News about John White

Football is a game of passion, history, hope, despair and fleeting triumph. Its scope and depth would test the powers of a poet. But sometimes, just sometimes, it is best told in numbers. As the Bairns toddle towards their 150th anniversary in 2026, the numbers tell a tale of survival, a story of endurance in the face of what seemed overwhelming odds, and serve as a reminder of the hard miles travelled, the most desperate of them very recently. The chroniclers of this tale are a young executive and fans, some of whom have spent 50 years supporting the club. They can be found in the pristine Falkirk Stadium which again has a story that concerns figures. There are three occupied sides to the arena. The fourth is not yet filled. Falkirk were told they had to have a 10,000-seater to enter the top division. This rule has faded into history, meaning the fourth side did not have to be built.

How to exorcise a ghost? How to speak to a father who has been dead for 60 years? How to bridge the gulf between a six-month-old child and a father who was a star and was awfully fated to become legend of the most tragic variety? It took Rob White decades to address these questions. He continues to find answers to them. His father, John, strode out on to Crews Hill golf course in Enfield on July 21, 1964. He was struck fatally by lightning. White, a player of prodigious gifts for a marvellous Tottenham Hotspur team, was dead at 27. His son, at 60, has found ways of confronting the wreckage of personal trauma. John White was nicknamed The Ghost because of his ability to drift unnoticed into space and his elusiveness in the face of the most desperate attempts by mere humans to contain him. He remains a fleeting, spectral presence.

This week, high winds have blown rare songbirds from the Atlantic to the British Isles. Between September 20 and 21, a series of birdwatchers and avian enthusiasts has enjoyed a once-in-a-lifetime event. The'spew of uber-rare land birds' was described as 'one of the most memorable couple of days in British and Irish birding history,' according to Rare Bird Alert. A Tennessee Warbler, a Baltimore Oriole, and a Philadelphia Vireowas among the many rare items on display.

John White, a Swindon business, told him that his Axa insurance policy was 'no good' and that he should seek out its own insurance - or forfeit the car entirely. 'We're not positive about it, but we felt we had no choice.'

On a journey around every continent in search of the lost, disappearing, and vanished, you will be transported around the world. Travis Elborough, a writer and cultural commentator, explores not only how the world looks today but also how it appears in Atlas of Vanishing Places: The Lost Worlds As They Are Today (Aurum Press), but also how it once looked. From Skara Brae in Orkney to the vast ancient city of Chan Chan Chan in north-west Peru, Elborough is observing natural wonders that are shrinking at an alarming rate, from the Congo Basin Rainforest to the Everglades and the Dead Sea, and threats to man-made worlds. In addition, the river in Canada that vanished in four days - as well as the Caribbean's submerged pirate town.