loves family, music, dancing & sport - BIG Spurs; WFC; LH fan - sometimes in life u have to trust your instinct #bitethebullet in most cases u will be right ✊🏾
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trevsooncome retweeted
John Ford punched her in the jaw in front of everyone. She didn't flinch. A tabloid fabricated a sex scandal to destroy her. She pulled out her passport and destroyed them instead. Hollywood called her "too difficult."
Maureen FitzSimons was born on August 17, 1920, in Ranelagh—a working-class suburb of Dublin, Ireland.
Her mother, Marguerita, was an opera singer. Her father, Charles, owned part of the Shamrock Rovers football club and ran a business in Dublin.
The family was musical, theatrical, and Irish Catholic. Maureen and her siblings—Peggy, Charles, Florrie, Margot, and James—all trained in drama and music.
As a child, Maureen was a tomboy. Rough and athletic. They called her "baby elephant" because she played like the boys—football, swimming in the River Dodder, riding horses.
She was also the only redhead in the family, which made her self-conscious.
But when she performed—when she stood on a stage—everything changed.
By age 10, she'd joined the Rathmines Theatre Company. By 14, she was accepted to the Abbey Theatre—one of the most prestigious theater companies in Ireland.
Her dream was to be an opera singer like her mother. Or a classical stage actress.
Then, at 16, she got a screen test at Elstree Studios in London.
It was a disaster. Stiff, nervous, uncomfortable in the heavy makeup and elaborate costume.
But a man named Charles Laughton saw the test. He saw past the nerves. He saw her expressive eyes, her spirit, her raw presence.
He cast her in Alfred Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn (1939) opposite him.
There was one condition: she had to change her name. "FitzSimons" was too long, too complicated.
She became Maureen O'Hara.
She didn't want to. But she was 18, in a foreign country, and Charles Laughton was an Oscar-winning movie star. So she agreed.
Laughton then cast her as Esmeralda in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939). She was 19 years old, playing opposite one of Hollywood's biggest stars.
She was starting at the top.
Then World War II began. Laughton sold her contract to RKO Studios.
Maureen felt abandoned. Alone in Hollywood. Homesick. Trapped in mediocre films with bad scripts.
She begged her agent to get her into John Ford's How Green Was My Valley (1941).
She got the part.
The film won five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. It beat Citizen Kane.
Maureen O'Hara was now a star.
But her relationship with John Ford was complicated.
Ford nicknamed her "Rosebud." They became close friends. She visited him and his wife socially, spent time on his yacht.
But Ford had darker feelings. He wrote her drunken love letters: "God, I long for you. I dream of you. Your face is constantly in my dreams."
She didn't reciprocate.
And Ford could be cruel. Vicious, even.
One day, in front of cast and crew, he punched her in the jaw.
Hard.
She later said she only took it because she wanted to show him she could take a punch like a man.
She refused to react. Refused to give him the satisfaction.
Ford wasn't the only director who harassed her.
John Farrow made "suggestive comments," followed her home, stalked her. When she made it clear she wasn't interested, he started bullying her on set.
One day, she'd had enough.
She punched him in the jaw.
He left her alone after that.
In 1950, Maureen made Rio Grande with John Wayne. It was the beginning of a legendary partnership.
They'd make five films together: Rio Grande, The Quiet Man, The Wings of Eagles, McLintock!, and Big Jake.
Wayne called her "a great guy." He said he preferred to work with men—"except for Maureen O'Hara; she's a great guy."
In The Quiet Man (1952), filmed in Ireland, Maureen became an icon.
Her character, Mary Kate Danaher, refuses to consummate her marriage until she gets her dowry—her furniture, her security, her autonomy.
When John Wayne's character drags her through the countryside to force the issue, she fights him. Punches him. Refuses to yield.
The film was shot in lush Technicolor. Maureen's red hair, green eyes, and porcelain skin looked as if Technicolor had been invented just to capture her.
Wayne's character asks, "Is she real?"
She was. And she was tougher than anyone expected.
Maureen did her own stunts. Learned to sword fight. Earned the nickname "The Pirate Queen." People said she was a better swordsman than Errol Flynn.
She was one of the first actresses to do her own stunts.
But Hollywood didn't know what to do with a woman who wouldn't play by the rules.
She refused to pose for scantily clad photos. "I come from a very strict family," she said. "My folks in Dublin would think I turned out bad."
She was a teetotaler and non-smoker who rejected the Hollywood party lifestyle.
She refused to be photographed in a bathing suit. "I don't think I looked like Lana Turner in a bathing suit, frankly."
She wouldn't smoke or drink on screen for years—until she realized it would cost her jobs.
Hollywood called her difficult. Prudish. Too controlling.
Then, in 1957, Confidential magazine published a story that could have ended her career.
The headline: "It Was the Hottest Show in Town When Maureen O'Hara Cuddled in Row 35."
The tabloid claimed that an usher at Grauman's Chinese Theatre had caught Maureen and her boyfriend, Enrique Parra, in a compromising position during a movie screening.
The article was graphic. Salacious. Humiliating.
Maureen was furious.
Other celebrities targeted by Confidential had settled out of court, afraid of more bad publicity.
Not Maureen.
She sued. And when the state of California launched a criminal trial against Confidential, she was the star witness.
In court, the magazine's lawyers trotted out theater staff who swore the story was true.
Then Maureen pulled out her passport.
On the night Confidential claimed she was in Grauman's Theatre, she'd been in Spain, filming Fire Over Africa.
The passport stamp proved it.
The courtroom erupted.
Maureen won. Confidential eventually went out of business.
She'd taken on the most powerful tabloid in America—and destroyed it.
In the 1960s, Maureen's career slowed. She starred in Disney's The Parent Trap (1961), then gradually stepped away from Hollywood.
In 1968, she married Charles F. Blair Jr.—a former Air Force brigadier general, former chief pilot at Pan Am, founder of Antilles Air Boats airline in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
She called him the love of her life.
For the first time, she was truly happy. They ran the airline together. John Wayne was a regular visitor to their home.
In 1978, Charles died in a plane crash. He was 69.
Maureen became the first woman president of a scheduled airline in the United States.
She came out of retirement briefly in 1991 for Only the Lonely, playing John Candy's Irish mother.
In 2004, she published her memoir, 'Tis Herself. It became a New York Times bestseller and revealed decades of Hollywood sleaze, sexism, and scandal.
She wrote: "Being an Irishwoman means many things to me. An Irishwoman is strong and feisty. She has guts and stands up for what she believes in… She's not above a sock in the jaw if you have it coming."
In 2014, at age 94, Maureen was awarded an Honorary Oscar. She'd never been nominated—not once in her entire career.
When she accepted the award from a wheelchair, she protested when they tried to cut her speech short.
She died on October 24, 2015, in her sleep at her home in Boise, Idaho. She was 95.
When she died, her family said she'd spent her final hours listening to music from The Quiet Man.
Maureen O'Hara never yielded. Not to directors who harassed her. Not to studios who tried to sexualize her. Not to tabloids who tried to destroy her.
She punched back. Literally and figuratively.
And she won.
trevsooncome retweeted
Jack Rutter was supposed to be the next big thing at Birmingham City. One punch changed everything.
He was a talented young right-back, a second-year scholar who had been at the club since he was ten. He had just helped the youth team reach the FA Youth Cup semi-finals and was months away from finding out if he would get a professional contract.
Then, on 22 March 2009, he was 18 years old, on a night out in Gloucester. He had just said goodbye to his friends outside Liquid nightclub and was getting into a taxi. A stranger, standing just two yards away, smashed him in the back of the head. One single blow. Jack was knocked unconscious before he even hit the ground.
He fell and smashed the base of his skull on the kerb. His best friend watched as his eyes rolled back and blood poured from his mouth, his nose and his ear.
He was rushed to hospital and placed in the intensive care unit, where he spent two weeks fighting for his life. It was touch and go whether he would survive. He spent 17 days in hospital in total. The damage was catastrophic. He suffered a double fracture to his skull, a brain haemorrhage and moderate brain damage. A severed cochlear nerve left him permanently deaf in his right ear. His balance and coordination were destroyed.
He couldn’t walk straight, and he couldn’t stand up straight. The doctors told him what he would never be able to do. But they didn’t tell him what he could still become.
His dream of playing professional football was dead. Jack Rutter was forced to retire from the game before his 20th birthday. He tried to return, training with Cheltenham Town and Forest Green Rovers, and even playing a brief stint at Shortwood United, but his body would not cooperate.
He was breaking into tears on the training pitch. Heading the ball gave him migraines, and his balance was completely gone. He was angry, lost and had no purpose. “It led to a really, really bad time,” he later admitted. “Panic attacks, mental health problems, didn’t have a job, didn’t have any purpose.” He was in a very dark place.
But Jack Rutter refused to let one cowardly act define the rest of his life. He discovered cerebral palsy football. The game was adapted for players with brain injuries, for people like him. He joined East Midlands Cerebral Palsy FC.
And for the first time since the attack, he felt like a footballer again. He was called up to the England CP squad in 2013. He made his debut and wore the Three Lions. Within a year he was made captain. He led England at the World Championships and the European Championships. And in 2016 he captained Great Britain at the Paralympic Games in Rio. The boy who was told he might never walk straight again was leading his country onto the pitch in Brazil.
“It’s just incredible,” he said. “From a young age I always knew I could play football. I never really thought about coaching. With all that trauma and all those experiences, to now come out the other side of it in a really positive place is just incredible.”
His playing career ended in 2018 due to classification changes, but he didn’t walk away from the game. He became a coach, working with the Para Lions and the England CP team. And in January 2026 he was appointed head coach of the England cerebral palsy team. Just ten months later, in October 2026, he achieved the unthinkable. Jack led the Para Lions to defeat the USA and win the IFCPF World Cup for the first time in the nation’s history.
The boy who lost his dream became the man who leads others to theirs. Jack Rutter was never meant to be a Premier League star. But he became something far more important. He became proof that a single punch can shatter a skull, but it cannot shatter a spirit.
He became proof that when one door slams shut, another one opens. And he became proof that the greatest victories are not always won on the pitch. Sometimes they are won in the darkest moments of a hospital ward
That is the real story of Jack Rutter. Not the punch. The fight
trevsooncome retweeted
FULL VIDEO:
Air traffic controllers warned the pilots of the Learjet that crashed in Florida today about extreme weather ahead, explicitly giving them permission to change course and avoid the storm.
The pilots acknowledged the warning.
Youtube: VASAviation
trevsooncome retweeted
Epicness
🙏🏾❤️🙏🏾
Every time a German Messerschmitt pilot wanted to escape a Spitfire on his tail, he did the same thing.
He pushed the nose down.
In a dive, the German engine kept running — it used fuel injection. The British Spitfire's engine cut out. For one and a half seconds the Merlin went dead, the aircraft shuddered, and by the time it caught again the German was gone. Worse: if a German was behind a British pilot and the British pilot dove to escape, the German could follow and keep shooting while the British engine was silent.
Pilots were dying because of a carburetor.
The engineers at Farnborough knew about the problem. They were working on a long-term solution — a redesigned carburetor that would take years to perfect and manufacture.
A woman named Beatrice Shilling fixed it with a washer.
She was born in Hampshire in 1909 and was the kind of child who spent her pocket money on Meccano sets and tools. At fourteen she bought her first motorbike. Her mother, with the inspired instinct of someone who understood what her daughter actually was, found the Women's Engineering Society and arranged an apprenticeship at an electrical firm.
She went to Manchester University — one of the first two women ever to study engineering there — graduated with a degree in electrical engineering, stayed another year for a master's in mechanical engineering, and in 1936 joined the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough as a scientific officer.
By the late 1930s she was one of the best carburetor engineers in Britain. She was also one of only three women to hold the British Motorcycle Racing Club's Gold Star — awarded for lapping the Brooklands racing circuit at over 100 miles per hour on a motorcycle.
She had reportedly told her future husband, an engineer named George Naylor, that she wouldn't marry him until he earned his own Brooklands Gold Star first.
He earned it. They married in 1938.
The problem with the Merlin was specific and lethal. The SU carburetor used a float chamber to regulate fuel flow. Under negative g-forces — the forces experienced in a sudden dive — the fuel flooded to the top of the float chamber and starved the engine for 1.5 seconds. Just enough time for a German pilot to turn the tables entirely.
The RAF had known about this since the Battle of France. The formal solution — a redesigned pressure carburetor — was in development but wouldn't be ready for years.
Shilling was thirty-one years old, working in carburetor research, and she designed a fix in weeks.
A brass thimble with a precisely calibrated hole in the center — later simplified to a flat washer — fitted inline in the fuel line just before the carburetor. It restricted maximum fuel flow to just enough to prevent flooding without cutting off power. The key breakthrough: it could be fitted without taking the aircraft out of service. No downtime. No factory return.
The old guard at the RAE looked at it and called it a plumbing fix. They called her a plumber. The first batch of 5,000 units was made by a Birmingham firm that normally manufactured plumbing fixtures, which they found embarrassing.
The RAF pilots who flew Spitfires with Messerschmitts on their tails called it something else.
They called it Miss Shilling's Orifice. With deep affection.
By March 1941 she had organized a small team and was personally touring RAF fighter stations across England — traveling between bases on her old racing motorcycle — fitting the device to every Merlin engine they could reach. Squadron leaders all over the country were demanding installations. The word spread faster than the official channels could keep up with.
The Germans noticed. They couldn't explain why British fighter pilots had suddenly started following them into dives. They were baffled by the new aggression. They didn't know about the washer.
The restrictor remained in use until 1943, when the full pressure carburetor finally arrived. It had kept British pilots alive for two years in the middle of the war they couldn't afford to lose.
After the war she worked on the Blue Streak missile. She studied what wet runways do to braking distances. She helped design a bobsled for the RAF Olympic team. In 1967 she solved overheating problems on an Eagle Mk1 Formula 1 car.
She never received a top promotion at the RAE. Such positions, she was told, were for men.
She received an OBE in 1949. The citation said "services to aviation." It did not mention the washer.
She retired from the RAE in 1969. She kept racing motorcycles and sports cars. She modified and tuned both in her home workshop until she couldn't anymore.
She died on November 18, 1990. She was 81.
The Battle of Britain is one of the most documented events in British military history. Hundreds of books. Dozens of films. Memoirs by the pilots who flew in it. Almost none of them mention the carburetor problem. Almost none of them mention her.
The pilots who benefited most never knew her name. They just knew that when they pushed the nose down, the engine kept running.
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trevsooncome retweeted
After that incredible #Tottenham performance yesterday, I was so proud to hear this beautiful story about what Kinsky said to Penders after the game.
“I went straight to him because, honestly, I felt for him. I know how difficult that moment must have been. You make your first Premier League start, you want to show everyone what you can do, and suddenly one mistake becomes the moment everybody remembers. I told him, ‘Look at me. Keep your head up. You are still the same goalkeeper you were before that corner. One moment does not define you. People sometimes forget how lonely it can feel to be a goalkeeper. An attacker misses three chances, and people talk about the chances he might score next week. A goalkeeper makes one mistake, and suddenly people question his entire career. That isn’t fair. I told him the next time you make a great save, remember that the people laughing today might be the first ones praising you tomorrow. We won 2–0, and of course I’m happy. But I’m also a goalkeeper, and I understand what that moment can do to your mind. I hope he has people around him reminding him that he’s more than one mistake”
What remarkable kindness, compassion and wisdom from a young man who has faced so many challenges already in his career.
Very proud to have him as Spurs number 1.
#COYS #THFC #TOTCHE
trevsooncome retweeted
🚨James Maddison on his conversation with Cole Palmer during Tottenham’s win against Chelsea:
🗣️ James Maddison: “We were just coming out to resume play for the second half when I saw Cole walking in my direction. I looked at him and said, ‘Cole, no goal or assist for you today, mate. Nothing. You’re going home empty-handed.’
“He smiled at me and said, ‘So your legs can actually hold up for another 45 minutes, eii?’ [laughs]
“I just looked at him and said, ‘Shut up, cunt!’ And this guy walked away laughing like he had just won the Champions League. Honestly, Cole can be so annoying when he’s in that mood. He talks rubbish with a straight face, then laughs before you can even respond.
“But the funny thing is, I later had to come off because of my injury. I knew he was probably somewhere laughing about it, thinking he had won the battle between us. I could already imagine the messages he would send me after the game.
“Then I watched the match continue, and suddenly I saw him getting sent off!
“Brother, I won’t lie to you, I started laughing. [laughs] I was injured and sitting there watching the game, but somehow I still felt like I had won something that afternoon!
“This is football. One minute, you’re mocking somebody, feeling confident, and acting like nothing can touch you. The next minute, the same game humbles you in front of everybody. Cole started the laughing contest, but he forgot that football always has the final say.
“And I know Cole. He will probably come back and tell me the red card wasn’t his fault, or that the referee was against him, or that somebody said something to him. He will have an explanation for everything!
“But I don’t care. When he was laughing at my legs, I didn’t make excuses. I just told him to shut up. So now, when I see him, I’m going to remind him of what happened.
‘You laughed because I couldn’t finish 90 minutes. I laughed because you couldn’t finish the match with 11 men!’ [laughs]
“That one is staying with him for a long time. The next time he sees me, he better check the referee’s position before he starts talking!
“Cole is a good player, and I respect him, but football has a wicked sense of humour. Today, he started the joke, and I got the punchline. Sometimes, you don’t need to say much after a game. You just let the scoreboard and the red card do the talking.”
#justsayin Gwan Poch!! #alwaysaspur
🚨🎙️ Mauricio Pochettino makes a brutal prediction ahead of Chelsea vs Tottenham:
Reporter: Mauricio, Chelsea face Tottenham, and many people believe Chelsea have the stronger squad. Do you agree?
Pochettino: 🗣️ “Stronger squad? Based on what? The amount of money they spend? Because if we’re judging football clubs by how much money they throw around, then we might as well stop talking about football and start talking about bank accounts.
“Chelsea have spent ridiculous amounts of money, signed player after player, changed managers and continued spending as if money can solve every problem. But when you spend that much and still have people questioning your identity, your consistency and your direction, you have to ask serious questions.
“For me, Chelsea have become a club that wants the respect of an elite institution without always behaving like one. They want everybody to talk about their squad, their spending and their ambitions, but the real question is simple: what exactly makes them so special right now?
“And don’t get me started on Manchester City. People get angry when you compare these clubs, but both have become symbols of the modern football spending race. They spend enormous amounts of money and then expect the rest of football to stand aside. Chelsea fans may hate the comparison, but spending power alone doesn’t make you a bigger club than everyone else.
Reporter: So you believe Tottenham can beat Chelsea despite all the talk about Chelsea’s squad?
Pochettino: 🗣️ “Absolutely. In fact, I think Roberto De Zerbi has the tactical intelligence to make this a very uncomfortable afternoon for Chelsea. He knows how to build attacks, manipulate space and punish teams that leave openings. If Tottenham execute his plan properly, Chelsea could spend the entire match chasing shadows.
“People keep looking at the names on Chelsea’s team sheet as if the match has already been won. That’s not how football works. You can have expensive players everywhere and still get outplayed by a team that understands exactly what it wants to do.
“My prediction is Tottenham 4–2 Chelsea. Yes, four goals. I believe Spurs can hurt them repeatedly, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Chelsea’s defensive problems become the biggest talking point after the final whistle.
“And if Tottenham score four at Stamford Bridge, I don’t want to hear about transfer fees, squad value or how much Chelsea have spent. None of that will change the scoreline.
“Chelsea fans can call Tottenham a smaller club all they want, but football has a funny way of bringing people back down to earth. If De Zerbi outsmarts them and Spurs win convincingly, the same fans who were laughing before kick-off will suddenly have a thousand excuses.
“That’s why I’m backing Tottenham. Not because of the badge, not because of the money, but because I believe they can be better organised, more dangerous and more ruthless on the day.”
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trevsooncome retweeted
On the 20th of October 1984, 11-year-old Craig Bromfield and his 12-year-old brother Aaron went down to the Seaburn Hotel in Sunderland hoping to get some autographs from the Nottingham Forest players.
Aaron spotted Brian Clough walking along the seafront with some of his staff.
The boys went over and politely called him Mr Clough.
Clough took one look at them.
They had no coats on, they were freezing and Aaron had just been swimming in the sea in his pants.
Clough called them a couple of “ragtags.”
He told them they would “catch their bloody death” dressed like that, and asked if they had eaten any breakfast.
They hadn’t.
Clough took them back into the hotel and got them fed.
Then he told them they could travel to the match with Nottingham Forest on the team bus, as long as they went home first and got permission from their parents.
So Craig and Aaron ran the two miles home to Southwick, asked if they could go and ran back again.
Once they were on the bus, Clough sat at the front and told them to “bugger off” to the back, where Forest kept the chocolate, crisps and fizzy drinks.
They could help themselves.
Just don’t disturb the players.
For two boys who had grown up in and out of care, begging strangers for money and being sent out to steal, it was the best day of their lives.
Craig never got the chance to thank Clough properly, so afterwards he wrote him a letter.
Clough wrote back.
He told Craig he was pleased they had enjoyed themselves and hoped he would see them again.
At the bottom he signed it:
“Be good, Love Brian.”
Not long afterwards, Sunderland drew Nottingham Forest at Roker Park in the League Cup.
Craig and Aaron were waiting at the Seaburn Hotel before the Forest team had even arrived.
When Clough stepped off the bus, he hugged them.
Again, he decided they looked as though they needed feeding.
He told them to go inside and order whatever they wanted.
Forest returned to Sunderland again just before Christmas.
This time, Clough brought presents.
The boys were given a football signed by the Forest squad and padded jackets.
Clough hadn’t forgotten how they had looked the first morning he met them.
“Now you’ve no excuse for not bringing your coats.”
But Clough’s involvement in their lives didn’t stop with football.
One day outside the ground, Craig spotted four boys from school who had been bullying him.
Clough noticed something was wrong and asked him about it.
Craig told him.
Clough walked over to the four boys.
He gave each of them a ticket for the match.
Then he gave them a warning.
“I know who you are and I know where you all live, and I’ll come round to yer mams’. Now bugger off!”
They never bullied Craig again.
Over the next few years, Craig and Aaron became part of Clough’s family.
They stayed at his home in Derbyshire, played in the games room, went into Nigel Clough’s bedroom, travelled with Forest and were treated like little brothers by Clough’s children.
“We had been brought up to believe nobody could love us; that we were unlovable.”
“For the first time, we felt loved and special.”
When Craig was 16, his parents decided to move to London without him.
Clough told him to come and live with his family.
He went from being the 11-year-old boy outside the Seaburn Hotel without a coat to travelling to work with Brian Clough, helping out in the Forest dressing room and sitting in the dugout as they won at Wembley.
Years later, Craig was asked what his life might have looked like if he had never walked over to Brian Clough that morning in Sunderland.
“If Brian hadn’t done what he did, I wouldn’t have had a life, because I would have been in prison.”
trevsooncome retweeted
I spend a fair bit of time in historic racing, as many know and so I talk to a serious quota of ‘greatest generation’ racing drivers.
Here’s a few things millennials like me should really note - they are in their 70’s/80’s now…
They arrive on time without fail, (I’m talking - to the literal minute) explain patiently and quietly with zero pretence despite objectively terrifying feats/stories.
They minimise their own and maximise everyone else’s contribution to their usually significant results and achievements. And often tell the story from somebody else’s perspective
These are people forged by different world. Roll your eyes as much as you want, we need to grab their view of the world before it’s gone.
I've just signed this petition. Will you add your name and share too?
you.38degrees.org.uk/petitio…
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Rain delay #singaporegp fingers crossed @ScuderiaFerrari will put @LewisHamilton @Charles_Leclerc on the right tyres #justsayin 👀
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