#ill leave the alts up to be collected until next month

[bf-rally]

Hi! I managed to finish the alts (and the code to set the bfs images to these alts):

When you get the chance go and collect them if you want!

[torentialtribute]

Without the club, I don’t how I would have stood up again: Cardiff saved doc after daughter’s death

Len Nokes is in the car when I call. I tell him I would like to talk about Claire. & # 39; I'm really going to see her now & # 39 ;, he says. It is early evening, his favorite moment of the day to visit. The sun shines directly on the plot where its ashes are buried and catches the bloom of the flowers. The cemetery is usually quiet. & # 39; I'm just talking to her, & # 39; he says.

On Sunday, he says he is bringing a bottle of Prosecco, Claire's favorite drink, to share with her. He sits on a bench and thinks of all the happiness that his daughter brought him. Every morning he enters her room as if she were still there. & # 39; Morning, Claire, & # 39; he will say, just like always. & # 39; Are you okay? Would you like a cup of tea? & # 39;

There have been times when he felt that grief would overwhelm him. One evening, a few months after Claire died in October 2017, he was alone in a hotel room when dark thoughts came in. He felt he wanted to die. He felt that he could no longer deal with what had happened. He fell to his knees, screaming and thumping and hammering on the floor.

Cardiff doctor Len Nokes thought about the tragedy of his daughter's death in October 2017

Nokes has been Cardiff City's club doctor for the last 20 years and has traveled home and with the team. & # 39; If I wanted to kill myself seriously, I had all the medication in my medical box to make it easy & # 39 ;, he says. He did not continue. He mainly thought of his wife and son. And he says there is another reason why he is still here. & # 39; The club saved me & # 39 ;, he says. & # 39; Football saved me. & # 39;

Claire was 24 and apparently in good health when she got up from the couch just after Christmas 2016 in her best friend's house and collapsed. Her girlfriend thought she had fainted, but she had a cardiac arrest caused by an undiagnosed condition called myocarditis. Nokes arrived in the house just after the paramedics.

After a while, Claire & # 39; s heart, which had been stopped, was shaken back into rhythm and taken to the Heath hospital in Cardiff. Her initial prognosis was cautiously optimistic, but it gradually became clear that she had suffered a hypoxic brain injury and had fallen into a vegetative state. She never regained consciousness.

The next nine months felt like a living hell for Nokes and his family. Claire & # 39; s condition did not improve and her body was destroyed by medullary storms, prolonged spasms that caused her limbs to leave and a painful expression to spread across her face. Sometimes she seemed agitated or in need. No one knew if she really was in pain.

Against this background of relentless suffering, Nokes found comfort in the football club. & # 39; He's such a nice man & # 39 ;, says Cardiff boss Neil Warnock. & # 39; The players love him. He is both a counselor and a doctor. And a consultant for marriage counseling. He's everything. He is a shoulder for the young boys. And a shoulder for the older boys. The doctor may be one of the forgotten people in a football club, but that is not the case with Len. & # 39;

When Nokes returned to work a few weeks after Claire's cardiac arrest, he was overwhelmed by the reaction of the players and the rest of the staff. Many wrapped him in bear hugs. Several players were crying. & # 39; I felt genuine love from everyone & # 39 ;, says Nokes.

A few months later, Warnock, club skipper Sean Morrison and defender of Sol Bamba, men who were Nokes & colossal figures in the club & # 39; named after Rookwood, a specialized rehabilitation center in Llandaff, where Claire was cared for, to open a garden and meet her.

Cardiff boss Neil Warnock describes Nokes as a & # 39; dear husband & # 39 ;, before he said the & # 39; players love him & # 39;

On the night before she died, Bamba drove directly to Rookwood after a home match in Cardiff against Derby County. Nokes knew how seriously ill Claire was at the time and was worried that Bamba would be upset by her condition, trying to persuade him to stay away. Bamba showed up anyway and sat alone at her bedside.

& # 39; Sun is a lovely spirit, a caring person & # 39 ;, says Nokes in Only Time Will Tell, the book he wrote, with the expert help of Cardiff's director of communication, Mark Denham, about Claire's death. & # 39; We left him alone with Claire and when he came out I saw that he had been crying. We walked into the ward through the corridor into the night and I saw that he was clearly upset. & # 39;

Bamba also remembers vividly that night. & # 39; It's sometimes easy for people to look at football clubs as a collection of individuals & # 39 ;, he says. & # 39; But at the best clubs they are like a family. What was important to us was to be there for Len. We are part of a family. I also have daughters. That night I felt that I had to be there. & # 39;

Claire & # 39; s funeral was the day before Cardiff played an away game in Middlesbrough, but the players insisted that they would not start the journey north until they had been present. They asked for permission to appear in their tracksuits, and Nokes happily agreed.

& # 39; I had to laugh about it & # 39 ;, he says. & # 39; I imagined Claire looking down, loving attention, and smiling too. & # 39; Cardiff was promoted at the end of that season. In the dressing room after the game against Reading, which confirmed their place in the Premier League, Morrison put his arms around Nokes again. & # 39; She looked down on us, & # 39; said the Cardiff skipper. "She made sure we did it."

Cardiff defends Sun Bamba sat at Claire & # 39; s s bed only the night before she died

Last season Cardiff suffered more tragedy. Their new signature, Emiliano Sala, died when the light plane in which he traveled collided with the English Channel. Nokes was one of the few people in the club who had met him.

& # 39; I was there for his medication & # 39 ;, he says. & # 39; He seemed like a nice guy. He was more than a name for me on paper. & # 39;

Saturday started a new season for Nokes.

He traveled north with Cardiff for the opening match of their championship campaign against Wigan. There is something calming for him about the rhythms that the game brings and the camaraderie of football.

I sometimes meet people in the cemetery who lost their loved ones 15 years ago, he says. & # 39; And they say that the sadness they feel has not changed. I don't know if I'll be like that. I know that I miss Claire so much. I do know that I still cry regularly. But without football, without the club, I don't know how I would have found the strength to get up again. & # 39;

Only Time Will Tell is available at the Cardiff City Store. For more information, see: www.cardiffcityfcstore.com

PRIVILEGE TO VIEW ONE OF THE GREAT TESTINNINGS

It was a privilege to be in Edgbaston on Thursday to see Steve Smith compile one of the best Test-innings in his first game back in this format since his suspension for ball tampering.

votes that wanted to condemn the former Australian captain and say that his performance was compromised last week.

Not for me. Smith made a mistake. He did the wrong thing and he served his sentence. It's time to look at a master at work again.

Steve Smith put together one of the big test game innings against England on Thursday

IS USED TO PAY OVER THE ODDS, UNITED

Harry Maguire is too expensive for £ 80 million, but that does not mean a good buy for Manchester United.

For all the talk of Paulo Dybala, the priority for United this summer was to strengthen their defense.

The additions of Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Maguire mean that they have achieved that. In terms of costs, United will have to get used to paying the odds for players while not in the Champions League and having a man at the helm like Ed Woodward (right), who is considered a soft touch by executives at other clubs.

Harry Maguire is too expensive for £ 80 million, but that doesn't mean he's not a good buy

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