Gerrard Houllier’s been confirmed as the new Aston Villa manager and former Villain Steve Staunton wants to be his number two. Former Liverpool chief Houllier will be unveiled to the press this afternoon – he takes over from Kevin MacDonald who’d been in caretaker charge since Martin O’Neill’s departure. It was thought Phil Thompson would join him at Villa Park but it now appears that Stan is among the contenders to become his assistant. His first game in charge will be Monday’s Premier League trip to Stoke. His first trip back to Anfield will come in December.

A report in the Irish Independent today claims the FAI have failed to sell around half the ten-year tickets for the brand new Avivia stadium. The planned ticket sales were to cover already massive debts. Large tracts of empty Premium seats were visible during the first home qualifier against Andorra this week.

Meanwhile it’s claimed Bohemians have lost €3 million over the last two years. Bohs spent €1.7 million on wages last season – having missed out on a half a million euro pay day due to their early Champions League exit – the League Champions are battling to clear existing debts.

The men’s semi final line-up will be completed at the US Open today. Top seed Rafa Nadal will tackle his fellow Spaniard Fernando Verdasco in the next phase while it’s Mikhail YUouzhny against Stanislas Wawrinka on the other side. Novak Djokovic is to meet Roger Federer in the semis – both came through the last eight last night. Fed saw out Robin Soderling in straight sets – Djokovic also came through in three sets against Gael Monfils but needed a couple of tie breaks.

The picture’s begining to look a little clearer in the race ot the Dublin SFC title. Three more clubs made their exit in Round 3 last night. Templeogue Synge St went out with a 9pt loss to Ballymun Kickhams at Parnell Park. Kickhams now meet Oliver Plunketts/Eoghan Rua in the next phase. St Jude’s beat Thomas Davis at the Iveagh Grounds and go on to play St Brigid’s next up and St Anne’s went out with a single point loss to St Peregrine’s in Newcastle and now they play UCD in Round 4.

TO DONATE: Click on HOPE

Click on the picture to meet the team!

 “It’s for the girl who goes to school everyday but doesn’t have a place to go home to, the girl who wants to learn to sew so she can stop being in the sex trade” – a friend’s comment on why I’m learning to climb mountains and going to Everest.  Hi, I’m Teena Gates, the Head of News here at 98FM and I’m looking for your help.

I’ve recovered from illness and lost ten stone in the past 12 months and now I’m heading to Everest Base Camp along with a great group of people in October as part of a celebrity fund-raising effort for the Hope Foundation.

Carrauntoohil Challenge

Our expedition is led by the famous adventurer Pat Falvey who has already reached the summit of Everest twice.

Click on the Picture to Meet the Team and Donate to Hope

Through the expedition and fundraising events beforehand, I hope to raise €10,000 which will go towards a new girls’ home in Calcutta.   I’ve got a number of events planned over the next few months, and you can click on the link here below to make a donation directly to my ‘Hope Account’.

TO DONATE (My Charity/Laser): Click on HOPE

Hope is an Irish charity which brings life and hope to street kids in Calcutta who have little of one and none of the other.  Hope works to help children born on the streets who are denied such needs as food, shelter, healthcare, education, love, safety and support.  Dangerous predators regularly abuse these vulnerable children emotionally, physically, mentally and sexually and the streets offer little protection.  I passionately share Hope’s belief that ‘it shouldn’t hurt to be a child’. I’ve enjoyed an amazing transformation in my own health and happiness in the past year, and if my story is one of ‘hope’, then I’m happy to share it around.

LATEST FUNDRAISING NEWS – €2,000 Treadmillathon

EIGHT HOURS on a treadmill at Superquinn in Blanchardstown.  We’ve generated over €2,000 through this latest fundraiser for the Hope Foundation, as the countdown continues to our HOPE/Everest Expedition this October.  

  Thanks to everyone who gave money and who helped on the day; my 85-year old dad in the picture above who was shaking buckets with me all day long, to FaceBook friend Jayme & her pal Deirdre, and to the amazing ladies from WeightWatchers in Dublin 15 who turned up with an extra treadmill, and ran along beside me.  We sprinted the last bit!  Great to feel so much energy after years of being so sick and weak.  Lads and lasses, when I started walking on a treadmill just last year, I could only manage one minute at a time.  Goes to show what we can all do if we’ve got the right challenge.  

Cars at the Castle -  Fundraiser for Hope – €1,500

Thank you to everyone who supported ‘Cars at the Castle’ which turned out to be a really good day with lots of fun, lots of wonderful people and wonderful cars, and €1,500 raised for the Hope Foundation.

Thirty very special cars drove from Dublin’s beautiful Phoenix Park to Slane Castle for a car show and picnic and raised €1,500 for ‘HOPE’ along the way.

Thanks again to everyone who helped make the day happen, especially my team of helpers and the wonderful Mount Charles family who loaned us their Castle for the day – in particular Lord Alex, who led us from Phoenix Park to Slane Castle, in the most amazing E-type Jag. ‘Classic’ day out! xx

Dublin’s ‘Wheel of Hope’….I did it!

Click on the Picture to Meet the Team and Donate to Hope

The question was… could I abseil down something really spectacular in the city? Would they let me do what I’m thinking? & if I did it for HOPE, would my friends and supporters make it worth my while…?

And the answer is Yes, Yes and YES…… 

 TO DONATE (My Charity/Laser): Click on HOPE

 Thanks to an amazing bunch of people I abseiled down the ‘Wheel of Dublin’ during  morning rush-hour – my WHEEL OF HOPE CHALLENGE to raise funds for the Hope Foundation and street kids in Calcutta.

Mike O’Shea from ‘Work at Height’

Final Fundraiser PENDING!

HOPE COUNTS FASHION SHOW

The HOPE COUNTS fashion show is on Thursday September 23rd at the Crown Plaza in Blanchardstown. It’s more than a fashion show – my models are Weight Watchers’ ladies from Dub 15 who have reached or who are close to reaching goal.   I hope this fashion show will celebrate their achievement and mine.

The 'before'

I have been a member of Weight Watchers myself during my 10 stone weight loss.  I won’t lie, losing half your body weight is tough and I’ve had amazing support from the ladies in Dublin 15 and from our WWs’ leader Vera Baker, who’s never been judgmental and always been wise!   

We have amazing clothes from Debenhams and the Base Camp adventure sports store on Middle Abbey Street, with some ‘Trinny and Suzannah’ moments thanks to Deb’s personal Shopper, Ann Peppard, and David Marshall hair.  

  The ‘Hope Counts Fashion Show’ will be a positive way to highlight some of the amazing women that I have met along the way.  I’m so proud of all those real, wonderful women and we”re all going to be fabulous together!

 

You can buy tickets for the ‘Hope Counts Fashion Show’  through WeightWatchers in Dublin 15, through Total Fitness Gym in Castlenock and through BaseCamp adventure store on Middle Abbey Street.

 

TOTAL FITNESS

Total Fitness Gyms are organising a ’step-by-step’ campaign to trace my footsteps and follow my steps to Mount Everest; with amazing support from the members of the Castleknock Gym, where I’ve slugged it out with gym guru Dave Dunne, losing over 10 stone over the past 12 months.

TRAINING UPDATE

September 6th & 7th:

This was a big one.  I’ve just finished two days of intense training on Ireland’s highest Mountain Carrauntoohill.   Pat Falvey and his team of guides from the Mountain Lodge Adventure Centre in Killarney took us out to see if we could cut our times for climbing the mountain, and also to introduce us to hill-walking.  

Ok - who said I had a head for heights?

Want to guess what I'm thinking?

Hitting the Wall

OK, the boss is away – Gym Guru Dave Dunne is off on a cruise, and I’m supposed to be slogging it out in the gym with a load of ‘home-work’ while he’s away…. but I’m gonna be in detention when he sees this, ‘cos I’ve been skipping the gym.  Still exercising though – Trinity College Dublin have let me use their climbing wall, and thanks to Jonathan and Katie, for showing me how!

Aug 21st and 22nd:

A new milestone this weekend.  I tried rock-climbing for the first time – and I LOVED IT…!!!

Climbed a couple of routes on the Acorn Buttress at the East Wing of the Twins, in Glendalough in Wicklow, and then went off abseiling…. I’m hooked! Thanks to the Wet and Wild gang who let me tag along at short-notice, to FB friend Brian who set it up, and to Diarmuid from Adventu…re Days who is a really excellent trainer. www.adventuredays.biz

Sunday: I spent the morning on 98FM, and then it was back on the hills, climbing around Spink Mountain.  Met a lot of you who recognised me from my website and the recent newspaper features for the Hope Everest Expedition.  That’s amazing, because working in radio, I’m not used to being spotted out and about. I was training on my own on Sunday, so tried to set a few personal challenges – like making it up the steps at the foot of Spink Mountain in ten minutes flat.  I think that’s really good going -  for me anyway!  It’s great to see all the pain in the gym pay off with a stronger, fitter me.

Aug 14th & 15th

Just reached the top of the ‘Miners Village’ trek on the ascent to Spink Mountain, when a voice rang out: “98FM Everest Challenge”… I continued to walk and suddenly pulled up as my brain kicked in with a big thought bubble ‘that’s ME’..!  Turning around I saw a bunch of grinning climbers who turned out to be a group training for Kilimanjaro with Ian Taylor Trekking.  Turns out Ian’s one of my Facebook Friends and has been following my progress in getting fit for Everest.  Great bunch of lads and lassies, we walked up and over Spink together and Ian caught some fantastic views along the way.

Ian has also invited myself and Rosaleen from the Hope Foundation to come up again and do some climbing here:

Rosaleen and I spent two days out on the hills this weekend with rucksacks full of lead, continuing the regime to prepare for our Everest Challenge in October.  It was tough climbing in the heat – although the views were stunning.

It was nice to cool down afterwards though:

Click on the Picture to Meet the Team and Donate to Hope

Aug: 7th & 8th

The picture tells it’s own story… incredibly happy to come over the edge of the Carrauntoohil Curved Gully ‘Chimney’… I didn’t think I’d ever want to do that again, but now I’m back at my desk and warm and dry, I’m just dying to get up there again!

This weekend saw me follow up on my promise to return to Carrauntoohil and climb again to Ireland’s highest point.

The celebrity team that are going to Everest in October converged on Pat Falvey’s Kerry Mountain Lodge Adventure Centre to train together for the first time, thanks to the kind assistance of Irish Rail www.irishrail.ie.

Imagine climbing un-roped to 3,400 feet in driving rain over cliffs and up through waterfalls to reach the summit of Carrauntoohil; then grabbing 3 hours sleep in a tent before heading out to climb the peaks in the dark, making the summit in time to see the dawn flash and burn through the mist…descending hours later to cool off with a plunge in an icy mountain lake. Terrifying and wonderful and great preperation for the sub-zero trials that lie ahead for us all.

Two days of climbing in the ‘Reeks and a splash in an icy lake at the foot of The Gap, in very different conditions to my first trip just a month ago, which was captured here on video:

If you feel that you can offer any assistance to me during this series of fundraising events I would be enormously grateful on behalf of the Hope Foundation and the street children of Calcutta.   I appreciate we are in difficult times at present but Irish charities are badly hurting following the recession and those with a tradition of helping causes abroad have probably been hit hardest.  Ireland has a proud tradition of helping both at home and afar and I hope that we can continue to bring love and comfort to the children of Calcutta, despite these leaner economic times.  Any donation that you are able to make will go directly to Hope Foundation projects in Calcutta working with street children and their families.

TO DONATE: Click on my photo below

Thank you for helping me to help the children.

 To Meet the Team and Donate:  Click on Hope  

LATEST NEWS

 This was a big one.  I headed down to Pat Falvey’s Mountain Lodge Adventure Centre in Killarney for two days of intensive training this week, on Carrauntoohill, Ireland’s highest mountain.

OK, who said I had a head for heights?

 Along with Pat’s adventure guides, we managed to cut 3 hours off my previous time for climbing to the summit of Carrauntoohill.   Then someone had the bright idea of heading off across the ‘Reeks to climb 4 more of Ireland’s highest peaks, and take in a stunning and scary ‘ridge-walk’.  10 hours of climbing in one day.   Thanks Pat!  

Want to guess what I'm thinking?

Click on Picture for Everest Training Blog

 

 

 

 

 To DONATE (My Charity/Laser):Click on HOPE

Next up for Trap’s Troops will be Russia in Dublin in 4 weeks. Ireland are top of Group B of the Euro qualifiers this morning following the 3-1 win at home to minnows Andorra last night. Kilbane, Doyle and Keane with the home goals. Russia have it all to do already – they’ll need a win at the Aviva following a 1-0 loss at home to Slovakia last night.

Meanwhile the club future of Irish midfielder Liam Lawrence is up in the air again. Lawrence had been on his way from Stoke to Portsmouth as part of the Marc Wilson deal in the opposite direction. Now it’s emerged that the paperwork may not have been filed in time – they may also have surpassed the number of players they can have on loan. He’s been speaking to 98FM Sport’s Stephen Doyle:

Click here to hear Liam Lawrence

Seriously Rhianna can do no wrong.

You may have seen her in pictures lately with gun tattoos all over her, don’t panic she hasn’t lost her mind altogether, they’re fake tattoos for her upcoming role in the movie Battleship.

Rhianna’s new album rumoured to be titled “Loud” is gona be released sometime late November.  

We’ve got a sneak peak for you, Have a listen to her new track (above) from the album, it’s called Only Girl in the World.

The song was produced by Stargate, the Grammy-winning Norwegian producing team who previously produced Rihanna’s smash hits “Please Don’t Stop the Music” and “Hate That I Love You.” An Itunes arrival date is yet to be confirmed but we’ll keep you posted.

Ballinteer St John’s and Round Towers among those to bow out of the Dublin SFC last night. Balinteer went down by 4pts against St Mary’s Saggart who now meet St Vincent’s in Round 4. Raheny had 10pts to spare of Towers at Russell Park and go on to meet Ballyboden St Enda’s – the county champions – in the next stage. Wins also for O’Toole’s, St Sylvesters and Fingal Ravens.

Latest Results:

Round 4 Draw:

O’Toole’s V Na Fianna

St Sylvester’s V Kilmacud Crokes

St Mary’s Saggart V St Vincent’s

Raheny V Ballyboden St Enda’s

Fingal Ravens V Lucan Sarsfields

Conor O’Brien spoke to Totally Irish after a solo gig at the RickShaw Stop in San Francisco on the 29th July.