Latest news with #ChedEvans
BBC News
a day ago
- Sport
- BBC News
'It was sad to leave Preston but I didn't want to retire'
Former Preston North End striker Ched Evans is pleased he could leave the club this summer on good 36-year-old was offered a coaching role at the Championship side but instead opted for a return to League Two club Fleetwood Town for a third spell."It took me months to make a decision because ultimately if I take the [coaching] job, I'm retired," Evans told BBC Radio made eight substitute appearances in the Championship last season but still maintains a good relationship with manager Paul Heckingbottom."I had to accept it and as the manager, he has a plan."We left on really good terms, I wish him all the best. Although it was a sad thing because I loved it at Preston, the love for football outweighed that."Listen to the full interview and more on BBC Sounds
BBC News
2 days ago
- Sport
- BBC News
'Urge to play outweighed fear of paralysis'
New Fleetwood Town striker Ched Evans said he should have asked for help much earlier after suffering a neck injury in 2023 which could have left him 36-year-old returned to the Cod Army last week for a third spell after turning down a coaching role at Preston North of his side's opening fixture away to League Two new boys Barnet on Saturday, Evans revealed the severity of an injury which he regrets not reporting to medical staff earlier."I think the scary thing is I didn't tell anybody. That mindset of wanting to play football and prove something probably overtook my decision there," Evans told BBC Radio Lancashire. "The symptoms of the injury had been going on for two years so the ability to look up or open the milk in the morning, I couldn't do."What I should have done is ask for help and I didn't. That urge to play football outweighed the fear of being paralysed. I knew it was bad, but just how bad, I didn't understand."Evans eventually had surgery in April 2023 and return to action in October of that year. He will be hoping to rediscover the form that helped him score 37 goals in 81 appearances in two and a half seasons for Fleetwood before a move to Preston, where he has spent the past four years. Last season, Evans signed a one-year deal at Deepdale as a player-coach but he made only eight substitute appearances in the Championship as the Lilywhites narrowly avoided relegation to League One on the final day of the the former Wales international has said he is unprepared to hang up his boots yet as he embarks on his 15th season as a professional player."For me personally, I was coming back to somewhere you know, and once I'd spoken to the manager [Pete Wild] and he talked about his plan and what he wanted to achieve, I was sold on that straight away," Evans added."It took a good few months but in the end my preference is [playing] football."I got offered to work with the [Preston] under-18s and under-21s and it did really excite me, but I would have had to retire and I wasn't ready to make that decision."
BBC News
7 days ago
- Sport
- BBC News
Fleetwood re-sign striker Evans from Preston
Fleetwood Town have brought striker Ched Evans back to the club for a third spell after the veteran turned down a coaching job to leave Preston North 36, spent the 2018-19 season on loan with the Cod Army before signing permanently from Sheffield scored 37 goals in two and a half seasons with the club and returns on a one-year deal after leaving North End at the end of his contract."I will always have the best memories of my time at Preston," Evans told North End's website., external "For now, though, I need to play."Preston had offered Evans a coaching role in the club's academy but he decided to continue his playing career by re-joining Pete Wild's League Two side."I've been debating what to do for a few months, but I knew I still had something to give," he added to Fleetwood's website., externalEvans has scored 105 goals in 361 league games since making his debut, on loan at Norwich from first club Manchester City, in 2007.
Telegraph
28-03-2025
- Sport
- Telegraph
Ched Evans' journey from rape trial to prime-time slot on BBC One
A decade ago he was the footballing rapist freed from jail over a case as heinous as any to hit the English game. On Sunday, nine years after that conviction was overturned, he could play a part in Preston North End's most glamorous game in modern times. The public outcry has died down but it will not be lost on Ched Evans quite how unlikely this shot at glory once seemed. He runs out in front of BBC One cameras that previously captured him as the lead item on news bulletins. But at 36, an against-the-odds career highlight beckons, with Aston Villa standing in the way of a potential FA Cup semi-final. Evans, his body slowing as he fends off retirement, is likely to be restricted to a reduced role as an impact substitute, but this FA Cup tie is nevertheless a taste of what might have been. He has come back from a debilitating neck condition and there have been extended stints on the sidelines in recent years but that is not why this striker never quite delivered on the heights that were anticipated as a youngster at Manchester City. It is instead the boos and jeers he still faces from opposition fans that remind him why opportunities such as Sunday have been so scant. There are many outside football – including some figures now in government – who still believe it is an abject failure of the footballing authorities that Evans was ever able to resume his professional career. So much has changed over the past nine years, but the sport still regularly encounters moral dilemmas when its high-profile role models are accused of sex crimes. In recent years, similar debates have raged around whether Mason Greenwood and Benjamin Mendy should have been allowed to carry on after rape cases against them fell away. In the Premier League today, a player still features for his club week in, week out while the Crown Prosecution Service considers multiple charges against him. Evans' rape trial, appeal and retrial Evans had his public image battered almost beyond repair despite being cleared in 2016 of raping a 19-year-old woman in a hotel room five years earlier. The acquittal came after a lengthy appeals process which still alarms victim rights groups. His actions on the night in question have been found lawful but they were nevertheless obscene. The woman told the jury she woke up naked in a hotel room in Rhyl, North Wales, in May 2011 with no memory of what had happened but fearing that her drinks had been spiked. After friends encouraged her to go to the police, officers discovered the room in which she woke up had been booked and paid for by Evans, who said that he and his friend and fellow footballer Clayton McDonald had consensual sex with the woman. In court, Evans repeatedly admitted that he lied to get the key for the hotel room and did not speak to the woman before, during or after sex. He left via a fire exit and it also emerged that Evans's younger brother and another man were trying to film what was happening from outside the room. Campaign against precedent set by case What sticks most painfully in the craw of women's campaign groups is the means by which his initial rape conviction was overturned. His legal team had found two witnesses who gave testimony about the complainant's sexual preferences and the language she used during sex. A prior appeal-court decision to allow the jury to hear the evidence, and subsequently question the complainant in detail in open court about intimate details of her sex life, set a precedent with which case lawyers are still grappling today. Among those leading calls for the Attorney General to take action at the time to tighten the law was the Labour MP Jess Phillips. It can be safely assumed that Phillips, now a Home Office minister, will be cheering on her home-town club Villa today. Her husband's cousin, coincidentally, is the former Aston Villa striker Kevin Phillips. Other campaigners standing alongside Phillips in 2016 readily express disgust at Evans's redemption in the game while sex assault victims continue to pay the price for the precedent his case had set. 'The Evans appeal allowed irrelevant evidence of sexual history with men other than the accused,' says Lisa Longstaff, of Women Against Rape (WAR) which led protests at the time. 'WAR has campaigned for years for such evidence to be banned in law so the victim's character and past are not on trial. The current restrictions to sexual history evidence are not enough.' Harriet Wistrich, the renowned human rights solicitor and founder of the Centre for Women's Justice, also reflected on a lack of progress since the case. 'It is difficult to say things are any better than they were then,' she said. 'Some improvements but other steps back,' Wistrich added. How Evans returned to football During that same period, life has been relatively smooth for Evans after a bumpy start. The mood was febrile when it was announced after his release from jail that he would resume training with Sheffield United, who had released him after his initial conviction. Various club patrons resigned and the Olympic champion Jessica Ennis-Hill stated she would want her name removed from a stand at Bramall Lane if he was offered a new deal. Hartlepool, Grimsby and Hibernian also mooted deals. But after the conviction was quashed, Evans was able to get his career back on its feet quickly. He initially signed a one-year deal at Chesterfield, then in League One, and hit a rich vein of scoring form during early appearances. A short-lived and unsuccessful return to United followed in 2017 before he joined League One Fleetwood Town the following year. Following a debut goal for Fleetwood, he left the pitch to a standing ovation but following a fall-out with then manager Joey Barton, he eventually pitched up at Preston, where once again fans would take convincing. In a fan forum poll of 500 supporters in January 2021, 87 per cent declared him unwelcome. Regulars on the terraces at Deepdale and club executives have since been won over, however, by Evans's determination to redeem himself over the past four years. A magnificent left-footed volley against Millwall in his ninth Championship game for the club helped his cause. There were also several man-of-the-match displays the following campaign in which he was the club's top scorer with nine goals. That season ended with a career-threatening medical condition relating to his neck and spine. But once again he confounded expectations and forced his way back to fitness six months later. The manager at the time, Ryan Lowe, spoke of the regard with which he is held at the club and said he was 'absolutely over the moon for him, his family and for us as a club' as Evans returned to action. 'It was a bit emotional when we got the news; I actually rang him and started singing his name down the phone.' Over the summer, there was more praise for the Welshman as he was handed a player-coach deal. This season a knee injury ruled him out until late January. He has since made substitute appearances but is yet to regain a starting place. However, life is good for Evans, a popular member of the squad who is now married to Natasha Massey, the woman who stood by him throughout. She gave a rare interview to The Telegraph in 2016 in a bid to explain why she had stuck with Evans. 'It wasn't the rape allegation,' Natasha recalls. 'It was personal. It was the fact Ched had cheated on me, he'd ruined the trust that we had. I trusted him with my life.' But not for a second, she says, did she ever think that Ched had actually raped someone. 'He couldn't. I mean the only people who think Ched is a rapist are people who haven't met him. He's a big softie.' Team-mates and staff alike at Preston also clearly believe the man now so respected in the changing room could never be capable of such a crime. Others who studied the case carefully, however, maintain that regardless of the court's verdict, the saga remains one of football's bleakest episodes. 'At some point the outrage becomes white noise to the public,' says Jamie Klingler, of Reclaim These Streets.
The Independent
08-02-2025
- Sport
- The Independent
Preston North End vs Wycombe Wanderers LIVE: FA Cup result, final score and reaction
Follow live coverage as Preston North End face Wycombe Wanderers in the FA Cup today. This season marks the 144th edition of the world's oldest cup competition, with Manchester United the reigning champions after they beat local rivals Manchester City in the final at Wembley. While the usual suspects are likely to be in the running this season - Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham all included as well as the aforementioned Manchester duo - it's those without silverware in recent years who will hope to challenge into the latter stages, such as Newcastle United, Everton and even Chelsea, who are without a domestic trophy in over six years despite European success. Premier League clubs enter from the third round of the competition, but every team takes part: from non-league to EFL sides in the lower leagues, everyone gets a shot at glory and the chance to face the country's finest in the FA Cup. Follow live updates from today's game in the live blog below. Preston North End vs Wycombe Wanderers Kaine Kesler-Hayden (Preston North End) wins a free kick in the defensive half. 8 February 2025 17:29 Preston North End vs Wycombe Wanderers Foul by Beryly Lubala (Wycombe Wanderers). 8 February 2025 17:29 Preston North End vs Wycombe Wanderers Ali McCann (Preston North End) wins a free kick in the attacking half. 8 February 2025 17:25 Preston North End vs Wycombe Wanderers Attempt blocked. Joe Low (Wycombe Wanderers) header from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Beryly Lubala with a cross. 8 February 2025 17:24 Preston North End vs Wycombe Wanderers Foul by Ched Evans (Preston North End). 8 February 2025 17:23 Preston North End vs Wycombe Wanderers Gideon Kodua (Wycombe Wanderers) wins a free kick on the left wing. 8 February 2025 17:23 Preston North End vs Wycombe Wanderers Attempt saved. Milutin Osmajic (Preston North End) header from the left side of the box is saved in the bottom left corner. Assisted by Sam Greenwood with a cross. 8 February 2025 17:23 Preston North End vs Wycombe Wanderers Tyreeq Bakinson (Wycombe Wanderers) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul. 8 February 2025 17:22 Preston North End vs Wycombe Wanderers Ched Evans (Preston North End) wins a free kick in the defensive half. 8 February 2025 17:22 Preston North End vs Wycombe Wanderers Foul by Sam Greenwood (Preston North End). 8 February 2025 17:21
