Countdown begins to Lincolnshire Tech Week

While many England fans are fretting about finishing work in time to watch the crunch Euro 2020 match with Germany on Tuesday, one supporter’s biggest issue is which shirt to wear.

Football shirt fanatic Pete Hammond has 23 different Three Lions tops among a huge collection of 364 from all over the world.

The wardrobes and drawers at his home near Spalding are all bulging with the assortment of shirts, worth up to £15,000. And with a new addition being added most weeks, the collection is ever increasing.

Pete, 39, said: “I honestly only started out looking to get a handful of shirts but it’s escalated somewhat!”

He got his first shirt as a ten-year-old back in 1992 – the final Manchester United one made by Adidas.

“Even at that age I started looking at different teams’ kits,” said Pete. “I remember getting a yellow Tottenham away shirt in a sale.

“And I had the 92-94 Man Utd Umbro away kit which my six-year-old son Stanley has got in his collection now.”

Pete got his first shirt as a ten-year-old back in 1992.

He added: “I’ve always been a Man United fan and always will be, but even as a kid it never used to faze me buying kits of other teams.”

One of his first purchases of a foreign shirt was Nagoya Grampus Eight following former England striker Gary Lineker’s move to the Japanese club.

And inspired by one of his favourite players, Les Sealey, Pete started adding goalie shirts to his collection.

Then came the first of the England shirts, starting with the away shirt for the failed campaign to qualify for the 1994 World Cup finals in USA.

Pete was funding his purchases through earnings from a paper round and work at the Farm Café in Fleet.

“I remember saving up for a Man United goalie shirt – the away one from 92 to 94 – week in, week out with pocket money my nan gave me. I ordered it through Match magazine, you had to clip out the mail order bit and send it off.

“Unfortunately I haven’t still got it – I’d love to get one of those again.”

Pete Hammond has 23 different Three Lions tops among his huge collection.

Umbro has always been his favourite make and with the 1990s boom of Italian football and TV coverage of it here, he targeted Inter Milan tops and then Lazio when Paul Gascoigne joined.

He said: “The Umbro designs across the 90s were so out there. Some people think they were garish but I liked that they were a British brand at the time and they were proper football shirts with proper collars, button up and great material.

“Some of my shirts are 30 years old and they’ve held up remarkably well, which is testament to their quality.”

Pete’s collecting picked up again about six years ago after he stopped playing football.

He said: “It’s been important for me to have a hobby. I thought if I can’t play football I’ll focus on getting the shirts and retain that bit of love for the game.

“It’s great to hunt down a shirt you’ve been after for a while and get it for an absolute bargain.

“And the collectors are a decent little community.”

Pete’s collecting picked up again about six years ago after he stopped playing football.

One very satisfying moment came three years ago when he finally got the 1992/93 Lazio shirt he’d wanted for more than 20 years.

He was happy to break his usual ceiling of £30 for that one. It cost £38.

Occasionally he swaps or sells some, but turned down a £500 offer for a Bayern Munich one.

Shirts from Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Ukraine, Russia, Canada, Argentina and Brazil are all represented in the collection. However, Pete won’t entertain any Manchester City, Liverpool or Arsenal tops because of their rivalries with Manchester United.

All his shirts get worn – he pops on a different one every day after work as head of commercial performance for a publishing firm. And during the Euros he’s even sneaked England tops into work video calls.

Pete’s wife tolerates his collecting, but his son looks set to follow in his footsteps.

Wife Hayley “goes along” with his collecting, says Pete.

“The thing that grates on her most is the amount of space they take up,” he admitted. “And I don’t think she’s too happy about me getting Stanley into it as well!”

The hope is that their three-year-old daughter Nancy shows no more interest than occasionally trying on one of Stanley’s shirts – or even more wardrobes might be needed.

A man has been handed a suspended prison sentence for breaching his ban on owning pets, keeping a guinea pig in ‘shocking’ conditions and neglecting a rabbit.

When RSPCA and Lincolnshire Police officers found Clive the guinea pig his head was touching the top of the tiny, cramped cage because it was piled so high with filth and faeces.

As they gathered evidence, Clive’s owner, Brian Buckthorpe, 64, of Cannon Street, Lincoln, went to the bathroom and was heard repeatedly flushing the toilet before officers discovered a rabbit who was ‘dripping wet’.

RSPCA found Bright Eyes in this state after a “flushing” incident.

Buckthorpe pleaded guilty to three offences under the Animal Welfare Act and was sentenced June 18 at Lincoln Magistrates’ Court.

The court heard how he had struggled with mental health problems and gave him credit for his guilty pleas, but sentenced him to a four-month sentence, suspended for 18 months.

He was ordered to pay £300 in costs plus a £128 victim surcharge. He is already disqualified from keeping animals for life and this will continue.

RSPCA inspector Kate Burris was called by police on August 18, 2020 who’d attended following reports of a neighbourly dispute.

“It had been alleged that Mr Buckthorpe was keeping animals in contravention of a court order,” Kate Burris said.

“I arranged to meet police at the house the following day and Mr Buckthorpe admitted that he had a pet guinea pig.

“He let us into his home and we found the guinea pig – called Clive – in a medium wire and plastic hamster cage sat in the seat of an armchair. As I looked closer into the cage I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Clive’s cage as found by RSPCA inspectors.

“The guinea pig cage was full of compacted poo substrate that was hardened and filled up the majority of the living space in the cage. It looked like a brown hill sloping up towards the back and top of the cage.

“There were random plastic toys on the cage and a plastic budgie. There was a ceramic bowl with dried up pieces of bread and corn flakes.

“There was a small bottle of water attached to the side of the cage, that I have no idea if the guinea pig would be able to access properly due to the slope of the hardened poo hill.

“Sitting at the bottom of the poo hill was a white semi-long haired guinea pig, its head was touching the top of the cage. I have never seen anything like this before. I was shocked.”

Officers became concerned as Mr Buckthorpe, who had gone to the bathroom, had been in there for a long time.

Clive was living in shocking conditions, the RPSCA said.

“Myself and one of the police officers were in the living room when the other officer called us into the hallway. Mr Buckthorpe had been in the bathroom for a long time and came out of the bathroom.

“On the floor in the bathroom was a young white and brown rabbit, it was dripping wet. The officer said Mr Buckthorpe had been continually flushing the toilet, I don’t know if he was trying to flush the rabbit down the toilet?”

Bright eyes is looking much better after getting some proper care from the RSPCA.

Chief Inspector Phil Vickers from Lincolnshire Police said: “This is one of the saddest cases of animal welfare I am aware of. We will always work with our colleagues in the RSPCA to protect the welfare of animals, they have taken positive action to address this offending.”

Both animals, Clive the guinea pig and Bright Eyes the rabbit, were signed over into the RSPCA’s care and Kate took them to a nearby vet surgery.

Clive had joint disease and was unable to walk properly, he also had a large lump around his anus and vets felt he was suffering and decided to put him to sleep.

Bright Eyes was taken in by an animal centre for rehoming.

An anti-vaxxer chasing Boston-born Professor Jonathan Van-Tam was “abhorrent” and “shouldn’t happen full stop,” Lincolnshire’s public health boss has said.

Lincolnshire County Council’s Director of Public Health Professor Derek Ward said no-one should be “harangued” for doing their job.

Professor Van Tam, who is England’s deputy chief medical officer, was chased on video by Geza Tarjanyi, while entering the Ministry of Defence building on Tuesday.

It is the latest in a line of incidents by anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown campaigners, which have also targeted Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty and BBC Journalist Nicholas Watt, who was forced to run from a mob of demonstrators during a protest on June 15.

Professor Ward said: “It’s abhorrent and it shouldn’t happen, full stop.

“Knowing JVT quite well, he can look after himself, but it shouldn’t come to a position where somebody who’s done an exemplary job for the country and always puts others before himself, he shouldn’t have to deal with individuals like that.

“We live in a democracy, everybody should have a right to a view, and an opinion and that’s great. and the right thing to do, I’m sure he would say the same, but health care professionals, health professionals, officers, whether they’re in the NHS, the council or anywhere else should not be harangued for doing their job.

“The officers in Lincolnshire, people I work with day-in-day-out, are doing silly hours to protect the people of this county and I think the vast majority of people recognise that, but frankly there’ll always be a minority that don’t see that way.”

In the video, Mr Tarjanyi accused Mr Van-Tam of “lying to the British people”.

“This country’s supposed to be in the worst pandemic of all time,” said Mr Tarjanyi.

Professor Van-Tam, in his only reply to the abuse, said: “It is.”

Downing Street has condemned the abuse too.