old stadium of OGC Nice, Stade du Ray. The National Sports Museum is located in the stadium and was opened in 2014 after being moved out from Paris. The stadium has been named "Allianz Riviera" for 9 years and a price of € 1.8m per year. It is environmentally friendly with more than 4,000 solar panels and its own geothermal installation for heating drawing over three times its own energy requirements. The stadium also uses rain water channelled from the stadium roof into four collection reservoirs for pitch watering.
Trivia: The Parc des Princes used to host the national cup finals and be the national team stadium before the construction of the Stade de France. It also hosted 54 Tour de France finish. The stadium of the Stade Français (Parisian rugby team), Stade Jean Bouin, is right next to the Parc des Princes less than 100 meters away. The Paris ring road goes under the Parc des Princes and the Stade Jean Bouin through the Parc des Princes tunnel. The Parc des Princes pitch has been awarded "Best Ligue 1 Natural Pitch" the last 2 years thanks to Jonathan Calderwood, former Aston Villa's groundsmanager. After the Euro 2016, the Parc des Princes will be extented to a 60,000 capacity.
SAINT-DENIS
City guide Photo album Name: Stade de France Location: ZAC du Cornillon Nord, 93200 Saint-Denis, France Coordinates: 48° 55′ 28″ N 2° 21′ 36″ E Status: Already build Start of construction: 05/02/95 End of construction: 11/30/97 Cost: € 364m Architect: Michel Macary, Aymeric Zublena, Michel Regembal, Claude Costantini Owner: French State Tenants: The France national football team, The France national rugby team Inauguration: 01/28/98 (France – Spain, 1-0) UEFA Capacity (normal capacity): 80,000 (81,338) Attendance record: 80,430 (South Africa – England, 15-6, 10/20/07) Pitch: Natural grass Major international football events: 1998 World Cup (Lilian Thuram 2 only goals in NT career qualify France for the final; Zinedine Zidane brace leads France to their first World Cup trophy); 2003 Confederations Cup; 2 UEFA Champion’s League finals (Real Madrid – Valencia, 3-0, 05/24/00; Barcelona – Arsenal, 2-1, 05/17/06); 2 World Cup qualifiers playoffs (France – Ireland, 1-1, 11/18/09; France – Ukraine, 3-0, 11/19/13) Other major sporting events: 1999 Rugby World Cup; 2007 Rugby World Cup; 2010 H-Cup final; 2003 World Championships in Athletics Major concerts: Johnny Hallyday (9 times); The Rolling Stones (5 times); AC/DC (5 times); U2 (5 times); Muse (4 times); Black Eyed Peas (3 times); Madonna (3 times); Beyoncé & Jay-Z (twice); Bruce Springsteen (twice); Paul McCartney (twice); David Guetta (twice); Depeche Mode (twice); The Police (twice); Prince (06/30/11); Céline Dion (twice); Metallica (05/12/12); Red Hot Chili Peppers (06/30/12); Coldplay (09/02/12); Lady Gaga (09/22/12); Rihanna (06/08/13); Eminem (08/22/13); Roger Waters (09/21/13) Fixtures: Group stage
06/10/16, 21.00: France v Romania
06/13/16, 18.00: Ireland v Sweden
06/16/16, 21.00: Germany v Poland
06/22/16, 18.00: Iceland v Austria
Round of 16
06/27/16, 18.00: WE v RD
Quarter-finals
07/03/16, 21.00: W40 v W44
Final
07/10/16, 21.00: W49 v W50
Trivia: The Stadium was build for the 1998 World Cup and is the biggest stadium in France by capacity. It is the only stadium in the world to have ever hosted a World Cup football and a World Cup rugby final. It has movable seating that can be retracted to uncover part of the athletics track. The locker rooms were designed with the help of Michel Platini. The stadium has been used by Lille and Lens to host Ligue 1 games while their stadiums were being renovated or build. The Stade de France can resist winds up to 145 kph and a software simulating crowd dynamics was used during its conception.
SAINT-ETIENNE
City guide Photo album Name: Stade Geoffroy-Guichard Location: 14, rue Paul et Pierre Guichard, 42028 Saint-Étienne, France Coordinates: 45° 27′ 39″ N 4° 23′ 25″ E Status: Renovated Start of renovation: May 2011 End of renovation: December 2014 Cost: € 58m Architect: Chaix & Morel et Associés Owner: City of Saint-Etienne Tenants: AS Saint-Etienne Inauguration: 03/08/15 (Saint-Etienne – Lorient, 2-0) UEFA Capacity (normal capacity): 42,000 (42,000) Attendance record: 47,747 (Saint-Etienne – Lille, 1-0, 05/11/85) Pitch: Hybrid grass AirFibr Major international football events: Euro 1984 (Michel Platini perfect hat-trick against Yugoslavia); 1998 World Cup (Michael Owen famous goal against Argentina); 2003 Confederations Cup Other major sporting events: 2007 Rugby World Cup; 2010 French Rugby Championship (Top 14) Semi-finals Major concerts: Bruce Springsteen (06/25/85); Johnny Hallyday (07/22/03); The Police (06/10/08) Fixtures: Group stage
06/14/16, 21.00: Portugal v Iceland
06/17/16, 18.00: Czech Republic v Croatia
06/20/16, 21.00: Slovakia v England
Round of 16
06/25/16, 15.00: RA v RC
Trivia: The Stade Geoffroy-Guichard is named after the founder of the Casino retail chain. The nickname of the stadium is "Le Chaudron" (the Cauldron) due its reputation for the atmosphere. The stadium was build on old mine tunnels next to a steel factory and in the early days of the stadium, fumes from the factory's chimneys were known to drif across the pitch. The "Musée des Verts" located in one of the stadium's stand and showing the history of the Saint-Etienne club is the first museum in France dedicated to a football club. The museum exhibits the famous square posts that deny Saint-Etienne 2 goals (Dominique Bathenay long shot; Jacques Santini header) in the 1976 European Cup final against Bayern München in Glasgow.
Trivia: The Stadium de Toulouse in located on an island in the center of City on the Garonne river. Since november 2009, the East stand is named "Brice Taton", a Toulouse fan that died in Belgrade in september 2009 from his injuries caused by Partizan hooligans. The stadium is only one kilometer away to the AZF factory, ac hemical plant, that suffered a major explosion in september 2001 damaging the stadium. 6 months of repairs costing nearly € 600K were needed to fix the stadium.
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