title: Battle Creek Sanitarium

text: Kellogg's use of hydrotherapy was a more sophisticated development of the system that was utilized in the early 19th century by Vincent Priessnitz, which, when introduced to America, was essentially a "cold water cure", although "as a tonic, cold water has no superior". "The crude, but thoroughgoing methods of the original system of Priessnitz, which prospered among the hardy mountaineers of Austrian Silesia, were much too strenuous for more delicately organized and pampered American invalids. This fact, together with the crass empiricism which characterized the use of water in the first half of the last century, when water-cures were for a time almost a fad, brought water into general disrepute as a curative means, and greatly hindered the scientific development of this invaluable agent". The Battle Creek system utilized both hot and cold water, and correlated the use of hydrotherapy with other therapeutic modalities. Among the methods used were douches, sitz baths, cold mitten frictions, salt glows, towel rubs, wet sheet rubs, wet and dry packings, compresses, "full baths of various sorts, including Nauheim baths, electro-hydric baths, shallow and neutral baths". The use of hot and cold applications was to produce "profound reflex effects", including vasodilation and vasoconstriction. These physiological mechanisms now seem fairly well understood, and underpin the contemporary use of hydrotherapy, with the reflex reactions described by some as the 'rebound phenomenon.'


title: Battle Creek Sanitarium

text: This department employed both solar and electric light, with the latter used chiefly during winter. Phototherapy held a prominent place at Battle Creek, where the first electric light bath was constructed. Regarding the application of electricity, Kellogg noted that "electricity is not capable of accomplishing half the marvels that are claimed for it by many enthusiastic electrotherapists". Nevertheless, he considered it valuable when used in conjunction with hydrotherapy, thermotherapy, and other methods.


title: Battle Creek Sanitarium

text: Physical exercise was an important part of the Battle Creek system, facilitating not just the improvement of muscle tone, but also of posture, respiration, and of circulation and the facilitation of anabolic and catabolic functions enabled by circulatory processes. Exercise included such components as postural, calisthetics, gymnastics, swimming, and passive methods such as mechanotherapy, vibrotherapy, mechanical massage.


title: Battle Creek Sanitarium

text: Exposure to the sun and open air were regarded as fundamentally important for health, including stimulation of the skin. Battle Creek had a large outdoor gymnasium. Again, the use of temperature differentials facilitated by water was a component, with exercise followed by a plunge into a fresh water swimming pool "just cool enough to be refreshing and invigorating". Patients were encouraged to sleep in the open air, and a range of outdoor activities were facilitated, from wood-chopping to basketball and other games, walking, trotting, and swimming lessons. Also available were skating, tobogganing, skiing, and other outdoor sports (p. 111). "Thus all the best advantages of the seashore, camping out, 'going fishing', and other forms of recreation are secured, while the patient is protected from excess by the careful guidance of his physician, and has the advantages of medical care, dietetic regulation, etc".


title: Battle Creek Sanitarium

text: Battle Creek utilized information as known at that time to provide nutritional requirements for health and well-being relative to each person's requirements. Food required careful prescriptive preparation, with care also taken to ensure appetiveness and palatability were recognized. The diet lists included "scores of special dishes and hundreds of special food preparations, each of which has been carefully studied in relation to its nutritive and therapeutic properties", with the diet lists used "by the physicians in arranging the diet prescriptions of individual patients". Also, "all the so-called Sanitarium health foods" were "regularly found on the Sanitarium bill of fare, having been originally devised solely for this use".


title: Battle Creek Sanitarium

text: After the Wall Street Crash of 1929 few previously well-to-do patients came to the sanitarium. Finances became very difficult for the "San" and the complex was put under receivership in 1933. The sanitarium stayed in business until after the beginning of WWII.


title: Battle Creek Sanitarium

text: The U.S. Army, needing a hospital, paid $2,341,000 and moved in creating Percy Jones Army Hospital. The complex was later converted into a federal center and is currently named the Hart–Dole–Inouye Federal Center.


title: Battle Creek Sanitarium

text: The Battle Creek Sanitarium was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. The original listing included only the main building, a long six-story building in the Italian Renaissance Revival style, situated parallel to North Washington Avenue. The listing was expanded in 2012 to include the 1928 tower, other buildings built prior to 1953, and the site itself.


title: Battle Creek Sanitarium

text: Battle Creek Sanitarium is depicted in the American 1994 film "The Road to Wellville" by Alan Parker, with British actor Anthony Hopkins playing a highly fictionalized Dr. J.H. Kellogg in one of the leading roles. This movie ends with the fire of the sanitarium building complex.


title: Battle Creek Sanitarium

text: "a."' A persual of the main body of the text reveals an impressive use of the available scientific methods of the day. However, the synopsis from the contents page is hard to beat for succinctness, hence the quotations.


title: Battle Creek Sanitarium

text: "b."' A Nauheim or 'effervescent' bath is a type of spa bath through which carbon dioxide is bubbled. It is named after the German spa town


title: Present tense

text: The present tense (abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense whose principal function is to locate a situation or event in the present time. The present tense is used for actions which are happening now. In order to explain and understand present tense, it is useful to imagine time as a line on which the past tense, the present and the future tense are positioned. The term "present tense" is usually used in descriptions of specific languages to refer to a particular grammatical form or set of forms; these may have a variety of uses, not all of which will necessarily refer to present time. For example, in the English sentence "My train leaves tomorrow morning", the verb form "leaves" is said to be in the present tense, even though in this particular context it refers to an event in future time. Similarly, in the historical present, the present tense is used to narrate events that occurred in the past.


title: Present tense

text: There are two common types of present tense form in most Indo-European languages: the present indicative (the combination of present tense and indicative mood) and the present subjunctive (the combination of present tense and subjunctive mood). The present tense is mainly classified into four parts:


title: Present tense

text: The present indicative of most verbs in modern English has the same form as the infinitive, except for the third-person singular form, which takes the ending "-[e]s". The verb "be" has the forms "am", "is", "are". For details, see English verbs. For the present subjunctive, see English subjunctive.


title: Present tense

text: A number of multi-word constructions exist to express the combinations of present tense with the basic form of the present tense is called the simple present; there are also constructions known as the present progressive (or present continuous) (e.g. "am writing"), the present perfect (e.g. "have written"), and the present perfect progressive (e.g. "have been writing").


title: Present tense

text: Use of the present tense does not always imply the present time. In particular, the present tense is often used to refer to future events ("I am seeing James tomorrow"; "My train leaves at 3 o'clock this afternoon"). This is particularly the case in condition clauses and many other adverbial subordinate clauses: "If you see him..."; "As soon as they arrive..." There is also the historical present, in which the present tense is used to narrate past events.


title: Present tense

text: In Modern Greek, the present tense is used in a similar way to the present tense in English and can represent the present continuous as well. As with some other conjugations in Greek, some verbs in the present tense accept different (but equivalent) forms of use for the same person. What follows are examples of present tense conjugation in Greek for the verbs βλέπω (see), τρώω (eat) and αγαπώ (love).


title: Present tense

text: The Romance languages are derived from Latin, and in particular western Vulgar Latin. As a result, their usages and forms are similar.


title: Present tense

text: The Latin present tense can be translated as progressive or simple present. Here are examples of the present indicative tense conjugation in Latin.


title: Present tense

text: In French, the present tense is used similarly to that of English. Below is an example of present tense conjugation in French.


title: Present tense

text: The present indicative is commonly used to express the present continuous. For example, "Jean mange" may be translated as "John eats", "John is eating". To emphasise the present continuous, expressions such as "en train de" may be used. For example, "Jean est en train de manger" may be translated as "John is eating", "John is in the middle of eating." "On est en train de chercher un nouvel appartement" may be translated as "We are looking for a new apartment", "We are in the process of finding a new apartment."


title: Present tense

text: In Italian, the present tense is used similarly to that of English. What follows is an example of present indicative tense conjugation in Italian.


title: Present tense

text: The present tenses of Portuguese and Spanish are similar in form, and are used in similar ways. What follows are examples of the present indicative conjugation in Portuguese.


title: Present tense

text: In Bulgarian, the present indicative tense of imperfective verbs is used in a very similar way to the present indicative in English. It can also be used as present progressive. Below is an example of present indicative tense conjugation in Bulgarian.


title: Present tense

text: The present tense in Macedonian is expressed using imperfective verbs. The following table shows the conjugation of the verbs "write" ("пишува/pišuva"), "speak" ("зборува/zboruva"), "want" ("сака/saka") and "open" ("отвaра/otvara").


title: Present tense

text: In Wu Chinese, unlike other Sinitic languages (Varieties of Chinese), some tenses can be marked, including the present tense. For instance, in Suzhounese and Old Shanghainese, the word is used. The particle is placed at the end of a clause, and when a tense is referenced, the word order switches to SOV.


title: Present tense

text: In a sentence such as "", it would be the perfective aspect in Standard Mandarin, whereas this would be analysed as the present tense in contemporary Shanghainese, where has underwent lenition to .


title: James Thompson (fighter)

text: James Thompson (born 16 December 1978) is a British professional mixed martial artist who competes in the heavyweight division. A professional competitor since 2003, Thompson has also formerly competed for PRIDE FC, Bellator MMA, Cage Rage, EliteXC, Sengoku, DREAM, KSW, Rizin, and the SFL.


title: James Thompson (fighter)

text: Born in Rochdale to a Northern Irish father and an English mother, Thompson grew up playing rugby league. Widely considered to be a talented player, at one point in time he did consider pursuing a professional career in rugby. Ultimately, he ended up working as debt collector and nightclub bouncer, whilst also competing in amateur bodybuilding. Thompson then took up the sport of wrestling and competed in several matches before eventually seeing an MMA bout featuring Don Frye (whom he would later fight and beat at PRIDE 34: Kamikaze), which ultimately inspired him to pursue a career in MMA. Thompson initially started watching DVDs on boxing, wrestling, and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and then began training in all three martial arts disciplines.


title: James Thompson (fighter)

text: Thompson began his mixed martial arts career fighting in the British promotion Ultimate Combat (UC). He developed a rivalry with Mark "The Shark" Goddard after their bout in "Ultimate Combat 6: Battle in the Cage". Thompson won the bout by referee stoppage, but Goddard disputed the result, saying that Thompson had tapped earlier to one of his armbar attempts. A rematch at "Ultimate Combat 8: Retribution" resulted in an 18-second knockout victory for Thompson. After five straight victories, he faced his first loss to Georgian Tengiz Tedoradze at "Ultimate Combat X". Tedoradze managed to stop Thompson's initial charge and won by doctor stoppage after the second round. Thompson bounced back with a UC Championship bout against Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) veteran Dan Severn at "Ultimate Combat 11: Eyes of the Beast".


title: James Thompson (fighter)

text: After defeating Severn, Thompson made his PRIDE Fighting Championship debut at "PRIDE 28" to face Alexander Emelianenko at PRIDE 28: High Octane. Despite losing the fight in only eleven seconds, he remained with the organisation, earning quick victories over Henry Armstrong Miller and Giant Silva. Thompson became known to Pride fans for his penchant for rushing at opponents at the opening bell, which became known as 'Gong and Dash'. During this time, Thompson alternated appearances in Japan with fights in British organisations such as Cage Rage.


title: James Thompson (fighter)

text: Thompson's career took a downturn with three consecutive losses to Kazuyuki Fujita, Rob Broughton and Jon Olav Einemo. However, he followed up with an upset victory over Olympic judo gold medalist Hidehiko Yoshida at "PRIDE Shockwave 2006". He next suffered a quick KO at the hands of super heavyweight boxer Eric 'Butterbean' Esch at "Cage Rage 20". In his final appearance in Pride, Thompson dominated against UFC veteran Don Frye to a first round stoppage at "PRIDE 34". Thompson followed up with his final appearance in Cage Rage, losing to Neil "Goliath" Grove by knockout in just 10 seconds. Thompson cited a lack of quality heavyweight training partners for his poor performances, and switched training camps to join Randy Couture's Xtreme Couture.


title: James Thompson (fighter)

text: Thompson made his EliteXC debut against undefeated 8-0 fighter Brett Rogers at the "" on 16 February 2008. Rogers knocked Thompson out in the first round. Despite this loss, Thompson followed up with a headlining appearance at "" against streetfighter Kimbo Slice. Entering the fight with a considerably swollen cauliflower ear, Thompson managed to control the first two rounds with effective ground and pound. However, both fighters came into the third round substantially winded. Slice landed several unanswered blows to Thompson's face whilst on his feet, one of which burst his cauliflower ear, prompting the referee to stop the fight and declare a TKO in Slice's favour.


title: James Thompson (fighter)

text: On 6 February 2009, Thompson fought Steve Bossé at Strike Box/Titans Fighting's inaugural event in Quebec, Canada. The event was originally scheduled to be under Strike Box's own rules where only boxing, takedowns and standing submissions were allowed, but the rules were not accepted by the province's athletic commission in time for the event. It was therefore conducted under MMA rules instead. Before the event some fighters agreed to fight under Strike Box's proposed rules as a gentleman's agreement, though the referee in charge would not have any choice but to allow ground fighting were it to happen. Thompson, who later claimed to be unaware of the agreement, proceeded to take down, mount and ground and pound Bosse - as allowed under MMA rules - after Bosse went for a standing guillotine choke at the start of the fight. This caused the audience to boo Thompson and the referee, unaware of that the fight was being conducted under MMA rules. Beer cans and eventually chairs were then thrown into the ring, prompting referee Yves Lavigne to stop the match. Although it was originally declared a no contest the fight and its result doesn't appear on either fighter's official fight records.


title: James Thompson (fighter)

text: Thompson revealed at the Dream 12 press conference that he has three more fights for his Strikeforce contract.


title: James Thompson (fighter)

text: Thompson competed in the ZT Fight Night Tournament for £10,000 along with 7 other fighters on 30 January 2010. He avenged his first career loss against Tengiz Tedoradze in the quarterfinals, his first win in nearly three years, breaking a five-loss streak. He was then knocked out by the eventual tournament winner, Rob Broughton.


title: James Thompson (fighter)

text: Rumours that Thompson could face Ikuhisa Minowa at DREAM 16 surfaced. However it was later revealed that Minowa would face Satoshi Ishii at DREAM 16. Thompsony instead fought DEEP veteran Yusuke Kawaguchi and lost via a controversial Split Decision. Many believed the two majority decision judges were biased towards the Japanese home country fighter after Thompson retained top position and did much more damage at the end of the first and throughout the second round.


title: James Thompson (fighter)

text: Thompson fought five-time "World’s Strongest Man" Mariusz Pudzianowski at KSW XVI on 21 May 2011. He won the fight via submission in the second round.


title: James Thompson (fighter)

text: In the rematch at KSW XVII, Thompson lost a controversial decision. After the fight, he launched a profane verbal assault directed at the promotion. Two days later the promotion changed the result to a No Contest, claiming an error in scorecard tallying. Thompson, however, has not participated in any subsequent KSW events.


title: James Thompson (fighter)

text: Thompson fought in the main event of the Super Fight League's inaugural event, SFL 1, against Bob Sapp. He won the fight when Sapp injured his leg as he was being taken down by Thompson, forcing him to tap out to the injury.


title: James Thompson (fighter)

text: He next competed at Super Fight League 3 against Bobby Lashley. The outcome was yet another close and controversial decision, this time going unanimously in Thompson's favour, giving him his first winning streak since 2005.


title: James Thompson (fighter)

text: Thompson returned to action once his orbital bone had healed from his previous war with Lashley on 1 March 2014 against UFC veteran Colin Robinson, as part of the UXC 2 card at the Odyssey Arena, Northern Ireland. He won via arm triangle choke in the second round.


title: James Thompson (fighter)

text: It was announced on 23 May that Thompson had been signed by Bellator MMA and would make his promotional debut against Eric Prindle in the headlining bout of Bellator 121 on 6 June 2014. Thompson dominated Prindle and won by TKO in the first round at 1:55 minutes.


title: James Thompson (fighter)

text: Thompson was expected to face UFC veteran Houston Alexander in the co-main event on 17 October 2014 at Bellator 129. However, on 10 October 2014 it was announced that Thompson was pulled from the fight due to injury.


title: James Thompson (fighter)

text: Thompson was scheduled to face Bobby Lashley in a rematch at Bellator 134 on 27 February 2015. However, Lashley pulled out of the fight due to injury. The fight was rescheduled for 19 June 2015 at Bellator 138. In early June, it was revealed that Dan Charles would instead face Lashley at the event due to an injury sustained by Thompson.


title: James Thompson (fighter)

text: The rematch with Lashley eventually took place on 6 November 2015 at Bellator 145. Thompson lost the fight via TKO in the first round.


title: James Thompson (fighter)

text: In April 2016, Bellator President Scott Coker announced on ESPN’s SportsCenter that Thompson would have a rematch against Kimbo Slice in the main event of Bellator 158, which would take place on 16 July 2016 at London’s O2 Arena. Slice died unexpectedly on 6 June 2016.


title: James Thompson (fighter)

text: In his debut for the Rizin Fighting Federation, Thompson faced Tsuyoshi Kohsaka on 29 December 2015. He lost the fight via TKO in the second round.


title: James Thompson (fighter)

text: After two years hiatus, Thompson faced Phi De Fries on Bellator 191 on December 15. 2017. He lost the fight via a submission in round one.


title: James Thompson (fighter)

text: Thompson was suspended for one year by the Mohegan Tribe Department of Athletic Regulations and fined two thousands dollars for testing positive from a in competition sample collected for steroid dirostanolone in competition at Bellator 191.


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section is a group of American session musicians based in the northern Alabama town of Muscle Shoals. One of the most prominent American studio house bands from the 1960s to the 1980s, these musicians, individually or as a group, have been associated with more than 500 recordings, including 75 gold and platinum hits. They were masters at creating a southern combination of R&B, soul and country music known as the "Muscle Shoals sound" to back up black artists, who were often in disbelief to learn that the studio musicians were white. Over the years from 1962 to 1969, there have been two successive groups under the name "Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section" and the common factor in the two was an association with Rick Hall at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals.


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: The original group hired by Hall in the early 1960s was Norbert Putnam, David Briggs, and Jerry Carrigan, who created hit records that brought recognition and stature to this unknown and out-of-the-way studio. This group was courted by Nashville studios and left Muscle Shoals to pursue independent careers in Nashville.


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: To replace these musicians, Hall hired a core group consisting of Barry Beckett, Roger Hawkins, David Hood and Jimmy Johnson, initially called "the Second FAME Gang", but widely known by the nickname "The Swampers" . The Swampers subsequently recorded, produced, or engineered classic hits by Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Leon Russell, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Rod Stewart, Bob Seger and The Staple Singers. The Swampers were the subject of the 2013 documentary film "Muscle Shoals", winner of the 2013 Boulder International Film Festival Grand Prize. They were mentioned by name in the lyrics of "Sweet Home Alabama" (1974) by Lynyrd Skynyrd and appear on the cover of Cher's 1969 album "3614 Jackson Highway".


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: Aretha Franklin recorded at FAME on only one occasion, with the Swampers providing the accompaniment; her hit song I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You) was recorded at the studio in 1967. After Franklin's husband Ted White started an altercation, producer Jerry Wexler decided to continue recording the LP in New York, again using the Swampers. The group also accompanied Franklin on other albums, such as "Lady Soul," "Aretha Arrives," "Aretha Now" and "This Girl's in Love with You."


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: In 1969, the Swampers parted ways with Rick Hall and FAME Studios and founded their own competing business, the Muscle Shoals Sound Studios. They also copyrighted the name "The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section". A third FAME rhythm section was formed consisting of Freeman Brown (drums), Jesse Boyce (bass), Junior Lowe (guitar), Clayton Ivey (keyboard) and a 4 man brass section. They were a blend of African American and white, and sometimes they were called FAME Gang. Both the original FAME group and the second group (Swampers) have been inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame and into the Musicians Hall of Fame in 2008.


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: In 1958, Rick Hall, a local musician and songwriter in Florence, Alabama, befriended Tom Stafford, whose father owned a pharmacy in downtown Florence. Above the pharmacy, up some rickety stairs, Stafford had some recording gear. He had partnered with Rick Hall and Billy Sherrill to create "SPAR" (an acronym for Stafford Publishing And Recording). He asked some 16-year-old members of a local band, Norbert Putnam, David Briggs and Jerry Carrigan, to make some song demos. It was here that these young musicians were first exposed to creating original parts on new songs, and they became proficient at it. Also frequenting these rooms were future musical elites, such as Donnie Fritts, Spooner Oldham, Terry Thompson and Dan Penn. Stafford and Sherrill later terminated Hall from the partnership, and Hall's humiliation fueled him to attempt to outdo them as their competitor.


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: In 1961, Hall took out a loan to buy an abandoned brick warehouse in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to make a recording studio. Muscle Shoals is one of four towns in northwest Alabama clustered along the Tennessee River; the others are Florence, Sheffield, and Tuscumbia. His rhythm section (piano, bass and drums) was Briggs, Putnam, and Carrigan.


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: One of Hall's first protégés was an African American bellhop at the Sheffield Hotel named Arthur Alexander, who had written some songs. Hall was a demanding taskmaster, and his recording session required 30 or 40 takes to get the rhythm tracks he wanted. The song, "You Better Move On" rose to number 24 on Billboard's Hot 100 in March 1962, and two years later, cover versions were recorded by both The Hollies and The Rolling Stones. Arthur Alexander was flown to Philadelphia to appear on Dick Clark's "American Bandstand". The success stunned the big-city studios; the music industry quickly took notice of this unknown little studio called FAME (Florence Alabama Music Enterprises).


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: Well-known producers began coming to Muscle Shoals to record with this house band to capture the perceived "Muscle Shoals sound". Atlanta producer Bill Lowery brought The Tams, who recorded "What Kind of Fool (Do You Think I Am)", and Nashville's Felton Jarvis brought Tommy Roe to record "Everybody". Percy Sledge's cousin, Jimmy Hughes recorded "Steal Away" with the same teenaged session players, and it rose to #17 on the Billboard Hot 100 It was followed by "Neighbor, Neighbor" and "Why Not Tonight"– both of which made the charts. Hall stated, "Those hits showed that FAME could be musically diverse, and they announced our open-door policy toward other labels". Rick Hall's financial success from "You Better Move On" gave him the capital to secure land in Muscle Shoals City, where, in 1962, he built a first-rate studio at 603 Avalon Avenue patterned after Owen Bradley's in Nashville. Some 50 years later, the building would be listed on the National Register of Historic Places.


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: Before long, Nashville music moguls Ray Stevens, Bob Beckham and Felton Jarvis made overtures to lure away Hall's backing musicians, saying that in Nashville, they would make four times the money Rick Hall was paying them. They resigned as a group to pursue independent careers in Nashville, and Hall was without his hit-making rhythm section. The replacement musicians were initially called "the Second FAME Gang" but were later nicknamed "The Swampers".


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: Affectionately called The Swampers, but later officially adopting the name The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, this group achieved extraordinary success as one of the best-known group of session musicians of their era. The nickname "The Swampers" was coined by producer Denny Cordell during recording sessions for Leon Russell because of their "funky, soulful Southern 'swamp' sound".


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: Guitarist Jimmy Johnson was the first FAME employee and did many jobs there, including playing rhythm guitar, engineering, and sweeping the floors. In 1964, drummer Roger Hawkins was hired. When bass player David Hood first received the call that a job at FAME had opened up, he was working at his father's tire store.


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: Keyboard player Barry Beckett knew nothing about Muscle Shoals in 1967, but was hired on a session there, James and Bobby Purify's "I'm Your Puppet". He said, "Every night I would just sit there and listen to the tape [still without vocals] over and over again," and said, "that was amazing". With no firm job offer, Beckett moved his family from Florida to Muscle Shoals and was eventually hired. On the many hit records out of Muscle Shoals, there were many incidences where other musicians would join or substitute, including Chips Moman (guitar), Junior Lowe (guitar) Dan Penn, Tommy Cogbill, Pete Carr (guitar), Spooner Oldham (organ and piano).


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: According to music writer Carla Jean Whitley, more than a few people were surprised to learn that the musicians backing many notable black artists were white. Whitley said, "There were many producers accused of lying [about it]...Rod Stewart was one of those who took his producer out and said, 'seriously?' " In the early 1960s, it was not a routine practice to have the same musicians as a "house band" for recording different artists, the exceptions being Motown and Stax Records. Hall wanted to obtain a consistent sound rather than have unfamiliar musicians on each session. The "New York Times" called the Muscle Shoals sound "indigenous American music, a distinctly Southern amalgamation of rhythm & blues, soul, and country music".


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: Atlantic Records executive Jerry Wexler became acquainted with Hall and brought artists such as Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin to record at FAME with the group of southern musicians based on their previous string of hit recordings.


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: In January 1967, Jerry Wexler brought Aretha Franklin, then in her mid-20s, to Muscle Shoals for her first session for Atlantic. During this first session with the Swampers, "I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You", Franklin's husband at the time, Ted White, who had been cordial at first, became belligerent. White had secretly been sharing a bottle of vodka with the horn section during the session. White then demanded that Ken Laxton, the trumpet player who was white, be fired for making passes at Aretha. Hall and Wexler reluctantly agreed. About an hour later, White burst into the control room and demanded that the sax player be fired, saying, "He's flirting with my wife". The producers then fired the sax player. By this time everyone was exhausted and the rapidly-deteriorating session was terminated.


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: An hour later, Rick Hall, who had begun drinking after the session ended, went to Aretha and Ted's hotel room at the Downtowner Hotel in Florence "to try to smooth things over", but a fist fight erupted between Hall and White, with Aretha joining in to try to get Hall out. Hall then screamed, cursed and pounded the door, arousing Wexler, whose room was nearby. Wexler was horrified. Hall went to the lobby, called Aretha's room, and told Ted he'd better get out of town. They left the following day.


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: The only song that had been finished, "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)", went on to number one on Billboard's R&B Selling chart and number nine on the Billboard Hot 100, so Atlantic Records wanted the Swampers, but without Hall and without Muscle Shoals. The solution was to fly the Swampers to New York to record at Atlantic Studios. Less than a month later, The Swampers were in New York recording "Respect", Aretha's first hit that held the number one R&B spot for eight weeks and was number one on the pop charts for two weeks. "Rolling Stone" named it as the fifth-best song of all time. Some other songs they did were Do Right Woman, Do Right Man, Think, Share Your Love With Me, and Call Me.


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: In 1969, after a financial dispute, the Swampers broke away from Rick Hall and FAME to purchase a tiny studio with burlap-covered walls at 3614 Jackson Highway. They were aided in the process by Wexler, who arranged a loan from Atlantic Records to make much-needed equipment upgrades to 8-track recording machines that were compatible with Atlantic's equipment. The Swampers were to pay the loans back by providing studio time. At first, Hawkins and Johnson had more ownership, but subsequently they made Hood and Beckett equal partners at no cost. The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section created more than 50 hits at this studio.


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: The studio's sole bathroom was often used as a sound booth. The musicians would listen out on the porch to make final judgement on finished songs. David Hood said, "The building was a crackerbox building. A loud truck driving down the street or a heavy rainstorm, you'd have to stop working, because it was not built as a studio. It was a just a commercial building that had been adapted for studio use."


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: They asked themselves, "What are we going to call this place?" David Hood suggested the name, "Muscle Shoals Sound" and they all laughed. The joke was that the new studio, technically was in Sheffield, not Muscle Shoals. Only locals would know that, because the towns melded together. Since they had had a dispute with Rick Hall, Hood said, "So I thought, let's call it ' Muscle Shoals Sound ' just to get at Rick." They also trademarked the name "The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section".


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: Things were lean the first year. Finally they had a hit single with "Take a Letter Maria" by R.B. Greaves. The song reached number two on the Hot 100 and was certified gold. In 1971, Atlantic Records moved their Muscle Shoals business to Criteria Studios in Miami and asked the Swampers to move there. When the Swampers refused, Atlantic called their loan on the new equipment. About this time, Stax Records in Memphis was facing financial difficulties and began outsourcing work to Muscle Shoals.


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: More and more business from established artists then came to the Swampers, replacing the lost Atlantic business. From this point, the studio began turning out hits such as Leon Russell's "Tight Rope", the Staple Singers' "I'll Take You There" and Paul Simon's "Kodachrome".


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: The Rolling Stones, newly signed to Atlantic Records, arrived in Sheffield, Alabama, in December, 1969, two nights after a performance in West Palm Beach, Florida. They had been assured that the planned recording session could be kept secret. The little studio at 3614 Jackson Highway was still in its infancy, with only one hit thus far, plus a Cher album that was not a commercial success. Rick Hall sardonically said, "The Rolling Stones thought they were cutting at FAME".


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: The Stones were there three days, spending most of their time in the studio engineered by Swamper Jimmy Johnson. The first night, they recorded "You Gotta Move"; the second night, "Brown Sugar", the third, "Wild Horses". Mick Jagger wrote three verses on a stenographer's pad on the spot for "Brown Sugar", which made number 490 on "Rolling Stone"'s list of the 500 top songs ever recorded. Swamper David Hood's son who was there said, "Their visit was kept a secret from most of the locals, and the world's biggest rock and roll band came, recorded and left (headed for infamy at Altamont, no less) without the conservative townsfolk even knowing they were there." On the documentary film, "Muscle Shoals", Keith Richards said of the sessions,"I don't think we'd been quite so prolific ever".


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: When Atlantic Records recorded in New York, the typical procedure was to hire an arranger who would come up with the song style from a demo recording and write out the parts for all musicians. In the session, musicians would come in and just play what was written for them. If it was not successful, the arranger was to blame. In Muscle Shoals and other Southern studios, the process was quite different. The musicians rarely read music, and usually nothing was written in advance; it was called a "head session".


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: As an example, in the Muscle Shoals recording of Wilson Pickett's classic hit "Land of 1000 Dances", Jerry Wexler chose the song–it was to be a cover version of a song by Chris Kenner. In its original state, it was much too slow and had a honky-tonk piano sound. Wexler had faith that the Swampers could make something out of it.


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: When the session started, the Swampers began trying different rhythm patterns, dance beats and tempos for the song. After an hour of this, nothing was gelling. Then Chips Moman hit on a guitar lick that set the basic groove and everyone fell in. The arrangement built communally. They decided to break it up by putting a solo drum interlude. During this, Pickett started screaming over the drummer, "nah, nah nah nah nah," then said, "I need somebody to help me now". It was captured on tape, and the players were summoned to the control room, where Rick Hall shouted, "Guys, we are now cutting a smash record". Musicians Moman and Cogbill disagreed, saying that there was no intro and no turnaround— the song was far from finished. Pickett borrowed the line, "nah, nah nah nah nah" and its melody from Cannibal & The Headhunters' 1965 version of "Land of 1000 Dances". What started as an ad lib by Frankie Garcia (Cannibal) from a live performance was then incorporated into their recording of the song, which reached number 30 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in early 1965. It was not part of Chris Kenner's own original 1962 recording.


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: In Hall's autobiography, he said Pickett suggested singing the count off, "one, two, three". Wexler told a different story and stated, "After dozens of abortive attempts, I came up with an idea. 'Sing the counts, Wilson', I suggested. 'Make the counts part of the intro' ". Hall said that was crazy—who ever heard of singing a count off? Pickett said, "let me show you," and got the horn players (Wayne Jackson, Charlie Chalmers, Andrew Love and Floyd Newman) to hit a chord.


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: The now-famous bass lick that followed was actually a second count off and took trials by three bass players to find something extraordinary. Moman suggested they allow Tommy Cogbill (guitar player) to switch to bass and give it a try. Cogbill put Vaseline on his fingertips and delivered the lick they had been hoping for.


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: Since they were recording in mono on one track, all had to now play it correctly from start to finish. If anyone missed his part, they all would have had to do the entire song from the beginning, and repetition often loses a song's excitement, due to fatigue. Hall said, "everybody looked at each other like, 'If you miss this, man, you're dead'." When they succeeded, there were high fives all around the studio. Hall said, "When you hear that record today, you can tell that everybody was feeding off the enthusiasm of everybody else in that room".


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section closed the original on Jackson Highway in April, 1979, and moved to a new studio at 1000 Alabama Avenue in nearby Sheffield. The town leaders sold Sheffield's abandoned Armory to the Swampers at an unbeatable price, to counter a nearby city's offer to lure them away. That year, the new studio recorded the Bob Dylan album "Slow Train Coming", co-produced by Barry Beckett, who also performed on it. The new studio marked a new beginning for Beckett, Hawkins, Hood and Johnson, allowing them to move toward production and publishing rather than performing. They continued to operate there until 1985, when they closed the business. They sold it to their longtime friend Tommy Couch, owner of Malaco Records, based in Jackson, Mississippi. At that time, three of the Swampers joined other session players, such as the keyboardist Carson Whitsett, backing Bobby "Blue" Bland and other artists recording for the Malaco label. They occasionally worked at other studios.


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: Beckett left Alabama in 1982 to move to Nashville, where he became A&R man for Warner Music Group. He later worked independently with Alabama, Asleep at the Wheel, Kenny Chesney and others. He performed on recording sessions until 2005, when health problems forced him to retire. He died in 2009 at age 66.


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: During the 1990s and later, the group continued working as a studio band, often with Clayton Ivey on keyboards, for artists including Gregg Allman ("All Night All Stars"), T. Graham Brown, Jimmy Buffett, Melissa Etheridge, John Hiatt, the Oak Ridge Boys, Johnny Paycheck, Etta James, and Joe Louis Walker.


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, individually or as a group, have been associated with more than 500 recordings, including 75 gold and platinum hits. They appeared on the cover of Cher's 1969 album "3614 Jackson Highway". Four members were inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 1995 and also received a "Lifework Award for Non-Performing Achievement". In 2008, the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section was inducted into the Nashville-based Musicians Hall of Fame, along with Swampers musicians Pete Carr (guitar), Spooner Oldham (organ and piano), Albert S. Lowe Jr., Clayton Ivey, Randy McCormick, and Will McFarlane. In 2019, the original Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, including Norbert Putnam, David Briggs, Jerry Carrigan, Terry Thompson, Earl "Peanut" Montgomery, Joe South and Reggie Young, was inducted, as well as the Muscle Shoals Horn Section: Aaron Brown, Harrison Calloway, Ronny Eades, Charles Rose, and Harvey Thompson.


title: Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

text: The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section is featured in the 2013 documentary film "Muscle Shoals", which won the Grand Prize in the 2013 Boulder International Film Festival.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: Barry Ferguson (born 2 February 1978) is a Scottish football coach, former player and pundit who was most recently the manager of Alloa Athletic.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: Ferguson spent most of his playing career at Rangers, in two spells either side of a £7.5 million transfer to English club Blackburn Rovers. He totalled 431 games and 60 goals for Rangers, whom he captained between 2000 and 2003 and again between 2005 and 2009. Ferguson won the Scottish Premier League, Scottish Cup and Scottish League Cup five times apiece for Rangers, including a treble in 2003, which earned him the honour of SFWA Footballer of the Year. He also helped Rangers to reach the 2008 UEFA Cup Final.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: Ferguson made 45 appearances for the Scotland national team, starting from 1998. In 2009, following behavioural incidents while on national duty, he was stripped of the captaincy of Rangers and told he would no longer be considered for international selection.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: Later in his career, he returned to England with Birmingham City, Blackpool and Fleetwood Town. Towards the end of his playing spell with Blackpool, he served as caretaker manager of the club. Ferguson was appointed player-manager of Clyde in June 2014; he resigned from this position in February 2017. He became manager of Kelty Hearts in October 2018, and he left them in May 2021 after guiding them to promotion to the SPFL for the first time. Ferguson then became manager of Alloa Athletic soon after, but left the club on 14 February after a run of one win in eleven games.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: Born in Hamilton into a Rangers-supporting family, Ferguson's older brother, Derek, had played for the club in the same position in the 1980s, with the younger sibling often being invited behind the scenes at Ibrox Stadium as a child.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: Around the age of 8 he began playing for Mill United in Hamilton. In his early teens, although highly rated, he suffered rejection by the Scotland Schoolboys, at trials in Largs, due to his stature. He made it into the last thirty or so candidates, however. "When I got out of the car, I went up and lay on my bed and thought to myself, 'You know what? I'm going to go and show them.'" "The same thing happened at Rangers. There was a father and son, and they were both from Ayrshire, and they were taking us at Rangers for the under-15s. We were playing Celtic, and I got took to the side and told, 'Listen, it's too physical a game for you. We're not going to play you.' And I went away again and said to myself, 'Either throw the towel in, or go and prove these people wrong.' Two or three years later, you're beginning to chap the first-team door, and you're walking past [the people who said you wouldn't make it] and they're saying, 'I knew you were going to do it.'"


title: Barry Ferguson

text: Having trained with Rangers since 1991, Ferguson signed a professional contract upon finishing his education at Brannock High School in 1994. Aside from his brother, Ferguson's idol was Ian Durrant, who was still an important player when he joined the club.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: Ferguson was promoted to the first-team squad for the 1996–97 season. He made his debut on the last day of that season against Hearts on 10 May 1997. He made a number of sporadic appearances the following season under manager Walter Smith's policy of easing him into the first team.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: Ferguson became a regular fixture in the first team during the 1998–99 season under new manager Dick Advocaat (displacing fellow youth graduate Charlie Miller). The Dutchman soon secured Ferguson on a long-term contract as he became an important member of the squad. He scored his first career goal in a League Cup match against Alloa Athletic on 18 August 1998, and played against his brother on three occasions during that season when Rangers faced Dunfermline Athletic, with a 20-year-old Ferguson scoring his first league goal in the match at East End Park. His brother, then 31 years old, made his last appearance at Ibrox in the reverse fixture. Injury prevented him from being involved in the 1998–99 season run-in as the club achieved the treble; Ferguson watched the 1999 Scottish Cup Final from the stands as Rangers won by a single goal, scored by Rod Wallace three minutes into the second half.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: Ferguson was so influential the following season that he was given an extended six-year deal at Rangers in October 1999. He was named the Scottish Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year for 1999–2000, a season in which Rangers retained the Premier League and Scottish Cup, beating Aberdeen in the final.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: Ferguson received minor facial injuries after engaging in a drunken hotel brawl following a 6–2 defeat to Celtic in August 2000. After being sent off in the match, he had made obscene gestures to the crowd and then went drinking in Bothwell in his club tracksuit. When the club crashed out of the UEFA Champions League group stage at the hands of AS Monaco, largely because of a mistake by captain Lorenzo Amoruso, the Italian was stripped of the captaincy and it instead went to the 22-year-old Ferguson. An incident in which two bags of ice were thrown at the Celtic dug-out during a 2–0 defeat at Ibrox in September 2001 was attributed to Ferguson, who was criticised for his petulance and immaturity. Celtic manager Martin O'Neill played down the incident, saying he thought the ice had been thrown by his club's doctor. The young Ferguson went on to successfully guide his team to a League Cup and Scottish Cup later that season under manager Alex McLeish, who had replaced Advocaat in December 2001. In the latter final, another Old Firm clash, Ferguson tied the score at 2–2 with a free kick (Peter Lovenkrands scored the winning goal).


title: Barry Ferguson

text: During their second season together, 2002–03, Ferguson captained the side to a domestic treble. After scoring 18 goals from midfield, he also won Scottish Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year and Scottish PFA Players' Player of the Year.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: On 29 August 2003, Ferguson joined Premier League club Blackburn Rovers for a fee of £7.5 million. With Everton also chasing Ferguson, Rangers had initially denied that he was leaving. He made his Blackburn debut in a Premier League match against Liverpool on 19 September at Ewood Park, and scored his first goal against the same team, also at Ewood Park, during a League Cup match on 29 October.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: Graeme Souness made Ferguson captain of Blackburn in July 2004 and he seemed to be adapting well to Premiership football, despite the team still struggling and a managerial change, which saw Mark Hughes replacing Souness. However, after 16 months at the club, including a lengthy period out through injury after fracturing his kneecap in a Premiership match against Newcastle United, during the January 2005 transfer window, Ferguson submitted a written transfer request, admitting that the draw of playing in the Premiership and a Lancashire derby could not compare with an Old Firm match, nor could the team's desire to win be matched.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: After much discussion between the clubs, a fee of £4.5 million was agreed and Ferguson rejoined Rangers just before the close of the transfer window. Ferguson later said that the fee Rangers paid was actually £100,000 plus the fees Blackburn owed from the original transfer. Ferguson's second debut for Rangers came in a League Cup semi-final victory over Dundee United. He was a 69th-minute substitute for Alex Rae during the 7–1 win. His first goal after his return was the opening goal in a 1–1 draw against Inverness CT on 5 March 2005. Ferguson played in the 2005 Scottish League Cup Final and was part of the Rangers team that won the league title on the last day of the season.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: At the start of the 2005–06 season, manager Alex McLeish re-appointed Ferguson as club captain. McLeish had not wanted to remove the captaincy mid-season from Fernando Ricksen. Ferguson played the latter part of the season carrying an ankle injury as Rangers ended up in a third-place finish in the Premier League. At the end of the season, Ferguson revealed that he had snapped ligaments and confessed that he should have undergone the surgery sooner.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: After an incident in the dressing room at Caledonian Stadium, Inverness, on 27 December 2006, it was announced on BBC Radio Scotland's New Year's Day broadcast of "Sportsound" that Ferguson had been stripped of the Rangers captaincy after a meeting with then manager Paul Le Guen. He was also dropped from the squad for the next match. Later Le Guen claimed Ferguson was undermining him. "I'll go on record as saying I never had one bust-up with him, never had one argument with him. I don't know where all this comes from," explained Ferguson eleven years later. "No disrespect to Inverness Caley – they had good players, no doubt – but we we're Rangers here. We were dropping points against teams that we should be beating. So, I let it out a wee bit. There was no arguments, nothing in the dressing room. After I had said that, we flew back down to Glasgow. We were playing Motherwell next, I think, and I came in the day of, or the day before, the Motherwell game. I came in, put my bag down, Yves Colleu, who was the assistant manager, comes in and says, 'Paul wants to speak to you'. I went into his office and went to sit down, and [Le Guen] said, 'Don't sit down. That's you finished; you won't play with Rangers again.'"


title: Barry Ferguson

text: The match at Motherwell was won 1–0 by Rangers, and goalscorer Kris Boyd reportedly showed solidarity with the deposed skipper by holding up six fingers, in reference to Ferguson's shirt number. Following the resignation of Le Guen as manager on 4 January, Ferguson was re-instated to the Rangers side by caretaker manager Ian Durrant and was also re-appointed as captain. Later that year, sports journalist Graham Spiers published "Paul Le Guen: Enigma", documenting his tenure at the club. According to Spiers, Le Guen left because he was being "undermined" by other Rangers personnel, including Ferguson and then club doctor, Ian McGuinness.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: The 2007–08 season began with Ferguson scoring twice in the first SPL match against Inverness. His scoring form continued and he netted the second in a 3–0 win over rivals Celtic, as well as in the UEFA Champions League against VfB Stuttgart. The Old Firm goal was Ferguson's first against Celtic since the 2002 Scottish Cup Final.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: In January 2008, he scored a controversial goal in Rangers' 2007–08 Scottish League Cup semi-final win against Hearts. He later admitted to handling the ball in the buildup to the goal but that the infringement was unintentional. Rangers went on to win both the League Cup final and the Scottish Cup final.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: On 14 May 2008, Ferguson made his 400th appearance for Rangers in the UEFA Cup Final against Zenit Saint Petersburg at the City of Manchester Stadium; he captained the side to a 2–0 defeat.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: The summer of 2008 saw Ferguson undergo an operation on a fresh injury problem that would see him ruled out until early November; the injury was not the same one that plagued him towards the end of the season prior. He returned to the first team on 1 November in a 5–0 league win over Inverness at Ibrox.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: In April 2009, after an extended hotel drinking session with Rangers teammate Allan McGregor after Scotland's defeat to the Netherlands, followed by both players making inappropriate gestures while on the bench during the next match against Iceland, Ferguson was stripped of the captain's armband for both club and country. He recovered from this setback to help Rangers win the 2009 Scottish Cup Final against Falkirk (his last match for the club, having not started since the Scotland incident). Rangers also won the SPL title but missed out on another treble with a defeat in the 2009 Scottish League Cup Final.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: Ferguson made 82 appearances in European competitions, all of them for Rangers, which made him the record European appearance holder at the club. Ferguson overtook David Narey's record for the number of European appearances made whilst playing for a Scottish club by starting in a UEFA Cup match against Werder Bremen. He broke Kenny Dalglish's record for the number of competitive European appearances by a Scottish footballer when he played in his 80th match in Europe, against Sporting CP.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: On 17 July 2009, Ferguson completed a move to English Premier League newcomers Birmingham City on a three-year contract for an undisclosed fee, reported as "in the region of £1.2m". Joining up with boss Alex McLeish once again, the former Rangers manager said that Ferguson has "unfinished business in England" and that he believed the former Scottish international to be "very capable of competing with the best players in the Premier League." He made his debut in the opening game of the season, against Manchester United on 15 August 2009, and his first goal for the club came as the only goal of the FA Cup third round replay against Nottingham Forest in January 2010. Ferguson won the Birmingham City players' Player of the Year award for 2009–10.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: Ferguson helped Birmingham beat Arsenal in the 2011 League Cup Final at Wembley, despite playing the last hour of the game with a broken rib. During both of his two seasons with Birmingham, Ferguson made over two thousand passes without recording an assist. In season 2009–10 Ferguson had the highest number of completed passes of any player in the Barclays Premier League, according to Opta statistics.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: With Birmingham needing to reduce their wage bill following their relegation from the Premier League, Ferguson joined Championship club Blackpool on 22 July 2011 for an undisclosed fee, reported to be around £750,000. This enabled him to move closer to his family in Scotland, and he signed a two-year deal, with the option of staying on for a further year. He was given the captain's armband (taking over from Charlie Adam, who had departed for Liverpool) for the club's opening League fixture at Hull City on 5 August.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: Ferguson scored his first goal for "the Seasiders" in a 2–0 victory over Ipswich Town at Bloomfield Road on 10 September. It was his first goal in English league football for seven years.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: In late October 2012, after a falling out with chairman Karl Oyston, Ferguson was made to train with the Blackpool youth team. Early the following month, he received a call from Micky Mellon, manager of nearby Fleetwood Town. Although he doubted Ferguson would want to play in League Two, Mellon put forward the offer of coming on loan. Ferguson accepted, the only such move of his career, and spent three months at Highbury Avenue.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: Ferguson was reinstated to the side by Paul Ince on 20 February in his first game in charge, a 2–0 defeat at Leeds United. He had been named as a substitute for the previous couple of games, under the caretaker-managership of Steve Thompson. He was given the captain's armband, in the absence of Alex Baptiste, for the home victory over Derby County on 26 April.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: In October 2013, Ferguson had a sixth and final operation on his ankle, which kept him out until 3 December. "After the surgery, the surgeon said, "Right, it's over. Don't try [playing] again."


title: Barry Ferguson

text: On 21 January 2014, Ferguson was installed as Blackpool's caretaker manager in the wake of Ince's sacking. "I didn't want to take it, but nobody else would take the job," Ferguson explained in 2020. "And it was a chance to keep the club up." He initially stated that he would not be playing while in the managerial role, but on 12 April, at Leeds, he named himself in the starting line-up in an attempt to stave off the threat of relegation. "Bob [Malcolm] says to me, 'You'll need to come back in.' I said, 'Bob, I've not trained for six weeks.' He said, 'You'll need to come back and play; we're struggling.'"


title: Barry Ferguson

text: Although Blackpool won only three of their twenty games with Ferguson in charge, they avoided relegation by two points. Ferguson left Blackpool at the end of the 2013–14 season.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: Ferguson made twelve appearances for Scotland's under-21 team. He made his full international debut at the age of 20 against Lithuania on 5 September 1998. However, an injury-plagued season prevented him from picking up more caps. Indeed, Ferguson did not return to the Scotland set up until a year later, starting in a 2–1 win against Bosnia-Herzegovina on 4 September 1999.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: He was appointed captain of the national side in 2004 by then-manager Berti Vogts, following the retirement of Paul Lambert. Ferguson captained Scotland a total of 28 times. He led the side to a single-goal victory over former World Champions France 1–0 at the Parc des Princes in Paris on 12 September 2007. This completed a double-header of single-goal victories against the French during the Euro 2008 qualifying campaign.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: Ferguson received criticism for being a disruptive influence on the team despite captaining his country for years. On 3 April 2009, he was banned from ever representing Scotland again after serious breaches of squad discipline, and the captain's armband was given to Darren Fletcher. Additionally, Ferguson's club, Rangers, stripped him of the captain's role and suspended him for two weeks without pay.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: Following the dismissal of George Burley as manager of Scotland, SFA chief executive Gordon Smith confirmed that the incoming manager would be free to select Ferguson should he so wish. On 6 July 2010, Scotland coach Craig Levein confirmed that Ferguson will not play for Scotland again. Levein had hoped he would return, but Ferguson informed him that he wanted to focus on club football instead.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: In June 2014, Ferguson was appointed player-manager of Scottish League Two club Clyde. Clyde were drawn away to Rangers in the Challenge Cup after a 2–0 home win against Ayr United; Rangers won 8–1. On 27 September, Ferguson made his playing debut against Annan Athletic in a 1–1 draw at Broadwood, but came off early in the second half with an injury. Towards the end of the 2–0 defeat to Lowland League club Spartans in the second round of the Scottish Cup, Ferguson was sent to the stands after a verbal altercation with Clyde supporters. In April 2015, Ferguson said that he had retired as a player.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: In his second season at Clyde, the team came third and reached the play-offs, in which they defeated Elgin City 5–1 on aggregate in the semi-finals. In the final, however, they lost 3–2 to Queen's Park, despite winning the second leg 1–0 at Hampden. Clyde went on a poor run of form during his third season, failing to win a league match in December, January or February. With the club sitting in eighth place in late February, Ferguson resigned.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: In October 2018, Ferguson had discussions with Lowland League club Kelty Hearts about becoming their new manager. He was offered and accepted the position later that month. Hearts finished third in the Lowland League in Ferguson's first season in charge. They won the championship the following season, 2019–20, after it was curtailed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: Ferguson guided Kelty into the SPFL for the first time in their history when they beat Brechin City over two legs in the Scottish League Two play-offs at the end of the 2020–21 campaign. The result also ended Brechin City's 67-year stint in the senior leagues. A day after the play-offs ended, Ferguson left Kelty.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: Shortly after leaving Kelty, Ferguson was appointed manager of Alloa Athletic. After struggling in the league, the club announced on 14 February 2022 that Ferguson had tendered his resignation.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: Ferguson regularly appears on STV's "Peter & Roughie's Football Show" and the online sports show "PLZ Soccer – Football Show". He also has a regular column in the "Daily Record" newspaper.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: Ferguson is married to Margaret, a trained psychologist. They have three children: Connor, Kyle and Cara. His son, Kyle, is also a professional footballer, a centre back who signed for Harrogate Town in June 2022.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: During the 2014 Scottish independence referendum Ferguson was a supporter of the Better Together campaign against Scottish independence.


title: Barry Ferguson

text: In July 2017 it was reported that Ferguson successfully applied for bankruptcy after running up debts of £1,425,633, whilst having only £3,000 worth of assets to help pay off his creditors. Ferguson exited bankruptcy in July 2018, having co-operated with an insolvency firm.


title: 2019 European Parliament election in the United Kingdom

text: The 2019 European Parliament election was the United Kingdom's component of the 2019 European Parliament election, held on Thursday 23 May 2019 and the results were announced on Sunday 26 and Monday 27 May 2019, after all the other EU countries had voted. This was the United Kingdom's final participation in a European Parliament election before leaving the European Union on 31 January 2020, and was also the last election to be held under the provisions of the European Parliamentary Elections Act 2002 before its repeal under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018.


text: Initially no election was planned in the United Kingdom, as Brexit (following the 2016 referendum) was set for 29 March 2019. However, at the European summit on 11 April 2019 the British government and the European Council agreed to delay British withdrawal until 31 October 2019. While it was then the default position in UK and EU law for the election to take place, the UK Government continued attempts to avoid participation by agreeing on withdrawal before 23 May. On 7 May 2019, the UK government conceded that the election would go ahead.


text: The election was the ninth time the United Kingdom had elected MEPs to the European Parliament (and the fourth for Gibraltar). Candidate nominations were submitted by 16:00 on 25 April 2019, and voter registration was completed on 7 May 2019. The MEPs sat until 31 January 2020.


text: Brexit was the central issue of the election campaign; arguments were made that it was a proxy for a second Brexit referendum. The election was won by the Brexit Party who won the most votes and became the largest single national party in the European Parliament, being the dominant choice of those who had voted to leave the European Union. The votes of those who had voted to remain were more fragmented: the Liberal Democrats made substantial gains, finishing second nationally, while the Green Party of England and Wales and Scottish National Party also improved on their 2014 results; however, Change UK failed to win any seats. Compared to the 2014 result, the Labour Party suffered heavy losses, while the Conservative Party lost all but four of its MEPs. The previously dominant UK Independence Party failed to elect any MEPs.


text: In Northern Ireland, the Republican pro-Remain Sinn Féin and the Unionist pro-Leave Democratic Unionist Party both held their seats, while the Ulster Unionist Party lost its seat to the pro-Remain non-sectarian Alliance Party. In Scotland, the Scottish National Party elected three MEPs, while Labour lost both its MEPs and failed to win a seat in Scotland at a European election for the first time in its history. In Wales, the Brexit Party became the largest party, while the nationalist Plaid Cymru came second. The Liberal Democrats became the largest party in London.


text: The election was the first national poll in the United Kingdom since December 1910 in which a successor party to the Liberal Party reached higher than third place in the number of votes or seats, and the first ever national election in which the Conservative Party received less than 10% of the votes cast.


text: Individuals had to be registered to vote by midnight on 7 May 2019. A person with two homes, such as a university student with a term-time address but living at home during holidays, could be registered to vote at both addresses as long as they are not in the same electoral area, but could vote in only one constituency at the election.


text: European Union citizens (except for British, Irish, Cypriot and Maltese citizens) also had to submit a European Parliament voter registration form (also known as Form UC1 or Form EC6) by midnight on 7 May 2019 to confirm that they would vote in the European Parliament election only in the UK, and not in their home country. However, in the top 10 local authorities with EU citizens, only 21% of EU citizens who were on the Electoral Register returned this form by the deadline. EU citizens who did not submit this form were unable to vote in the election.


text: The United Kingdom was divided into 12 multi-member constituencies: the nine regions of England, plus Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Gibraltar was assigned to the South West England constituency. As had been the case since 1999, the English electoral constituencies were based on the government's nine English regions. The seat allocation was the same as in 2014.


text: In Great Britain, candidates stood on either a party list, known as a closed list, in a set order of priority decided by that party, or as an independent. Voters chose a party (not an individual party candidate) or an independent candidate. Seats would then be allocated proportionally to the share of votes cast for each party or individual candidate in the electoral region using the D'Hondt method of calculation. The first seat was allocated to the party or individual with the highest number of votes. After each seat was allocated to a party, for the purpose of allocating further seats that party's total votes would then be divided by one plus the number of seats already allocated to that party, to give the party's quotient. The second and subsequent seats were allocated in turn to the party or independent candidate with the greatest quotient.


text: The Northern Ireland constituency used the single transferable vote (STV) system to allocate its three MEPs. Voters ranked the candidates sequentially, in the order of their choice.


text: The United Kingdom invoked Article 50 of the Treaty on the European Union on 29 March 2017 following a referendum on 23 June 2016 to leave the European Union. As a result, the country was due to leave the EU on 29 March 2019, before the European Parliament elections took place. Nonetheless, on 27 May 2018, it was reported that the UK's Electoral Commission had set aside £829,000 for its "activities relating to a European Parliamentary election in 2019". The Commission described the money as a "precautionary measure, so that we have the necessary funds to deliver our functions at a European Parliamentary election, in the unlikely event that they do go ahead".


text: The European Parliament resolution of 7 February 2018 on the composition of the European Parliament (2017/2054(INL) – 2017/0900(NLE)) included these clauses:


text: The European Council also drew up contingency plans allowing the UK to retain its MEPs were Brexit to be postponed:


text: After Brexit was delayed beyond its initial planned date of 29 March 2019, the possibility of a sufficiently long delay so as to require the election to take place became more apparent. The period for withdrawal under Article 50 was first extended, with the unanimous approval of the European Council, until 12 April 2019 – the deadline for informing the EU of the intention to hold an election. By early April, the House of Commons had voted again to extend the withdrawal period, and a deadline of 31 October 2019 was agreed between the UK and the Council. The UK Government therefore ordered preparations for the election, with the deadline for candidate nominations on 24 April for the South West England region and 25 April for all other regions.


text: Nevertheless, ratification of a withdrawal agreement by the UK and European parliaments would still have permitted the UK to leave before October. Had this occurred before 23 May, the United Kingdom and Gibraltar would not have taken part in the 2019 European Parliament elections scheduled for that day. On 7 May, the UK Government announced that it would not be able to obtain ratification in time to prevent the elections, although it still aimed to ratify the withdrawal agreement before October. Later in May, it also acknowledged that the MEPs elected would take up their seats, with Brexit not due to happen until after 2 July.


text: The two major UK political parties, the Conservatives and Labour, saw the prospect of elections for the European Parliament (while the UK was due to leave the European Union) as problematic, with both having been keen to avoid this scenario. The backdrop of ongoing debate around Brexit was expected to be a very significant factor in how people voted, with the election seen by many as a "proxy referendum" on whether the country should leave the EU or not. Commentators suggested that the vote share for the Conservatives and Labour could fall, with voters moving towards a number of pro-Leave or pro-Remain parties, and this did indeed happen.


text: The Conservative government had made several attempts to get the Withdrawal Agreement that it had negotiated with the EU approved by the House of Commons, which would have allowed for Brexit before the election. All these having failed, the Conservatives entered into cross-party talks with the Labour Party to see whether they could agree a withdrawal plan. These talks were still ongoing as of 10 May 2019, but eventually failed.


text: The election was seen as being significant for two new single-issue parties: the Brexit Party (supporting Brexit), and Change UK (supporting the UK remaining in the EU).


text: Between the 2014 and 2019 elections, there were many changes to the breakdown of UK members due to defections and changes in affiliation. This table shows the number of MEPs in each party at both ends of the term:


text: Nomination papers had to be submitted by 16:00 on the 19th working day before election day (25 April 2019). To stand as a candidate, individuals had to be aged 18 or over on the date of nomination and a British or European Union citizen, or a Commonwealth citizen possessing indefinite leave to remain or not requiring leave to enter or remain in the UK.


text: In April 2019, Labour said it had started its process for choosing candidates. 16 out of the 20 MEPs elected last time applied to stand again. The party's candidates were announced on 18 April, and included former Cabinet minister Andrew Adonis, former MP Katy Clark and the national co-ordinator of campaigning group Momentum Laura Parker.


text: Following the prospect of a delay to Brexit, Conservative Party MEPs were asked by their delegation leader if they would consider standing again if there were a delay that would mean the UK staying in the EU beyond the date of the next European Parliament election. Fifteen of the party's 18 MEPs stood again as lead candidates for their respective regions.


text: The Brexit Party ran candidates for all 70 seats in Great Britain, with leader Nigel Farage, himself a former UKIP leader, standing in the South East England region, and former Conservative candidate Annunziata Rees-Mogg standing in the East Midlands region. Writer Claire Fox, formerly of the Revolutionary Communist Party, and former Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe both also stood.


text: The UK Independence Party selected its three remaining MEPs as candidates, along with social media activist Carl Benjamin and YouTuber Mark Meechan.


text: The Green Party of England and Wales and the corresponding party in Scotland, the Scottish Greens, began their candidate selection processes in March. The Green Party of England and Wales announced a full slate of candidates for England and Wales on 24 April 2019, including one of its three outgoing MEPs, Molly Scott Cato. Other candidates included Catherine Rowett, Rupert Read and former Lord Mayor of Sheffield, Magid Magid.


text: The Liberal Democrats announced their selected candidates for England and Wales on 17 April 2019 following a membership vote. The party's sole incumbent MEP, Catherine Bearder, was re-selected as its lead candidate for South East England, while former MEPs Chris Davies, Fiona Hall, Bill Newton Dunn and Phil Bennion were selected as lead candidates for their respective regions. Other candidates included in London the entrepreneur Dinesh Dhamija and the former leader of the People's Alliance of Tower Hamlets, Rabina Khan, and former MPs Martin Horwood and Stephen Williams in the South West. The party also stood a full slate in Scotland.


text: Change UK said it had had 3,700 applicants to be candidates, including former MPs from both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party. Their candidates included writer Rachel Johnson (sister of Conservative MP Boris Johnson and formerly of the Liberal Democrats), former BBC journalist Gavin Esler, former Conservative MPs Stephen Dorrell and Neil Carmichael, former Labour MEP Carole Tongue, former Labour MPs Roger Casale and Jon Owen Jones, former Liberal Democrat MEP Diana Wallis, and former deputy Prime Minister of Poland Jacek Rostowski. It stood 70 candidates (all of Great Britain, but not Northern Ireland). Two of its candidates subsequently withdrew from the ballot due to reports that they had made misogynistic and racist remarks.


text: Jill Evans, Plaid Cymru's sole MEP, stood as the party's lead candidate as part of a full slate for the Wales constituency.


text: The Women's Equality Party stood in the London constituency, with the party's co-founder Catherine Mayer as the lead candidate.


text: Further parties and independent candidates also stood, including the English Democrats and the Yorkshire Party.


text: Nine candidates, seven in London and two in South West England, were part of the new Climate Emergency Independents group. They took part in and were inspired by the Extinction Rebellion protests. However, as they were not a registered political party, they were all listed as separate independents on the ballot paper.


text: Patrick O'Flynn, the Social Democratic Party's sole MEP, who defected to the SDP after originally being elected for UKIP, stated in April 2019 that the party would not be standing candidates at the election.


text: Northern Ireland has a different party system to Great Britain, dominated by regional parties, and using single transferable vote rather than the party list system.


text: Two of the three sitting MEPs contested the election: Martina Anderson for Sinn Féin and Diane Dodds for the Democratic Unionist Party. Jim Nicholson, who had represented the Ulster Unionist Party since 1989, retired, with Danny Kennedy instead running for the party.


text: Three parties selected their leaders as candidates: Colum Eastwood for the SDLP, Naomi Long for the Alliance Party, and Clare Bailey for the Green Party.


text: UKIP nominated Robert Hill as their candidate. The Conservative Party also nominated a candidate, making the Conservatives and UKIP the only two parties to stand candidates in all regions across the UK.


text: In April 2019, Jane Morrice, co-founder of the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition and a former deputy speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, announced she was standing as an independent on a pro-Remain platform.


text: In early 2019 there was an ongoing debate within Labour as to what its policy should be with respect to Brexit. On 20 April, the party's deputy leader Tom Watson argued the party needed to back a second referendum on Brexit in order to present a clear alternative to and beat the Brexit Party, but that was not Labour's preferred option. A draft of a Labour leaflet that made no reference to a second referendum provoked a public row, including more than 90 Labour MPs and MEPs writing to the party's National Executive Committee (NEC) in protest. On 27 April, Labour announced that the original leaflet draft was to be redrafted to include details of the party's preparations for a general election, with a referendum if necessary to avoid what it called a "bad Tory deal".


text: Labour's manifesto for the elections was agreed at an NEC meeting on 30 April, re-affirming its 2018 policy that it will first seek a Brexit deal on its terms (including a Customs Union), but if that is not possible, it will seek a general election, and, if that is not possible, a second referendum. Only one vote was held at the meeting, on an amendment from the TSSA union that sought to commit Labour to a referendum on any Brexit deal, but this was rejected by a what NEC sources called a "clear" margin. Retiring Labour MEP Mary Honeyball criticised this as "Not good enough" and some Labour Party members destroyed their membership cards in protest. However, some Remain-supporting Labour MPs, and Labour MPs sceptical of a second referendum, welcomed the decision. Watson had walked out of the Shadow Cabinet meeting earlier on 30 April in protest at Shadow Cabinet members not being shown the draft manifesto.


text: Labour's 9 May campaign launch stressed bringing the country together. Jeremy Corbyn talked of a "healing process" between those who supported Leave and Remain. By mid-May, Watson and Labour's Shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer were arguing for a second referendum, yet their shadow international trade secretary Barry Gardiner stated "Labour is not a Remain party now". In most voting areas, "e.g." Scotland and South West England, all Labour candidates stated their support for a second referendum, with the UK's longest-serving MEP, David Martin (Labour) and the Labour Leader in the European Parliament Richard Corbett MEP among those calling for the country to stay in the EU. Polling in mid-May suggested both Labour supporters and the electorate in general were split as to whether Labour supported remaining or leaving the EU.


text: The Conservative government was hopeful of agreeing a withdrawal deal with the EU soon enough that UK MEPs would not take up their seats. The party did not spend any central money on candidate campaigning, did not publish a manifesto and did not hold a campaign launch. One Conservative MEP said that the deficit of campaigning would be used as an excuse if the party does poorly in the elections. Many party activists were demotivated given the failure of the government to deliver Brexit. Conservative councillors in Derbyshire boycotted the European elections and refused to campaign in protest. A survey of 781 Conservative councillors found that 40% plan to vote for the Brexit Party. Conservative MPs, including Lucy Allan, tweeted positive comments about the Brexit Party. In response, the Conservative Party issued a warning that individuals campaigning for or endorsing other parties will be expelled from the party.


text: The Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party, Theresa May, had announced her intention to resign before the next general election, but further pressure mounted on her to be clear about her timetable for departure, with May meeting the party's 1922 Committee on the matter on 16 May 2019. This resulted in May agreeing to stand down by 30 June 2019. Campaigning by possible successors accelerated after the local elections.


text: UKIP argued it was "the authentic party of Brexit, the true party of Leave", to quote party leader Gerard Batten. Alongside the Conservatives, UKIP was one of two Brexit-supporting parties fielding a candidate in every region of the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland. Batten criticised the rival Brexit Party as having no policies. UKIP launched its campaign on 18 April. There was renewed criticism surrounding its candidate Carl Benjamin for telling Labour MP Jess Phillips "I wouldn't even rape you" on Twitter in 2016, and producing a satirical video. Further controversy came as one of UKIP's sitting MEPs Stuart Agnew addressed a pro-apartheid club of expat South Africans in London that reportedly had links to the far-right.


text: Nigel Farage, the Brexit Party and former UKIP leader, said that there was "no difference between the Brexit party and UKIP in terms of policy, [but] in terms of personnel, there's a vast difference", criticising UKIP's connections to the far right. On 15 April 2019, three more sitting female UKIP MEPs defected to the Brexit Party, criticising UKIP's nomination of Benjamin as a candidate. In particular, Collins noted UKIP leader Gerard Batten's defence of Benjamin's "use of a non-rape threat as 'satire'" to be an especially compelling factor. Two further UKIP MEPs moved to the Brexit Party on 17 April. On 23 April, Farage said that the Brexit Party was not "here just to get a process vote on 23 May – far from it, 23 May for us is just the beginning". He also argued that the better the performance of the Brexit Party, the lower the chance of a second referendum on Brexit. Farage argued that should the Brexit Party get most votes in the elections, his party should get a seat at the UK/EU negotiations.


text: The three main nationwide pro-European Union parties standing in the election, Liberal Democrats, Greens and Change UK, wished to treat the election as a "soft referendum" on Europe. Commentators such as Marina Hyde raised the concern of a split vote among pro-Remain parties reducing the number of pro-Remain MEPs being elected. Vince Cable, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, proposed standing joint candidates with the Greens and Change UK on a common policy of seeking a second referendum on Brexit, but the other parties rejected the idea. Change UK's co-founder Chuka Umunna confirmed the Lib Dem approach, but he and Change UK interim leader Heidi Allen dismissed concerns of a split Remain vote. Independent MEP Julie Girling, then supporting Change UK, said she had decided not to stand for re-election as a Change UK candidate because of the concern about maximising the Remain vote. On 10 May, she endorsed the Liberal Democrats. Change UK and Girling clarified that she had not been and was not a Change UK MEP, with Girling saying she sat as an independent MEP. On 15 May, David Macdonald, the lead candidate for Change UK in Scotland, switched to endorsing the Liberal Democrats in order not to split the pro-Remain vote. On 22 May, Allen said that she and another Change UK MP, Sarah Wollaston, wanted to advise Remain supporters to vote Liberal Democrat outside of London and South East England, but they were overruled by other party members.


text: The Greens said that joint lists were not "desirable" and that there were "fundamental ideological differences" on other issues between the parties that wanted a second referendum. The Green Party campaigned on a platform calling for action on climate change as well as an anti-Brexit platform.


text: The Liberal Democrats ran on a "stop Brexit" message, seeking the support of those who wanted the UK to remain in the EU. At his party's campaign launch on 26 April, Cable lamented that it was not standing on a common platform with other parties opposed to Brexit. It launched its manifesto on 9 May, unveiling its campaign slogan "Bollocks to Brexit," which attracted considerable media debate. Polling in the final fortnight put the Liberal Democrats ahead of the other pro-Remain parties and overtaking Labour in some polls.


text: Change UK (which in early April was still known as the Independent Group) saw the election as an important launchpad for its new party, seeking to turn the ballot into a "proxy referendum" on Brexit. On 16 April 2019, two former Conservative MEPs, who had left the party to sit as independents within the European People's Party grouping, announced their support for Change UK. The Renew Party agreed to support Change UK at the elections, and the latter included candidates from Renew's approved list. Molly Scott Cato, a sitting MEP for the Green Party of England and Wales, criticised Change UK as "a single-issue party with no coherent policy platform beyond opposing Brexit".


text: The SNP campaign launch was marred by tens of thousands of personalised letters being sent to the wrong people. The mistake was reported to be in the data supplied by SNP HQ, run by Peter Murrell, husband of SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon. The party apologised for the error: the party referred itself to the Information Commissioner's Office and may be fined.


text: Local elections were held in most of England and all of Northern Ireland on 2 May. The results saw both Conservatives and Labour losing seats in what "The Guardian" called a "Brexit backlash" while the Liberal Democrats, Greens and independents made gains. The Liberal Democrats made the biggest gains which the Lib Dem leader Vince Cable put down to a rejection of the Conservatives and Labour over their Brexit approaches. Stephen Bush, writing in the "New Statesman", argued that the Lib Dem success in the local elections make it the most likely party for Remain voters to rally around at the European elections while James Moore in "The Independent" described them as having the "momentum" leading into the European elections. Alliance (the Lib Dems' sister party in Northern Ireland), other smaller parties and independents also made significant gains in the local elections in Northern Ireland.


text: On 18 May, former Conservative Deputy Prime Minister and sitting Conservative peer Michael Heseltine said he would vote for the Liberal Democrats instead of the Conservatives because of his own party's support for Brexit. Heseltine subsequently had the Conservative whip suspended, owing to his comments.


text: Polling after the local elections saw the Brexit Party in front, followed by Labour, with the Liberal Democrats taking third from the Conservatives. Conservative sources predicted the party could come even lower than fourth. By the weekend before the vote, the Labour Party was concerned at the increased polling for the Liberal Democrats, which came above Labour in London and in some national polls.


text: On 17 May, Labour left talks that had been held to find a Brexit deal with the Conservative government. May then proposed to bring a new deal to the House of Commons for a vote in early June, which she described as an "improved package of measures", after which she was expected to step down as Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party.


text: The campaign saw multiple cases of milkshakes being thrown at controversial MEP candidates on the right. The protests began against Carl Benjamin, the anti-feminist social media activist who had attracted controversy for jokes about rape, and activist Tommy Robinson. They later extended to Nigel Farage, leader of the Brexit Party. Police asked a Scottish fast food outlet near where a Farage rally was taking place not to sell milkshakes on the night of the event.


text: On 21 May, the Prime Minister and Leader of the Conservative Party, Theresa May made a speech outlining her plan to introduce an EU withdrawal agreement bill in June that would allow the Commons to make amendments, "e.g." in favour of a Customs Union or a second referendum, but this was received badly by much of her own party as well as by other parties. There were growing calls for her to resign on 22 May, the day before the election. Andrea Leadsom, the Leader of the House of Commons, resigned on the evening of 22 May. May had planned to publish the bill on Friday 24 May, but on polling day, she abandoned that plan, with publication delayed until early June. On the day after the vote, May announced that she would resign as party leader on 7 June.


text: There were several reports on the day of problems encountered by non-UK UK-resident EU citizens not being able to vote because their paperwork had not been processed in time, with opposition politicians raising concerns as to whether there had been systemic failures. At least three councils admitted that the compressed timescale of the election meant that they had not been able to send postal ballots out in time for some voters overseas. A report by "The Guardian" after the election found that there were low levels of completion of UC1 forms, required by UK-resident EU citizens in order for them to vote in the UK, in many parts of the country. After the election, the European Commission complained to the UK government about the "obstacles" faced by EU citizens in voting. A month later, the Dutch Interior Ministry stated that almost half the local UK registration officials had failed to send the UC1 data to the Dutch authorities, and that a portion of the data sent was unusable, despite complaints by the Dutch government about similar issues in 2014.


text: Because results could not be announced until the last European Union member country's polls had closed, and most countries in the EU voted on Sunday, the counting of UK ballots started on Sunday 26 May 2019.


text: Within a day of the polls closing, two party leaders and one deputy party leader announced their plans to resign. On 24 May, Theresa May announced her plan to resign as leader of the Conservative Party on 7 June, which would trigger a leadership contest. On the same day, Mike Hookem resigned as deputy leader of UKIP in order to challenge for the leadership. Vince Cable, leader of the Liberal Democrats, had previously stated his intention to stand down after the local elections and European Parliament elections. The party's leadership contest officially started on 24 May.


text: Two Labour politicians announced their departures from the party after the vote: departing MEP Mary Honeyball and former Welsh AM Leighton Andrews; Andrews said he had voted Green. Both criticised Labour over alleged antisemitism and their failure to oppose Brexit. Alastair Campbell, formerly Director of Communications for the Labour Party, said he had voted for a pro-Remain party, the first time in his life he had not voted Labour. He later revealed that he voted for the Liberal Democrats and was expelled from the Labour Party.


text: Among other parties, the SDLP opposed Brexit and supported a second referendum, but it supported the withdrawal agreement if Brexit is to take place. The Alliance Party opposed Brexit, while TUV supported it.


text: A livestreamed debate was held by "The Daily Telegraph" between Nigel Farage, leader of the Brexit Party, and Vince Cable, leader of the Liberal Democrats.


text: A debate was held by the BBC in Northern Ireland, with candidates of the main regional parties represented. The BBC also held a debate between the lead candidates of all parties standing in Wales.


text: The chart below depicts opinion polls conducted in Great Britain for the 2019 European Parliament elections in the UK; trendlines are local regressions (LOESS). There was regular polling from mid-March. The share for the Brexit Party rose rapidly, and it led the polls from late April. The share for the Labour Party declined over the period, but they came second in most polls. Polling for the Liberal Democrats started rising towards the end of April, with most polls predicting they would come third. Polling for the Conservative Party fell over the period, with most polls predicting it would come fourth.


text: Results were declared for Wales and most of England on Sunday evening, with results for the rest of England and for Scotland coming on Monday. Results for Northern Ireland were clear by the end of Monday.


text: The Brexit Party was the largest party, gaining five more seats than UKIP achieved in 2014. Nigel Farage, as leader of UKIP in 2014 and the Brexit Party in 2019, became the first person to lead two different parties that topped a national election. The Brexit party came first in Wales and in eight of the nine English constituencies. It finished third in London. The Brexit Party polled highest in regions that voted Leave in the Brexit referendum.


text: The Liberal Democrats came second. This was its best performance in a national election since the 2010 general election and its best ever in a European Parliament election. This was the first time it or its predecessor parties had come second in a national election since before the Second World War. It was the largest party in the London constituency, the largest party in the second-highest number of English reporting areas, and the only party other than the SNP to top any Scottish reporting area.


text: The Labour Party was third overall. It did not come first in any constituency. This was its worst result in Wales for nearly a century; it did not come first in any reporting area in Wales or Scotland. Labour's vote fell in both Remain and Leave areas.


text: The Greens came fourth, with their best performance since the 1989 European elections. The Green Party of England and Wales was the largest party in three reporting areas.


text: The Conservative Party came fifth, and was not the largest party in any reporting area, polling below 10% for the first time in the party's history. It lost votes across the country, but did worst in Remain areas. The combined share for Labour and the Conservatives was 23%, well below their previous (post-Second World War) low of 43.5% in 2009.


text: The SNP came sixth overall but first in the single Scottish constituency, the only one in which it stood candidates. It was the largest party in 30 of the 32 Scottish council areas.


text: Plaid Cymru came second in Wales behind the Brexit Party, marking the first time it had beaten Labour in any Wales-wide election. The closest result across the UK was in Wales, where the Liberal Democrats were 13,948 votes (1.7%) behind Labour for the last MEP.


text: In Northern Ireland, the three MEPs elected were from the Democratic Unionist Party, which advocates the continuation of the union with Great Britain, Sinn Féin, which campaigns for a united Ireland, and the cross-community Alliance Party. The latter two were opposed to Brexit. It was the first time that unionists had won fewer than two of the three seats, and the first time that all three MEPs were women. The Alliance success was noted as an indicator for the rise of the "Others", who identify neither as Unionist nor Nationalist.