PA Sport - Six points for Rovers

A pair of short match reports for PA Sport which went in the Sunday Mirror:

Bristol Rovers 3 - 0 Carlisle

Chris Lines scored his first goal for Bristol Rovers as they sealed their first win in five games against fourth-placed Carlisle.

Rovers began the day one point above the relegation zone while Carlisle were just four points behind leaders Swansea. But the visitors fell foul to two first-half strikes.

Lines headed in Stuart Campbell's cross and Craig Hinton doubled Bristol's lead within the opening 15 minutes, stabbing home a Campbell corner.

Andrew Williams made it three mid-way through the second half with a curling right-foot effort from 18 yards.

Doncaster 3 - 1 Southend

Adam Lockwood scored his second goal in as many games to send Doncaster fourth in the table after despatching Southend 3-1.

Defender Lockwood headed home Brian Stock's cross in the seventh minute to give Doncaster an early lead.

Southend levelled ten minutes later through Charlie MacDonald but midfielder Paul Green restored Doncaster's lead on the half-hour mark from a Stock corner.

Gareth Roberts made it 3-1 shortly before half-time. Stock was again the provider, crossing from the left for Roberts to hit a rare 18-yard volley into the bottom-left corner.

Alpine adventures in a roller suit

For anyone who has been on a Swiss mountain road and thought they'd seen some crazy cyclists descending at high speeds, this is the next step up. Watch out for the oncoming traffic.

Journos in surf victory

A piece on the Nokia Trends Lab competition which was used virtually verbatim on http://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/. To see it click here.

Two trainee journalists won an all-expenses-paid trip to South Africa after taking their surfboards and a state-of-the-art mobile phone into a Cardiff river.

Chris Cousens, 22, of St David's, Pembrokeshire and Andy Sloan, 28, of Horsham, West Sussex dived into the freezing waters of the River Taff in Cardiff with a new mobile phone strapped to their boards to win a weekend’s sunshine in South Africa and all in the name of mobile journalism.

The pair are undertaking a Post Graduate Diploma in newspaper journalism at Cardiff Journalism School, but it was their skills as mobile film-makers which earned them the free trip of a lifetime.



The Cardiff school teamed up with Nokia to test out Nokia’s latest mobile offering, the N95. The collaboration was part of Cardiff’s expanding online journalism module and Nokia’s “Trends Lab” experiments. It was designed to explore the possibilities for mobile journalism.

As an incentive to the trainees Nokia ran a competition with the winners being flown out to South Africa to make a film on Nokia’s first Trends Lab experiment in Africa.

Both avid surfers, Andy and Chris wrapped Nokia’s latest mobile in freezer bags and filmed their adventures surfing down Cardiff’s River Taff in search of an imaginary surf spot, Cardiff Reef. Their film was chosen by Nokia and four days later they were on a plane to Cape Town.

Andy said: “I was absolutely delighted. You can’t really argue against a long weekend in Cape Town in December. We only had a few days to get everything ready and it was all a bit of a whirlwind, but what an experience.

“Nokia started out making wellies and the company was named after a river so we decided to splash around in some water to win the prize. It was great fun and a little bit out of the ordinary so I think that’s what sealed it for us. We got a different perspective on Cardiff thanks to the size of the phones and by taking a bit of a risk with them.”

Chris said: “Everything about the trip was fantastic. Cape Town is a breath-taking place, the sun is shining, the locals are friendly and the scenery is stunning. We only had a short trip, but we saw so much; we even made time to go surfing.

“We are so grateful to Nokia and the Cardiff Journalism School for giving us this opportunity. We both learnt so much. Bring on the next competition.”

Matthew Yeomans, lecturer in online journalism at Cardiff, said this was the first time the department had worked with Nokia and it was designed to show how online stories can easily contain more multi-media elements due to the quality of film and sound that can be captured on the latest mobiles.

“The idea was to create a piece of mobile journalism that would tell a story of film, design or music in Cardiff,” he said. “The winners were sent to South Africa for the weekend, which was a great coup for the journalism school and for the trainees.”

Jackson: Don't Panic

Piece for the Cardiff City website. Click here to see it in its published form.

Colchester midfielder Johnnie Jackson has given Cardiff a boost with a timely reminder not to panic as there are plenty of games left to play.

The former Spurs player has been a regular for the U's this season who are also at the wrong end of the table, level on points with City, and his reminder will be welcomed by Cardiff boss Dave Jones.

Talking to Cardiff City's Andy Sloan Jackson said: "I think Cardiff would expect to be higher up the league, especially with the strikers that they've bought in. You'd expect them at this level to be really doing the business and putting a string of results together. But it's pretty early. It's only a third of the way through the season so I don't think its time for panic."

Jackson is surprised at his own team's position in the league after their tenth place finish last year in their first season in the Championship. "Obviously we want to be higher up ourselves," he said. "Every team down there does. I'm sure every team is capable of getting out of it. The league's so tight, if you put a couple of wins together. You'll find yourselves in the top half pushing for the play-offs."

But Jackson's message of hope was qualified by his belief that the U's are intent on continuing their good record against the Bluebirds.

He said: "We know Cardiff's a difficult place to go and a draw would probably be a decent result for us, but we're going into this game looking for a win. We'll be confident and I'm sure Cardiff will be confident in front of their own fans and it should be a good game."

Colchester have struggled this season after holding their own last time around. Jamie Cureton and Chris Iwelumo have left to go to Norwich and Charlton respectively but the U's have replaced them with Kevin Lisbie, Clive Platt and former England, Manchester United and Spurs striker Teddy Sheringham.

"We've not been disappointed with the way we've played," admitted Jackson. "There have been a few games where we haven't really performed but there have been a lot of games where we felt we should have really taken points and haven't done or we've drawn a lot of games we thought we should have won."

Jackson echoed the feelings of many City fans as he described Colchester's current standing in the league, saying, "I'm not saying it's a false position, but we feel it could be a lot higher. I'm sure that most teams look at every game and say that if we had done that then we could be there, but we certainly feel that we've thrown away a few points where we didn't need to."

Horsham stun Swansea

The magic of the FA Cup is still alive and well. Yesterday I had my first taste of it as a supporter of my home town club Horsham and my feet haven't touched the ground since.

Not only did non-league Horsham star on Sky Sports in the FA Cup Second Round against Swansea City, four divisions and 100 places above them, but they won an 82nd minute penalty and equalised, earning a replay at the Liberty Stadium and a place in the Third Round draw alongside Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United.



In the 66th minute Horsham manager John Maggs threw on the club's most expensive signing, £2,500 Lee Farrell, in search of an equaliser.

In the 80th minute, two minutes before Farrell was hauled down for the penalty, I picked up the following email:

Christianne Lambert to chriscousens, andynsloan, matthew 4:56 PM (4 hours ago) Reply

<mailto:chriscousens@hotmail.com%3ECongratulations Chris and Andy!

You've won the Nokia Trends Lab Experiment and will be coming to South Africa next week to be our Roving NTL Reporters!!!

We loved your film and will be in touch on Monday (3rd) to discuss the finer details of your trip!
In the meantime could you please email me a direct contact number and also ensure that you are able to travel from London on Thursday 6th December, returning on Sunday 9th or Monday 10th December.

All details will be confirmed on Monday 3rd but we will of course cover your additional transport from Cardiff to London, flights and accommodation to South Africa.

Have a great weekend!

Bestest

Christianne and the Nokia Trends Lab Team