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Loiner This week: Leeds Before You Leave Featuring your guide to: Leeds Civic Pride Walk The Otley Run Eating on the Cheap Attending a Sporting Event Shopping on the Cheap

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A local, leeds-based magazine for new and current students in the leeds area

Transcript of Loiner

LoinerThis week: Leeds Before You Leave

Featuring your guide to:

Leeds Civic Pride Walk

The Otley Run

Eating on the Cheap

Attending a Sporting Event

Shopping on the Cheap

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Call: 07785 692 431

ContentsEating on the Cheap/5

Leeds Civic Pride Walk/12

Otley Run/16

Student Shopper/21

Sport/23

Vintage Shopper/30

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Loiner/Page 5

Can you EAT but keep it CHEAP?

Food can be expensive, especially if you don’t make it yourself. But in these tight financial times, many people are turning to super-cheap ready made food to try and save as much money as pos-sible.

In Leeds there are now lots of places that offer big portions of food for very low prices, some going as low as just one pound.

But with prices being so low, how good can it be?

To find out exactly what

you can expect from these new, super-cheap restaurants and shops, I ventured out with only a few simple rules in mind; I had to get as large a serving of food for as cheap as possible, it had to be a meal (no sacks of potatoes), and it had to be ready to eat.

What I found was a strange mix of surprise and utter pre-dictability. Some food was excellent, some was bland and quite disgusting. But I defiantly managed to eat on the cheap.

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Mr £andwichThe first place that I visited

was Mr £answich in Headingley, and as the name subtly states, every sandwich is only one pound.

Regardless of the quality of the sandwich and ingredients, this is already a really good deal. Even in the big supermar-kets you would be struggling to find a sandwich for one pound.

The quality of the ingredi-ents they use is also much higher than you might ex-pect, the meats are fresh and juicy, and the salad is crisp and colourful. The bread is slightly questionable, but keeping the price in mind, that’s a pretty small flaw.

The shop itself is probably not what you would ex-pect either, the tiny space is crammed with homemade cakes and treats, and every

surface sparkles and shines, giving the place a feeling of quality and class.

With everything on the menu being a set price, they might also have been forgiv-en for leaving you with a small menu choice, but with over 50 different sandwich combina-tions, and the option to add extras, everyone is sure to find something they like.

In all, I was very surprised at just how good the food was for the money, Mr £andwich could be the best cheap sandwich in Leeds.

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Fuji HiroNestled just outside of

Leeds city centre, Fuji Hiro was recommended to me by a friend as being the best place in Leeds for cheap and delicious Japanese food.

Its location is a little difficult to find at first, hidden around the back of the Merrion cen-tre. But once you get inside you are sure to be charmed by the minimal layout and the long wooden tables, it cer-tainly feels very Japanese.

The food on the menu is as exotic as it was confusing to me, so I opted for a noodle and tofu dish. Hot green tea was provided free of charge, and I was given a worn set of chopsticks and ladle to eat the food with.

The meal itself was excel-lent, there was a definite and

noticeable quality to every-thing on the plate, and the food was hot, spicy and very, very tasty. Certainly the best noodles I’ve eaten in Leeds.

However, at this point it should probably be mentioned that Fuji Hiro isn’t actually that cheap. You can get a meal for around £5, and many of the starters are around the £2-£4 mark, but the mains that have meat in them are often above £7. This may not seem particu-larly expensive for a restaurant quality meal, but when you are trying to eat on the cheap, one plate of noodles may not be better than 5 sandwiches.

As a more expensive op-tion, Fuji Hiro is an excellent choice for good quality Japa-nese food, but if you are really adamant about saving money, then this may not be the place.

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Fatso’sLeeds city centre was the

first real disappointment on this outing, I went to Fatso’s sandwiches because they are cheap, and seem to offer a much bigger meal than Mr £andwich. Their prices are .75p more than their rivals, but the quality is a lot, lot lower.

The shop front itself is much less nice than in £andwich, and the ingredients on dis-play look much less apetising, shown in a cold display as you walk in, it is pretty difficult to actually work out what is what. All of the marinated meats looked identical to me, and I even had a diffcult time tell-ing apart the chicken from the beef.

They have a nice, big choice of fillings for the sandwiches, and you can have them hot or

cold. But the bread they serve them on is disgustingly sweet and cheap, and considering the majority of what you are eating is this bread, it really lets the down the experience.

The salad that they have on offer is no better either, with sweetcorn and grated car-rots making up the bulk of the filling, something that perhaps wouldn’t be so bad if the bread wasn’t already making the sandwich overly sweet.

Honestly, if I was given the choice I would probably never buy a sandwich from here again, I would say that it is a case of ‘getting what you pay for’, but after see-ing what Mr £andwich was able to achieve for almost half the price, Fatso’s really does leave quite a lot to be desired.

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Roast House

I went to the Roast House because it is a guilty pleasure of mine, and I know it to be incredibly cheap for meats.

They offer a lot of different cooked meats and sand-wiches, with a wide variety of prices. But what I went there for this time was their dubious ‘Mystery Bag’.

For just £1 you can get a very large grease-proof bag filled to the brim with an as-sortment of piping hot meats and vegetables.

If this sounds like it might be a little bit too good to be true, that is probably because it is.

Although I have absolutely no idea where they get these ‘mystery’ ingredients, I do have the suspicion that it is simply the left overs from the day before warmed back up and sold at discount prices.

Not that I really have a prob-lem with that.

The other interesting thing about the mystery bag is how varied it can be, the contents can have anything from chick-en nuggets to Lincolnshire port sausages and roast potatoes. Every day the bag is different, there was pie in mine today, which has never happened before.

The mystery bag is by far the most food you can get for £1, and if your lucky, it can even have all the elements of a full meal, just as long as you are okay with eating leftovers...

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SO it seems like you can definitely get a good meal for as little as £1 if you are willing to search for it. And if you are okay with spending just a little bit more you can get some-thing that is truly delicious.

However, if you are set on doing this for a long time then you are going to see your fair share of sandwiches, which probably isn’t the healthiest thing to do.

That was the main thing I noticed during this outing, you can eat on the cheap easily, but trying to be healthy on the cheap is a whole other mat-ter. Rarely did anywhere offer anything healthy for the same price as their unhealthy mains,

and Fatso’s and Mr £andwich’s healthy options boil down to just having salad between bread. Appetising.

To really maximise the food you get for your money, mak-ing your own is the way to go. It’s healthier, much cheaper and you can have things exactly how you want them whenever you want them.

Leeds City Markets have loads of excellent stalls where you can buy any kind of fruit, vegetable or cut of meat, and if you shop around you can get it at a really good price too. Cooking isn’t nearly as dif-ficult as it looks either, there are loads of great recipes online, and all you need is time and ingredients.

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Like the Otley Run, only without the beer, vomit and regretful morning after. So actually noth-

Leeds civic pride walk

Leeds City Centre is an intriguing place in 2011, particularly at night; a cornucopia of Jaeger bombs, short skirts, and community support officers who have ‘had it up to here’ (I say this with a hand firmly planted in my neck region).Understandable really, given the city’s abundance of higher educa-tion facilities that the city has over time become a student paradise, laden with night clubs, take away restaurants and, er, libraries. It would be unfair to mention that by day Leeds is the UK’s most diverse economy, and sits in seventh in the UK retail rankings, with future devel-opments such as the Trinity Centre set to shoot it up to fourth. This of course can be considered a treat (or Achilles’ heel) for students as well, just in case for a moment we all have a weird brain lapse and con-sider spending our student loans on stationary.

In a world so focussed on looking forward, the small matter of Leeds history and heritage is easy to forget about, especially given the high amounts of people living in the city centre and surrounding areas (in-cluding myself) who aren’t actually from Leeds, and came here with no other information on it than that Leeds United play here and it’s fa-mous sons include the Kaiser Chiefs. It is the hallmark of all great cities to have buildings and areas that make you unable to help but stop, at least once, to admire and become lost in your own intrigue as to it’s signifi-cance. So this is where the Leeds Civic Pride Walk comes in. Surrounded by the city of today, and its plans for tomorrow, the area covered in the walk is a little slice of Leeds’ past. The type of things the proudest of Loiners will refer to with all the nos-talgic croons of a retired foot

Leeds Town HallBy Ryan McMurtry

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baller reliving a cup final. A taste of Leeds’ part in the industrial revolu-tion of the 1800s, a place where the different styles of industry were as crammed in as the working classes that helped them prosper.With the seeds of curiosity blossom-ing in my mind, I printed off a copy of the route from the Council’s web-site and began to follow.Starting off at Millennium Square, part of me wishes I had some chalk, or was conveniently with Dick Van Dyke, to relive my favourite scene from Mary Poppins as they jump through his floor art into a different world. Instead I meander, all be it less flamboyantly, over to the Civic Hall; opened by King George V on 23 August 1933. It is hard to com-prehend, looking at it now, that this wonderful and triumphant building is the handiwork of mostly unem-ployed people during the great depression. The building in itself is a message from a past generation determined to get by in such tough

times, a message very fitting today.Among the route’s treasures is Leeds General Informary. A place steeped in history, which was actu-ally started when 16 of the town’s gentlemen met at the New Inn to discuss setting up ‘an Infirmary for the Relief of the Sick and Hurt Poor within this Parish’. The last time I was in the New Inn, I saw roughly 16 drunk smurfs; how times have changed. There is even the chance to get familiar with a young man by the name of Cuthbert Broderick, the architect responsible for two build-ings on the route; the Town Hall and Mechanic’s Institute. The Mechan-ic’s institute is now Leeds Library, and the Town Hall is one of the most iconic buildings in the city, along with places like the Corn Exchange, which was coincidently designed by Cuthbert as well. His architectur-al fame doesn’t stop in Leeds either; he is responsible for the Grand Hotel in Scarborough. Although you wont

Leeds General Infirmary

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get to physically meet the man (he died in 1905) he will still have the power to stun you with the mere sight of his fantastic buildings, with all the aforementioned still being in use. The only downfall of the walk is when you look across from Cuth-bert’s terrific Town Hall, to the other side of the road. Often when an old building has been refurbished or patched up, the new parts can stand out like an aeroplane in a car park. And on the walk, some businesses in the area are a sign of modern society creeping its way in to one of the last places in the city centre it has yet to conquer. Facing the Town Hall you can see two strip clubs and a betting shop; the presence of which would have quite possibly made Queen Victoria cancel Christmas.That aside, there is still far too much history and wonderful sights along the way to let that ruin your walk. Sights such as the Victoria Hotel,

which in 1989 was given special recognition by Leeds Civic Trust for ‘splendid Victorian features and contribution to city life’. The Centaur clothes factory is one of many Grade II listed buildings you will come across, another Victorian masterpiece opened in 1889.Even though Leeds has changed and evolved as time has passed, some of its elements have proven to be timeless. Even in a city which boasts some of the best modern buildings in the world, it is a testa-ment to the architects of a bygone era that so many old buildings have gained Grade II status, and contin-ue to remind us all of the age when Leeds put itself on the map. So as you get back to Millennium Square, enlightened with all your new found Leodis history, be sure to stop in the Cuthbert Broderick pub and order a well deserved pint, both under-neath his name and in his honour.

The Victoria Hotel Mechanic’s Institute

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THE OTLEY RUN- THE NORTH’S BEST STUDENT

PUB CRAWL?

Welcome to Leeds, one of the UK’s fastest growing cities and home to over 100,000 students studying at one of the three Uni-versities. With excellent nightlife covering all aspects of music, to bars and restaurants, Leeds is starting to become that 24 hour city that doesn’t sleep, with the student population the heart-beat of the city.So what makes Leeds stand

out above the rest, above the likes of Newcastle, Manchester, Birmingham and London, cities that rival Leeds on all aspects not just the nightlife and student social events?

Well there is one event, a place where, for example a Doctor, Journalist, Sports Physiotherapist and Business man could all

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drink in the same place at the same time and join in the same event, unusual I know but this is Leeds very own unique pub crawl, the Otley run.

Leeds biggest and best student bar crawl consists of between 15-20 pubs depending on what route you take, starting in far Headingly and finishing in the town centre, a distance of just under four miles of pubs, follow-ing the A660, also known as The Otley Road.

You might now be thinking that this sounds like any bar crawl, well read on..

To throw in a twist, over 90% of people who participate in this run, mainly students do this in fancy dress or themes. These themes and costumes range from convicts and Profes-

sional footballers and golfers to Batman and Robin and even the Smurfs.

The route begins in far heading-ly, at the first of the pubs called Woodies Ale House on Otley road. The run then continues into headingly for the Arc and headingly taps and then finally ending up at the 15th pub, (de-pending on the route), the Dry Dock, opposite Leeds Metropoli-tan University.

“One of the best things I have ever done, 12 people, 15 pubs, very messy”

The rules are easily to follow, that being a plus as there is lots of alcohol consumed.

START FINISH

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Many people say you should start at about 15.00 and aim to spend about 20 minutes to half an hour in each pub. Men have to have a pint in each pub while the women are suppose to have half a pint.

If a pint in each pub sounds daunting because there are a possible 20 pubs and seven hours worth of drinking, there are a few exceptions to the rules in order for you to remem-ber this experience and more importantly finish this great crawl.

The exceptions to the rules are that you can have a shot in every other pub along the way, to ease the amount of beer being consumed. Also there is an alcohol free alternative with a charity collection and also a pint of water has to be drank in each pub with a shot of Alka Seltzer.

The rules do vary and have var-ied quite a lot over the years, depending which University you are from, either that being The University of Leeds, Leeds Metropolitan, Leeds Trinity or Leeds College of Arts.

Each of these institutions has different rules and different

societies and many have their own way of doing the run, more or less there the same but each one has their own twist and additions to the route.

So how has the Otley run pro-gressed to what we have to-day? Originally it only consisted of about 8-10 pubs from Head-ingly

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to the centre of Leeds and the pubs that where part of the run, where just Tetley’s pubs. The locals of the Headingly area where the first to start this tradi-tion but with time this has slowly changed. Over the years, with the influx of students from all over the UK and further afield there has been some amend-ments to this run and now it con-sists of up to 20 pubs, depending on how brave you are feeling.

With the participants comes the fancy dress, which boasts some of the best fancy dress costumes seen in Leeds.

There is no end to what a stu-dent will dress up as, Lifeguards have been one the most popu-lar but depending on the time

of year expect the themes to change and rightly so.

“A great day and night, something worth doing es-pecially in fancy dress”

It truly is something worth having a go out, if there is a large group of you all in fancy dress it can be one of the best social events you can take part in, within your student life. Students from all the three Universities situated in Leeds and from Universities up and down the country are aware of this and do come to Leeds to participate in this run,

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It is well known so if you are a student within Leeds, you are lucky enough to live on the doorstep of one of the best stu-dent Bar crawls in the North.

It’s not just students who are aware of this, this year Chan-nel 4 was looking into filming a special Otley run of students and locals doing this with a royal wedding twist on Kate and Wil-liams wedding day. The idea did not eventually go ahead, but with this crawl creating media attention who knows when it will make the national news.

So what other student pub crawls are they? Well a pub crawl can happen anywhere but the official University pub crawls are very limited and there are only a few up and down the country.

There is only six recognised stu-dent bar crawls in the country and one of them being the Ot-ley run. The others are in Bristol, Nottingham, Glasgow and two more in Yorkshire in the City of York.

So now is your chance to take part in something that the na-tional media have taken an interest in. Just imagine being part of this, and now you can, the more the better and I can guarantee you will have a night to remember and more importantly you will take these memories with you where ever you go in life.

Just to make sure everyone knows what you have been part off, don’t forget your camera for them all important shots!

1) Woodies Ale House

6) The Arc 11) The Hyde Park

16) The Ter-race, (Leeds

SU)2) The Three Horseshoes

7) Trio Bar and Grill

12) The Li-brary

17) The Fen-ton

3) The New Inn

8) The Box 13) The Pack-horse

18) Strawber-ry Fields

4) Voodoo Bar

9) The Sky-rack

14) The Eldon 19) The Dry Dock

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STUDENT SHOPPERWe all know that when it comes to food shopping, students love that bargain and will spend as little as possible to save that extra bit of money, for another night out or even that ex-tra Jager bomb.

Asda, Sainsbury’s and Tesco are located within distance of your student accommodation, so which one is the cheapest for an average student shop?

Milk- (2 litre)

Eggs- (15 pack)

Pas-ta- (1kg)

Pizza Or-ange

Beer- 12 pack

ASDA £0.64 £0.89 £2.00 £0.50 £1.00 £0.34

TESCO £0.64 £0.89 £1.25 £0.50 £1.00 £0.29

Sains-burys

£0.70 £0.89 £2.50 £0.50 £0.50 £0.62

The results above you can see that ASDA was the cheapest to shop at as it was cheaper than Tesco by £0.20 and Sainsbury’s by £5.33, across the seven items.Even though it is only £0.20p cheaper than Tesco, ASDA is the cheapest in the long term. At the minute if you spend £40 or more at ASDA, they will give you £5 of your next shop and will refund you if your grocery shopping is not 10% or less than other leading supermarkets.ASDA have introduced a student shopper card, where you have an ASDA card and your parents or guardians can put money on it via the internet, so that you always have that money saved for food.

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Ben Stanley recommends you...

You could be forgiven for thinking that the doorway to UK sport hinges on London and Manchester. But don’t worry, all is not lost, there is another contender. Sometimes bat-tered and bruised, and often forgotten, but you’re in the 4th biggest city in the country: Leeds, sport city.

a t t e n d as p o r t i n g

e v e n t

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leven years ago you could have gone to see Leeds play Champi-ons League football. You’ll have to

make do with the Championship for now at least, but one thing is for sure, there’ll be no one refusing to warm up, and ab-solutely no snoods.

Leeds always seem to find themselves fighting for a play-off position, so in that sense, every game is equally important. Dan Moylan, editor of The Square Ball fanzine, said: “I’d recommend the last home game of the season at Elland Road, which always enjoys a big turnout and a great atmosphere, or if there’s a home cup draw against a major Premier League team I’d recommend that – big games under the floodlights are special.”

Going to see games against the Premier League relegates would certainly pro-vide enhanced entertainment and at-mosphere for a neutral. So this year look out for fixtures against Blackpool, West Ham, and Birmingham City.

Elland Road is located in Beeston, South Leeds. The best way to get there on match day is by using the match day bus. It’s £2.50 for a return, and it picks up and drops off outside Silks Gentlemens Lounge, just under the Railway station.

Alternatively, the Number 1 bus can be caught in Headingley or on Park Row, which will take you down to Beeston.

E

England v USA 2010 - One of the many games the Lions should have won

Football

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FootballSadly, you are unlikely to get an adult ticket for less than £30, maybe 29 if you’re lucky, and they can be any-where up to £40. The cheaper ticket prices for league games are in the North Stand. You’ll save a bit more by buy-ing a restricted view ticket. This means you’ll have a concrete pillar in front of your face, but in the North stand every-one stands up and rarely sticks to their seating positions anyway. To really save money, going to an early round Cup game is your cheapest option. Look out for lower league sides, but be warned, attendance will be poor.

As well as the Lady boys of Bangkok, Millennium Square is also a great place to go and watch sport. Every two years England take part in a major competi-tion, and why not go and get your heart broken along with hundreds of others while watching a probably dire perfor-mance on the big screen. Entry is free and beer isn’t two expensive; £3.50 for a large plastic bottle of larger. But before you think you can just go to the Cuthbert Broderick and watch the game, they put a big screen up so you can’t see. But when the summer sun is shining there re-ally is no better feeling.

“Please keep off the pitch” - Leeds United promotion 2010.

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tudents living in Headingley should count themselves very lucky that there is an international Cricke

ground on their doorstep.

Headingley took a sporting and finan-cial battering when it was recently an-nounced that it would not host any test matches in 2013 or 2015, but don’t let that put you off.

The best fixture you can see is a T20 Ros-es derby between Yorkshire and Lanca-shire. This will provide by far the tastiest atmosphere and a rivalry like no other. Twenty20 is a form of the game that is much more about big hitting and high scoring, also, it only lasts an evening rather than what can seem like weeks.

International tickets can be around £45, but domestic fixturescan be as low as £15. In some cases you can even take your own alcohol in to the ground (max 4 cans pp) but check in advance so you don’t waste precious beer.

Fancy Dress is a common theme, and booze and banter will always flow free-ly. Just before a Roses clash, it’s worth looking out for the RAF parachuting into the stadium in a rotating spiral, it’s quite spectacular.

Dan Moylan said: “I can thoroughly rec-ommend an afternoon on the Western Terrace watching test cricket at Head-ingley. It is something to behold, al-though you probably won’t remember much about it come the morning after!”

Cricket

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RAF Falcons display before T20 Roses derby

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League

Union

Leaguehe Leeds Rhino’s were recently hailed the most successful rugby league club in history, with five Super

League titles and 11 Challenge Cups.

The Rhino’s play at Headingley stadium, and ticket prices are arond £25.

The beauty of League being a Northern sport is that there are so many teams in close quarters - half of Super League is in Yorkshire. Dan Moylan said: “For a tru-ly northern experience, I’d urge you to go and watch the Leeds Rhinos against Bradford Bulls up at Headingley.”

If that wasn’t enough, then Elland Road has also been chosen to stage the Rug-by Four Nations Final on Saturday 19th November, tickets for which can be as low as £20. Headingley has also been chosen as the venue for the 2012 World Club Challenge, which could be last to hosted in the UK!

On a slightly lower level, you could go and see the Hunslet Hawks at the John Charles stadium in Leeds. The Hawks narrowly missed out to playing in Super League, and adult tickets are £16.

eeds Carnegie, formerly the Leeds Tykes, are often overshadowed by the success of the Rhinos. But for

as little as £10, especially if you’re from the Union regions of the South, you can go and see some quality rugby at the Headingley stadium.

Another popular Union event is the Leeds Varsity game. Played every year at Headingley, the University of Leeds

take on Leeds Metropolitan to be crowned Champions of Leeds, as well as bragging rights for the year. This is usually an October fixture, tickets for the event are priced at £7 and can be purchased from the SU at either university.

Leeds Corinthians are an amateur Union side based in Middleton, South Leeds, and are free to watch.

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American Footballhe arrival of the Oreo onto our super-market shelves was clear evidence of our ever strengthening “special

relationship”.

Another trans-Atlantic import, Ameri-can Football, is growing in popularity. Believe it or not, there are three teams based in Leeds: Leeds Celtics (University of Leeds), Leeds Carnegie (Leeds Met), and the Yorkshire Rams. The Rams play in Division 1 North, of the British American Football League.

Adam Lilley, General Manager of The Rams said: “Altogeth-er in the country there’s about 50 adult teams, around 70 Univers i ty t e a m s , a n d r o u g h l y 30 or 40 youth teams.”The Yorkshire Rams

p l a y f i v e h o m e games a sea-son at the Leeds Corinthians ground in Middleton, and best of all, they’re free to watch.

“We offer something dif-ferent, something you wouldn’t usually see. It’s quite a friendly atmosphere, there’s a few

people that watch us regularly, and you get to know people.”

“You get to experience the hits and the sounds and the passion of it all more di-rectly. What you get in the British sport that you don’t really get in the Pro sport is the camaraderie and the together-ness, it can be up to 40 or 50 guys all working towards one goal and you’re only as strong as your weakest link, It’s a real team sport.”

If Adam could recomend any fixture to watch, it would be local rivals Doncaster Mustangs, “it’s always a good hard

hit- t i n g game, the battle for

Yorkshire.”

The Rams also en-courage poten-

tial players to get in touch, adding, “90%

of this sport is about attitude,

we’ve got guys who are ten stone and guys who are 25 stone, guys who are 6, 10 and guys who are 5, 6, be-cause there are

so many differ-ent roles on

an Ameri-c a n

f o o t -

ball

team.”

T

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American Football

Dan Moylan said: “I was lucky enough to witness my football team become champions of England. That’s something that’ll stay with me forever and I hope that one day I can witness it again.

Legend has it that 200,000 people turned out for the civic reception that was held for the team after clinching the title, and I’ll always remember being among the throng on the Headrow, singing songs to my heroes.”

Sport can make you laugh, cheer, hug complete strangers, tear your hair out, and cry like you haven’t since Mufasa died, and Leeds is the perfect place to witness it all.

Rams v Mustangs - Stacey Galloway Photography

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For the last few years there has been a real boom in vintage and second hand clothing. Fuelled by the hard economic climate and new fashion trends, second hand shops and vintage boutiques are popping up everywhere you look.

The quality of the clothes these shops have on offer vary as widely as the shops themselves. Some market themselves as much more of a fashion boutique, stocking only a few items of clothes and putting a very high price

tag on them. Others go in totally the opposite direc-tion, piling clothes on top of each other in huge mounds and fixing every item with the same low price.

But if neither of these two styles of shop appeal to you, then worry not, because there are a couple of shops in Leeds that not only stock a really wide range of differ-ent clothes in lots of different styles, but they have been around a long time and they take a lot of pride in their shops and in their displays.

Of these ‘proper’ vintage

Second Hand Style

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shops, the one that stands out best in terms of quality and stock is Blue Rinse, just outside the Corn Exchange in town centre.

Established by two brothers in 1997 on a market stall, the business has grown quickly, and now has stores in both Manchester and Leeds, and supplies 23 Urban Outfitters stores throughout Europe.

The store has a hippy, retro feel to it, and clothes are packed tightly onto the rails. The bold colours of the 80s and early 90s come bounc-ing out to you from every corner of the shop, inviting you closer before you get lost in the endless browsing.

The shop spread over three floors, with men/women on the ground floor, holding the more ‘traditional’ clothes, but each gender also has another floor, packed even more tightly, and housing some of the more wider and wonderful clothes that they have to offer.

Spend too long in Blue Rinse and you are sure to buy something, it might be a bit risqué, or out of your com-fort zone, but it’s probably a timeless gem of fashion from long ago, or useless rubbish, depending on how you look at it. It wont be expensive though, and you are sure to have a good time buying it.

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