On Monday's episode: Bartholomew Hall speaks with Whitstable cricketer John Butterworth after being called up to represent England in the Over-60s world cup. Plus, we take a look behind the scenes at Gillingham FC at Christmas.
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00:00 Hello and welcome along to Invicta Sport, the only show on your TV dedicated to wrapping
00:18 up all of Kent's sporting action.
00:20 I'm Bartholomew Hall and here's what to expect on this Monday the 11th of December.
00:27 Bones thrown out, Maidstone on the long walk home after own goal proves fatal.
00:33 Called up for England, Whitstable cricketer to represent the country at over-60s World
00:38 Cup.
00:39 And a Mary Gillesmere Stillingham's tear-jerking advert praised by fans.
00:47 But first a round-up of the headlines and Kent player Zach Crawley has been selected
00:51 in England's squad for their five-match test series against India.
00:56 The Kent batsman will be aiming to add to the 39 test caps he's already won.
01:00 The tour will begin in Hyderabad on the 25th January.
01:04 It comes after Crawley failed to deliver as England lost their three-game ODI series in
01:09 the West Indies.
01:10 The 25-year-old was out for a duck on Saturday's Duckworth Lewis loss at the Kensington Oval.
01:19 Next a 74-year-old weightlifter from Sittingbourne has set a new weightlifting world record.
01:24 John Murner says he knew he only had one chance to set a world record when he entered the
01:29 IAWA Gold Cup in Eastbourne.
01:32 Aiming to break the record in the little finger deadlift of 50kg, John managed to lift 60kg
01:40 and he even thinks he could have done more but unfortunately suffered an injury whilst
01:44 warming up which left him unable to complete any more lifts.
01:48 Congratulations to John.
01:50 Now in rugby, and Canterbury's four-match winning streak ended with a 43-33 National
01:56 League Two East defeat at home to Henley.
01:58 The visitors scored five tries in the first half but Matt Corker's side were unable to
02:03 come into force.
02:04 Canterbury are currently seventh in the National League Two East table.
02:07 Next up for them is a trip to the Tunbridge Juddians who in their own game this weekend
02:11 gave a high-flying Barnes a run for their money in a 16-12 defeat.
02:17 They're now sixth in the table.
02:18 Team West Severn Oaks narrowly lost 22-20 against Westcombe.
02:25 Most of Kent's football teams have had some difficult games this weekend, with some not
02:29 even going ahead due to the poor weather conditions felt across the country.
02:33 None harder than Maidstone who travelled to London to face Barnet in the third round of
02:37 the FA Trophy.
02:39 They hope to get some of the same success they had in the previous weekend in the FA
02:43 Cup.
02:44 Epsfleet also had their first-round tie against the National League North team Bishop Stortford
02:48 so here is your football round-up with Finn McDermott.
02:51 This weekend saw National League South's Maidstone United travel to London to face
02:55 the league above's current third-place holder Barnet in the FA Trophy, meaning Maidstone
03:01 could be in for a tough game.
03:03 The Barnet attack starts when Kanu sends a hopeful cross just in front of the Maidstone
03:07 net wanting to reach Kabamba on the other side but Fowler stuck his foot out just at
03:13 the wrong moment.
03:14 Only ten minutes later and a technical one-two with a powerful strike from Pritchard that
03:18 Kovalon punches away but Kabamba managed to find the back of the net.
03:22 The same player Kabamba, he just refused to give up this match.
03:26 Kabamba weaves it past him and simply passes into an open net.
03:30 Hoy sent a high cross into the box.
03:33 Abraham reaches out for it with a boot and Hall-Johnson leans down to stop it with a
03:37 header and goes down.
03:39 And the stones go down to ten men.
03:42 Gorman sends a fast one right into the box hoping to find a player but the stones defence
03:47 did such a good job blocking out any attempts that Gorman's ball found its own way into
03:52 the net and the game finishes with Maidstone suffering a 4-0 defeat and they are out of
03:58 the FA Trophy in the third round.
04:00 Here's what Maidstone manager George Elokobi had to say after his side's defeat.
04:05 Full credit to Din and his staff and his players and we wish them all the very best in the
04:10 next round of the FA Trophy.
04:12 Fully deserved, they deserved to win that game and by the number that they did in the
04:17 first half we didn't quite get close to them enough and we got punished for it.
04:21 Ebsfleet unfortunately went out on penalties in the third round of the FA Trophy to Bishops
04:27 Stottford, a team from the northern division of the league below.
04:31 Now it was a quiet one in League 2.
04:33 Zillingham saw their game against Barrow postponed with the tables showing the Gilles have to
04:38 recreate their beginning of the season success if they want to climb back up.
04:42 Now in the National League South, Dartford drew against current league leaders Yeovil
04:46 Town.
04:48 Dover saw their match against Truro City postponed for a later date and this is how the table
04:53 looks.
04:54 Tunbridge and Dartford are still in the mid-table and Dover just staying above Havart and Waterlooville
04:59 at the bottom.
05:00 Finally in the Itzmian Premier, Chatham Town lost in a surprise upset to sixth-placed Hastings
05:06 United.
05:07 Fargate narrowly lost against Carchulton as well.
05:09 In the table Chatham remain in second with a steep hill of nine points to climb if they
05:14 want to reach first over Hornchurch.
05:17 That's all for this football round-up.
05:18 Well hard luck for the Stones there of course, still keeping the flame alive in the FA Cup.
05:24 Now Whitstable all-rounder John Butterworth is preparing to represent England at the over-60s
05:30 Cricket World Cup in India.
05:32 Following a busy summer period with Whitstable helping them to win the division XI Shepherd
05:36 title, plus helping England to beat Australia in the Grey Ashes, he's now been given the
05:42 call-up once again to represent his country.
05:44 I spoke with John earlier today who was speaking to me from the Bruce Williams Art Gallery
05:50 in Whitstable.
05:51 Now I'm joined by John on the line now.
05:54 John, thank you so much for joining us today and welcome to the programme.
05:57 Now we have to address where it is you're standing right now.
06:00 You're in your hometown of Whitstable in your own art exhibition because when you're not
06:04 playing cricket you're an artist.
06:06 Tell us about the exhibition which is cricket themed.
06:10 It is, it's called The Art of Cricket and Other Travel Stories.
06:16 So basically it's based on my sketchbook work which I've done during my cricket tours largely.
06:25 So the last one you can probably see behind me there's some Caribbean style pictures which
06:32 I actually created in Barbados, the originals, and then I've actually printed them up for
06:39 the purposes of this exhibition which is really my fundraiser for getting to the World Cup,
06:47 the 60+ World Cup which is going to be held in Chennai in India in February next year.
06:55 Absolutely in February, yeah.
06:58 Just looking at the artwork I was going to say from where we are here it looks fantastic
07:02 and it's still open until tomorrow, that's Tuesday this week if people want to go down
07:06 to Whitstable and have a look.
07:09 Now John we've got to move on to the cricket.
07:11 It's not the first time that you've been selected to represent England but it must feel just
07:16 as good the second time round.
07:18 Yes, I mean the first time obviously I wasn't anticipating that.
07:24 I just happened to have a particularly good season for the, when I started playing for
07:30 the Kent 60+ side I had probably my best ever season on record with the bat and I actually
07:37 scored 1200 runs that season, not, well between the county and the club which you've mentioned,
07:45 and I got invited to a trial match in Oxfordshire which I also did well in and performed well
07:54 anyway.
07:56 So I was thereafter included in the tour squad for the Big Man Carib Cup.
08:04 I've got this book actually which is all about that from last winter which we were successful
08:12 in winning, playing the final at the Bridgetown Oval, or the Kensington Oval as it's known
08:18 in Barbados, and then subsequent to that I was selected for the Grey Ashes squad.
08:26 You can probably see this top I'm wearing which was a bit of merchandise actually being
08:31 sold around the grounds when we were playing the Australians last summer around the country.
08:36 It was a five test series starting in, I think we started in Gloucestershire maybe and then
08:45 we moved up to Southport, came back via Derbyshire, back down to Oxfordshire, at which point we
08:56 actually reclaimed the Little Urn as we won that game, it was therefore 3-1.
09:07 So that was an exciting day.
09:09 I mean that's just fantastic, to see one of our sides at least reclaiming the urn is brilliant
09:16 and to be part of it yourself is fantastic.
09:19 So similarly, now, did you want to ask, sorry.
09:22 No you're okay, I was going to move on to talking about India, you're going to be there
09:27 in February, first game, I've got it written here on the 19th of February against New Zealand.
09:32 You been to India before?
09:35 I've not been to India and it's something of a lifetime ambition, obviously mainly for
09:39 cricket reasons but also for art reasons to go to India because as you can probably tell
09:45 I love colour and I love culture so yeah I'm very excited to finally be going to India
09:53 in an unexpected form perhaps, playing cricket rather than watching.
09:59 Hopefully this time next year we'll be speaking with a whole other array of photos and paintings
10:06 behind you.
10:07 Just want to quickly ask, before we wrap up here, the team that you're going to be with,
10:11 some big names in there, you've got Nasser Hussein, his older brother, Mel Hussein, I
10:16 mean not the first time you're in the England squad as we've already said but what's it
10:20 like when you're with the rest of them?
10:23 Yeah well the squad make up slightly different for the World Cup squad, it's actually a few
10:29 new names and faces in there.
10:31 I mean Mel has played in the Grey Ashes series, that was his first series and now we've got,
10:38 alongside Mel we've got two lads from Durham and another lad Nick Gaywood from Yorkshire.
10:47 There's a couple of new wicket keepers including Simon Routh who's still playing in Kent at
10:52 Tunbridge Wells.
10:54 So yeah it's great being with these guys from around the country, learning about their cricket
11:01 journeys, who they've played with, you know you can imagine the stories that we get to
11:06 hear from each other.
11:08 This coming weekend we're off to Loughborough for a training camp and we've got the ex-Kent
11:13 and England coach, sorry he was a Kent player I think, Paul Farbrace, who's going to be
11:20 running our training camp and there's also Jim Phillips from Kent so we're well represented.
11:28 Absolutely, it sounds like Kent is well represented and hopefully with yourself there as well
11:34 you can bring back some more success.
11:36 John thank you so much for joining us and best of luck in the new year.
11:42 Thank you very much Bartholomew.
11:45 John Butterworth there whose art exhibition is being held in Whitstable at the Bruce Williams
11:49 Art Gallery until Tuesday evening.
11:51 I'll be back after this very short break.
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15:05 Hello and welcome back to Invicta Sport live on KMTV.
15:11 Now the festive season has well and truly arrived which means we are surrounded by tear-jerking Christmas adverts.
15:17 And now even from some of our local football clubs, Gillingham FC has released its Christmas campaign to promote its new club shop in a John Lewis inspired advertisement which some fans have described as powerful, poignant and bringing back many memories at the club.
15:31 Well to talk more about the festive season at the club and some of the changes that the club have seen more widely, we'll soon be joined by Gillingham FC's Director of Operations Joe Comper and Block Productions Director Nick Williamson.
15:43 But first, let's get a taste for the advert itself.
15:46 [Music]
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16:36 Give the precious gift of memories this Christmas.
16:40 Love the Gills.
16:42 Well I'm joined by both of them now. I mean it really is a heartwarming advert isn't it?
16:51 Nick, we'll come to you first. You joined in partnership with the club, with Block Productions, putting out videos like this. We've seen a few player announcement signing videos as well. Where did the idea come from for this Christmas advert?
17:05 So I think first and foremost I'll put it on the table. I got into football really late in my life through working at another club previously. I never really followed the game as a kid.
17:18 So for me when it came to this it was all about what I've seen over the months and watching all of these families, relatives, dads, sons, little kids, kids that don't even understand the game yet, they're not old enough.
17:32 And seeing that bond that they have just walking to the game, let alone being there, I wanted to massively harness that because I think the power of sharing that memory will last forever and that's kind of what I wanted to get across with this.
17:48 And of course everybody loves a good Christmas advert as well. I mean being with the family and everything.
17:53 Joe we'll come to you now, obviously Director of Operations at the club. It's had quite a good response from the fans. Have you kind of felt that?
18:00 Yeah, I mean I was a bit worried Nick would be humble enough to protect me. I actually was sort of worried about the idea wasn't I?
18:08 When we were talking about doing it I thought it might look a little bit cheesy and we don't want to be lookers trying to compete with John Lewis and people like that.
18:17 But it turned out and the fans really loved it and I think a lot of people felt a connection with it and it's gone down far better than I thought it was going to which is huge credit to Nick for very much his vision and he ran with it which is great for us.
18:33 Absolutely and I mean looking at some of the views today, almost 100,000 views across social media. I've got some of the comments here, some quite sad but it all comes back to what you were saying before.
18:45 One fan wrote on Ex, 'My dad passed away in January and it's thanks to him I'm a Gilles fan.'
18:52 Another wrote, 'Poignant peace, we've all lost that special person and this was so touching. I've been going with my dad for 30 years.
18:59 I will buy his seat with mine next season and copy this image we've got here.'
19:04 I mean it really does, the way that a club within its local community can bring people together, I think this is clearly an example of that. What do you make of it Jay?
19:16 I think football is really unique and it doesn't matter which direction you go in your life often, you ultimately come back to your football club don't you?
19:26 And it's often your dad, your mum, an older sibling, a grandparent who takes you and football has a unique way of turning you back into that 6, 7 year old again.
19:37 And I think this video captures that and when you speak to a lot of fans, particularly working in the football club, you'll speak to so many fans who actually their enjoyment of football is different and difficult when they lose someone who they used to do it with.
19:51 So yeah I'm sure it touched a nerve with a number of people but hopefully made them bring back positive memories of that 6, 7 year old and not the sad loss.
20:02 Well yeah, no of course and it's not just Christmas adverts that you've been making with the club as part of block productions, you've been following them all over the place, followed them to Europe on that European tour that we had in the summer.
20:13 I was lucky to get a ticket on the plane.
20:15 Anything for a free holiday.
20:17 It's fantastic, I think having the club be so generous with how creative they can let me be as well as some of the ideas that bounce around on trying to create a video.
20:33 One of the biggest problems that I say we have as a club, I have this problem and it probably, losers may sleep more than them but it's the fact that we've got to do this without it getting out.
20:45 Because we want whatever the video's going to be to be the first thing that they see, not the rumour, not the thing that's been leaked in the press or whatever it might be about signing.
20:54 So it always gets me, I'm the one, so like you read out those comments, I'm there, I'm reading every comment and it's kind of like I'm following the news on the day to make sure that everything happens behind closed doors and it's ready to hit.
21:08 And it's amazing to see how the fans are reacting to it.
21:11 And I think Joe, you joined the club in your role only this year but I think many fans are looking at the club now, the vision of it two years ago, maybe just a year ago, these type of videos weren't coming out.
21:23 And this kind of view of it, even now the front of the stadium itself, Priestfield, with this new shop opening, it's almost a completely new look, Gillingham.
21:32 Yeah, so I've been at the club now two and a half years. Previously I was head of commercial and then in the spring into summer became director of operations and the transformation has been incredible in that time.
21:46 And obviously Brad and Shannon should take the majority of the credit, let's not beat around the bush.
21:52 It's their investment in the club that has been the main driver behind it.
21:57 But it's not just about money, they put about £1.5 million into CapEx projects into the club, that's about the day-to-day running and the football side.
22:08 And yes that's important but it's also the changing of culture and the attitudes of the people around it.
22:14 So yes they lead that, I try to help them lead that but it's the likes of Mike Sullivan who's the head of commercial and Ben Reeves who works in the ticket office and Phil who works in media.
22:25 They have to deliver this culture and they have to deliver this vision that Brad and Shannon have brought.
22:30 And it's people like that that are really turning this club around and it's great to see and we're really confident that it will carry on and the upward trajectory both on and off the pitch is going to continue.
22:41 Absolutely, just before we go, got to bring it back to the football really.
22:44 One of the big games coming up is of course Boxing Day, it's always a big fixture isn't it at home.
22:49 Have you got your duct tape ready just in case there's another issue, obviously making a reference to the recent FA Cup game where you saved the day and fixed a corner flag?
22:58 Well I can't take the credit for that.
23:01 Something like that seems to happen all the time, be it a fire alarm, a broken flag.
23:06 Well thank you both for joining us and hopefully we'll speak to you soon.
23:10 Thank you.
23:11 Now just before we go this evening it's time to remind you, you can keep up to date with all the latest sports news, interviews and features from here on Invicta Sport by heading to our website kmtv.co.uk and clicking on the sports tab.
23:22 There you'll see videos like this one about a gym in Chatham which has found its home in one of the most unlikeliest places, an almost thousand year old church.
23:35 St. Bartholomew's Chapel, constructed almost a thousand years ago, this building is one of the oldest in Medway.
23:42 But nowadays it is home to one of Kent's most unique and intriguing combat sports gyms.
23:49 Home to Granite Gym, the chapel is now a place where you can train mind, body and spirit.
23:55 The gym conducts a range of combat sport classes including Muay Thai, Jiu Jitsu and Wrestling.
24:01 With classes open for all age groups, this gym in Chatham is helping young people get fit.
24:08 The youngsters come in and it's their self confidence and self esteem and it changes everything about them and nearly all of it's positive.
24:16 There's very few negatives, if someone's happier about themselves and more confident in their ability to get through every day then you know the world's better for it.
24:24 I'm coming here because of people, mostly buddies. I think it's helped me with my confidence, anxiety and it's helped me a lot with my breathing, exercises and punching.
24:38 And gym goers do feel that the chapel adds a special element to their training.
24:43 It makes it better. If you want to train fighting, combat sports, it's the perfect place to do it. It feels rough and old and nothing's pretty. That's what I like.
24:55 It's nice. In the winter it's horrible. There's no heating in here, it's freezing. In the summer it's nice and cool.
25:02 But for some guys it's a spiritual thing, it's a religious kind of thing. I'm not very religious. I just think it's a really glorious old building with loads of history.
25:10 Chris Garnett, who owns the gym, says his favourite thing about it is helping people of all ages and creating a sense of brotherhood.
25:18 It's a scary looking gym. But once you're in the door you realise everyone is lovely, nice people. There's sparring going on, there's wrestling going on.
25:26 It gives me joy that I can help people because martial arts is more than just sweating. It seems to have helped people in their minds in many different ways.
25:36 I can't believe I help people. I love it.
25:42 Well I was looking forward to joining in on some classes today but I think I'll pass.
25:51 Granite Gym continues to carry the legacy of one of Medway's oldest buildings while helping young and vulnerable people alike.
26:00 Sheldon Dragwitch for KMTV in Chatham.
26:05 Now it's the end of the show but of course we've been speaking quite a bit about Gillingham FC and the rest of our football for that matter.
26:12 Just to remind you if you want to keep up to date with all the Gillingham news coming out of Kent Online all you need to do is go to Kent Online email alerts and sign up on the website for all the latest written transfer news, match reports and interviews.
26:24 Plus a brand new one of all the non-league football that's going on in the county as well. So yeah, lots for you to check out there.
26:34 That is it for today's episode of Invicta Sport. I'll be back on Friday with another episode but for now I'll see you soon. Bye bye.
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