It’s good to be back in London for a few days where sport is the main topic of conversation in the pubs. Yes, the Wimbledon final is over and British boxing hopeful David Haye was well beaten by Wladimir Klitscho, but there’s still the series of cricket one day internationals against Sri Lanka, and, of course, football. Always football.
While supporters around the country are renewing their season tickets and avidly following news from the transfer market, a soccer-less season looms for a football-crazy great–grandmother who has been handed a 12-month ban from Leeds United’s Elland Road ground after she invaded the pitch.
Margaret ‘Mags’ Musgrove was handed the automatic ban and had her season ticket seized after she went onto the grass at Elland Road during the last game of the season against Burnley in May.
TV footage shows her stepping out of the North Stand and approaching players with her arms in the air.
But club stewards then grabbed 5ft 4in-tall Margaret and hauled her into the club’s holding cells.
She was arrested by police but later released without charge.
Now the 63-year-old, who has 13 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, is pleading with the club’s bosses to reduce the punishment.
She also claims to be owed hundreds of pounds after paying installments towards the 2011/12 senior citizens’ season ticket which costs from £363.
Margaret said: “It’s not like I am a hooligan. People who do much worse than this get the same ban.”