Meyers link as goalie stays

SIGNINGS and speculation of further recruitment continue unabated at Sheffield Steelers.

The club today confirmed they have delivered a third-year contract to second-string goalie Geoff Woolhouse, aged 27. Coach Ryan Finnerty plans to use him more often next season – resting the new import goalie who will replace John DeCaro.

Finnerty said: “When Wooly played last season we all saw a great goalie and a huge asset to our club.

“He started more games than any other back-up because his form was outstanding Having a back-up that can play 12-15 games is huge. He has earned that right to play and we will take that progression further next season.”

Meanwhile, Elite League fans websites are buzzing with speculation that Danny Meyers, dumped after six seasons at Nottingham Panthers, is on his way to Sheffield.

Witter is the daddy at gym

JUNIOR Witter remains the most difficult Ingle fighter to out-manoeuvre – despite the fact he has just turned 38.

That’s the view of unbeaten prospect Adam Etches, who is 17 years Junior’s junior.

He has sparred at the famous Wincobank gym that features the likes of Witter – who is trying to reclaim a British title on May 12 – Kid Galahad and the city’s boxing poster boy Kell Brook.

Etches fights Bulgrarian greenhorn Borislav Zankov at Meadowhead, tonight, intent on improving his own record. And he believes the sparring he has enjoyed at the Ingles will help him achieve that and far greater things.

“Junior is the hardest one to spar with because he is so awkward,” says the Birley bomber. “Kell is the best they have down there but I find it harder against Junior. It’s all about styles. I like to stand and have a fight but Junior is so unorthodox you’ve no idea what he’s doing. Kell might find Junior pretty easy now but I find him hard to get on top of.”

Generally, Etches admits he is not a fan of Witter’s style but says: “He throws punches from all angles, places nobody else can. He might not be world class now but he can give anybody a hard time because of the way he boxes.”

Etches complemented Galahad as a “brilliant fighter.” He said: “Technically he is tidy all round, his movement and work rate are good and he isn’t easy to hit.

“Maybe his power is a problem but that might come because he’s only 22 and is still developing.”

Galahad takes on Brampton’s Josh Wale at Hillsborough, on the May 12 bill shared with Witter, who faces Colin Lynes.

Crookes light heavyweight Carl Wild will not defend his Central Area title against John Anthony tomorrow, as planned, after the Doncaster man withdrew. Wild now fights Derbyshire’s Elvis Dube.

Star throws some new shots

SHEFFIELD boxer Kell Brook took time out of his training schedule to play a few frames of snooker with Mark Williams, the double world champion, at the city’s Crucible Theatre.

“I’ve been watching and learning today from Mark, he’s the main man,” said Brook. “I find snooker very relaxing.”

Brook revealed he should soon know his next opponent for his world title fight in July.

Williams said

“I was a fighter before I started playing snooker. I watched Kell’s last fight in Sheffield [Matthew Hatton] and it was an electric atmosphere.”

Aftermath At Sheffields Ski Village

INVESTIGATIONS were due to begin today after a massive blaze ripped through Sheffield Ski Village – turning the Alpine-style wooden complex into a mass of smouldering debris and twisted metal.

The inferno was so intense firefighters were not allowed inside the burning buildings when they arrived and the flames, which were shooting up to 40 feet into the air, could be seen for miles.

It took three hours to bring the blaze, which broke out in the early hours of yesterday morning, under control.

At its height, firefighters sprayed 3,000 litres of water a minute onto the fire, pumped from the River Don.

The ski village, on Vale Road, Parkwood Springs, opened in 1988 and was believed to be the largest artificial ski resort in Europe with a range of slopes.

It also had an equipment shop, bar, restaurant and bowling alley and at the height of its popularity attracted up to 180,000 visitors a year.

But in recent years expansion projects at the Ski Village faltered and it faced increased competition from indoor snow domes in Manchester and Castleford.

The main buildings are now a pile of ashes.

Fire service and police investigators were due to start work this morning.

They were not allowed onto the site yesterday and surrounding roads were sealed off because of acetylene cylinders, which it was feared could explode and had to be cooled.

One eyewitness from the city centre said: “I saw an orange glow at around 10pm but I didn’t think anything of it. By 11pm the sky was all lit up and I thought there was an event taking place there. I didn’t think it was a fire because I couldn’t see any smoke.

“By midnight it was an inferno. I could see flames, they were pretty high but I didn’t ring the fire service because I though someone else would have already done it.”

Station manager Stewart Nicholson, incident commander for South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service, said: “It was a very substantial fire and there is very little left. We attended at approximately 1am yesterday with four appliances and increased that to six, plus an aerial ladder and a high volume pump.

“The number of firefighters in attendance was around 30.

“On arrival, we were faced with a fully-developed fire in a timber-framed building. It appeared to have started in the centre of the complex and was spreading outwards. There was nobody inside and it was too dangerous to enter so we fought the fire from outside.

“It took until around 4am to bring the fire under control and the flames were shooting up to 40 feet into the air.”

Even yesterday lunchtime, a plume of smoke still hung over the complex while firefighters damped down small pockets of flames which were still burning.

Mr Nicholson said: “An investigation by the fire service and police is due to begin this morning.”

A South Yorkshire Police spokeswoman said: “We are starting a joint investigation to ascertain the cause of the fire but are not yet in a position to know whether it was suspicious or not.”

Vicky Lloyd, general manager at the Ski Village, said: “We are absolutely gutted. The business has been running very well and we were due to be nearly full today with children’s parties. For us this is very difficult.”

A previous fire last March destroyed the adventure playground.

Museums Will Lose Visitors After Cuts

VISITOR numbers to Sheffield’s three flagship museums will inevitably drop following huge funding cuts, the new boss admitted today.

Footfall at Millennium Gallery, Weston Park Museum and the Graves Gallery will all go down over the next three years, Kim Streets said.

It follows the Arts Council’s decision to refuse a £4.2 million grant and instead pour cash into facilities in Leeds and York.

Forty staff redundancies are currently being made while there will be a significant reduction in touring exhibitions such as the current Andy Warhol show at the Graves Gallery.

But Ms Streets, who was appointed chief executive of Museums Sheffield on April 16, launched the fightback, saying the service would make itself more efficient, pursue other funding streams and look to local artists, like Kid Acne, to exhibit more often.

And in an exclusive interview with The Star, she revealed long-term she was looking into a huge modernisation scheme for the Graves Gallery – including a top floor restaurant.

Ms Streets, aged 44, of Pitsmoor, said: “Of course you can’t take that kind of funding hit and it not have some impact but our challenge is to use this as an opportunity to make the ways we work more efficient and use what we have to its maximum potential.”

The cut in staff numbers will hit visitor numbers because it will mean fewer one-off events for families and schools.

Reduced touring exhibitions, meanwhile, will hit one of the service’s biggest selling points.

“We will do everything we can to bring exciting work here and give Sheffield the very best museums possible,” said Ms Street, who has worked at Museums Sheffield since 1991 and was director of learning before taking over her current post.

“But that will mean rediscovering our own collections and putting them at the heart of what we do.

“Next year, for example, is the centenary of the invention of stainless steel and that is something we will celebrate using our own collection, while 2014 will be the centenary of World War One. Again, that is a story we can tell.”

She added that new funding streams were already being investigated, including a bid for the Art Council’s Renaissance Strategic Support Fund.

In her first week she said she had also set the ball rolling for top-level discussions about overhauling the Graves Gallery.

 

New Sheffield Markets

 

AT LAST! Work on Sheffield’s £17.5 million Moor Market will finally start in two months’ time – 14 years after the project to replace ageing Castle Market was first proposed.

 

 

 

Sheffield Council has appointed Kier construction to build the 79,000 sq ft building on empty land opposite Atkinsons, where old shops were bulldozed.

 

Building work will take around 16 months to complete and the new market is planned to open on November 4, 2013.

 

Funding for the redevelopment will be borrowed by Sheffield Council.

 

The new building will house a single-storey market hall to house 200 stalls, plus eight two-storey shop units fronting onto The Moor.

 

A second contract to repave the upper part of The Moor at a cost of £2.6 million, funded by Scottish Widows which manages the shopping street, has also been handed to North Midland Construction and will be completed in the same timescale as the market scheme.

 

Sheffield Council executive director Simon Green said: “The markets have been central to Sheffield for more than 800 years. The new Moor Market will be a tremendous opportunity to reach a wider range of customers in a new setting for the 21st century.”

 

Markets manager Andy Ward revealed trade at Castle Market is continuing to fall, with electronic machines counting four million visits last year, down from six million a decade ago – but predicted a new building would help reverse the decline.

 

He said: “Castle Market has some fantastic traders and we are trying to look after them in this new building, while also trying to bring back some of the traders we have lost.”

 

Mr Ward said the new market would have fewer stalls than the 238 at Castle Market, but 40 per cent of Castle Market’s stalls are unoccupied. The Moor also has more buses serving it than Castle Market area so would be easier for more customers to travel to.

 

Sheffield Council’s head of city centre development Simon Ogden said the council intends to press ahead with plans to excavate the site of the current markets to establish what remains of the medieval castle.

 

He said: “English Heritage does not support any application to have the existing building listed and we do not support that either. This is the first opportunity since the 1920s to assess what is beneath. We would like to see what’s there and then how that could fit around new public areas and development.”

 

Mr Ogden said a scheme to redevelop the market, which then involved rebuilding at Castlegate, was first proposed in 1998. Sheffield Council said it had not spent major amounts on maintenance to the current market because of long-standing plans to rebuild the facility.

 

 

Sheffield University Tackles Obesity Problems

MEDICS in Sheffeld have paved the way for the creation of revolutionary new drugs to prevent complications in people who are severely obese or far too thin.

Researchers at the University of Sheffield say their new findings could lead to treatments to stop overweight people developing conditions such as diabetes, cancer and heart disease.

And people suffering malnutrition could be treated to stop them becoming infertile or developing problems with their immune system.

Medical researchers have for the first time defined the structure of a key part of the human obesity receptor – an essential factor in the regulation of body fat.

The new research, published in the journal Structure, will allow drugs to be developed to block or stimulate the receptor for the obesity hormone leptin.

Professor of endocrinology Richard Ross said: “This pioneering research gives us the potential to generate new drugs that could treat conditions and diseases associated with obesity such as multiple sclerosis, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

“Modulating the actions of the obesity receptor provides a novel approach to the treatment of conditions associated with both obesity and anorexia and has the potential to make a massive difference to millions of people whose quality of life and health is hindered by obesity or malnutrition.”

Researchers solved the complex crystal structure of the obesity receptor using state of the art X-ray crystallography, helping them work out how to block or stimulate the receptor.

Leptin, the obesity hormone, predisposes overweight people to conditions such as multiple sclerosis and heart disease.

A deficiency in leptin, as occurs in malnutrition, results in infertility and immunodeficiency.

Blocking the receptor, and therefore the excessive actions of leptin, could prevent the complications of obesity, while stimulating the receptor may improve fertility and the immune response.

Professor Pete Artymiuk, from the university’s department of molecular biology and biotechnology, said: “The human obesity receptor binds the hormone leptin and together they play a key role in regulating appetite, fertility and immunity.

“Because we now know the precise atomic structure of the receptor we can begin to design drug molecules that can alter its activity.”

 

Sheffield Ski Village Fire

Devastation for Sheffield as our beloved Ski Village has been destoyed due to a fire, which broke out in the early hours of Sunday.

South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue were called to the centre, off Vale Road, just before 01:00 BST the continued to pump over a 3000ltr of water per minute to try and save the Ski Villiage.

Five fire engines and 25 firefighters attended the blaze. No-one was injured.

Fire officers said a 200m cordon remained in place around the centre as there was a possibility acetylene cylinders were inside.

Stewart Nicholson, from South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue, said: “We suspect acetylene cylinders are inside the building but we have not confirmed yet if we have been able to put water on the cylinders.”

Vicky Lloyd, general manager at the Ski Village, said: “We are absolutely gutted. The business has been running very well and we were due to be nearly full today with children’s parties. For us this is very difficult.”

Mr Nicholson said the fire investigation would not begin until Monday at the earliest due to the amount of water used on the fire.

Hendry Smashes Higgins

Stephen Hendry only needed one frame to put the seal on champion John Higgins’s worst World Championship defeat.

Resuming 12-4 ahead after taking seven out of eight frames in Friday’s second session, the seven-time champion knocked in a 64 break to progress 13-4.

It was the 43-year-old’s first ranking event win over his old practice partner since 2003, and secured his first Crucible quarter-final since 2009.

He faces fellow Scot Stephen Maguire, who sealed a 13-7 win over Joe Perry.

Hendry, who recorded a maximum 147 against Stuart Bingham in the first round, played down his prospects of going on to win an eighth world title – 13 years after his seventh – despite the run he has enjoyed so far.

“I wouldn’t say two matches is a run, but I did win my qualifier as well so maybe that’s three!” he told BBC Sport. “There is a long way to go but I am still in the tournament and I am very happy. Everything is a bonus for me at the moment. I have made a maximum, I have just beaten the defending champion and I’ve got Maguire next, so I can’t wait.

“I am one match away from possibly being in a one-table situation at the Crucible again, which is amazing for me.”

Both Higgins and Hendry played superbly during their opening session, in what was their first meeting at the Crucible despite 45 appearances (Hendry 27, Higgins 18) between them.

Hendry recovered from 2-0 down to level before Higgins knocked in a 124 clearance, but Hendry won the next three – including a sublime 123 – to lead 5-3.

When they resumed on Friday evening, Higgins missed the final black in the opener, and aside from winning a close 11th frame, presented Hendry with a host of opportunities with a catalogue of missed balls.

“It was one of the strangest sessions of snooker I have ever played in,” Hendry said. “You hope to get one good chance in a frame, but I was getting five or six. I was coming to the table in shock because I couldn’t believe the balls he was missing.”

“It was really bad,” concurred Higgins. “That second session was probably the worst I have played at the Crucible. I missed a chance to win the opening frame and from then on, it was torture.”

 

I know that people are ex…

I know that people are expecting me to win gold in London, but I don’t really think about it

Jessica Ennis

Athletics (heptathlon)

Born : 28/01/86

Career highlights

The poster girl for the 2012 Olympics has recovered from a career-threatening injury to become one of the best all-round female athletes on the planet.

She enjoyed three successive major championship victories, culminating in European gold in 2010. Ennis set a lifetime best score to clinch the title in Barcelona, only eight points short of the British record set by former Olympic champion Denise Lewis.

Career lowlights

Ennis described 2008 as a disaster, having suffered a stress fracture to her right foot which ruled her out of the Olympics. She has consequently had to relearn the long jump, taking off with her left foot instead of the right.

She recently lost her indoor and outdoor world titles.