IN: Gabriel Omar Batistuta (Spanish pronunciation: [ga'brjel o'mar batis'tuta]; born 1 February 1969), nicknamed Batigol [bati'gol] as well as El Angel Gabriel [el ,aNGxel ga'brjel] (Spanish for Angel Gabriel), is a retired Argentine professional footballer. After beginning his career in Argentina in 1988, where he won titles playing for Newell's Old Boys, River Plate, and subsequently Boca Juniors, the prolific striker played most of his club football with Fiorentina in Italy; he is the twelfth-highest scorer of all-time in the Italian Serie A, with 184 goals in 318 matches. When his club Fiorentina was relegated to Serie B in 1993, Batistuta stayed with the club and helped it return to the top-flight league a year later.

In 1991, Batistuta was selected to play for Argentina in the Copa America held in Chile, where he finished the tournament as top scorer with six goals as Argentina romped to victory. The following year, he won the FIFA Confederations Cup with Argentina, finishing as the tournament's top-scorer. In 1993, Batistuta played in his second Copa America, this time held in Ecuador, which Argentina won with Batistuta scoring both goals in a 2-1 win over Mexico in the final. The 1994 World Cup, held in the United States, was a disappointment. After a promising start Argentina were beaten by Romania in the last 16. The morale of the team was seriously affected by Diego Maradona's doping suspension. Despite the disappointing Argentine exit, Batistuta scored four goals in as many games, including a hat-trick in their opening game against Greece. During the qualification matches for the 1998 World Cup (with former River Plate manager Daniel Passarella) Batistuta was left out of the majority of the games after falling out with the coach over team rules. The two eventually put the dispute aside and Batistuta was recalled for the tournament. In the game against Jamaica, he recorded the second hat-trick of his World Cup career, becoming the fourth player to achieve this (the others were Sandor Kocsis, Just Fontaine, and Gerd Muller) and the first to score a hat-trick in two World Cups. Argentina were knocked out of the World Cup by the Netherlands courtesy of a last minute Dennis Bergkamp winner after the two sides had held out for a 1-1 draw for almost the entire match. After a good series of performances by Argentina in the qualification matches for the 2002 World Cup, hopes were high that the South Americans - now managed by Marcelo Bielsa - could win the trophy, and Batistuta announced that he planned to quit the national team at the end of the tournament, which Argentina aimed to win. But Argentina's "group of death" saw the team fall at the first hurdle, only managing a victory against Nigeria (Batistuta scored the match's only goal). They later fell to England 1-0 and managed a mere 1-1 tie against Sweden. This meant that the team was knocked out in the opening round for the first time since 1962.

How did Batistuta play for Argentina? Was he good?

OUT: Batistuta played in his second Copa America, this time held in Ecuador, which Argentina won with Batistuta scoring both goals in a 2-1 win over Mexico in the final.

IN: Townsend was born in Leicester, the oldest of five sisters. Her father had worked at a factory making jet engines before becoming a postman, while her mother worked in a factory canteen. She attended Glen Hills Primary School, where the school secretary was Mrs Claricotes, a name she used for the school secretary in the Adrian Mole books. At the age of eight, Townsend contracted mumps, and was obliged to stay at home.

Townsend left school at the age of 14 and worked in a variety of jobs including packer for Birds Eye, a petrol station attendant and a receptionist. Working at a petrol station allowed her the chance to read between serving customers. She married Keith Townsend, a sheet metal worker at 18; the couple had three children under five by the time Townsend was 23 (Sean, Daniel and Victoria), at which point the marriage ended and she became a single parent. In this position, Townsend and her children endured considerable hardship. In Mr Bevan's Dream: Why Britain Needs Its Welfare State (1989), a short book in the Counterblasts series, she recounts an experience from when her eldest child was five. Because the Department of Social Security was unable to give her even 50p to tide them over, she was obliged to feed herself and her children on a tin of peas and an Oxo cube as an evening meal. Townsend would collect used Corona bottles, to redeem the 4p return fee by which to feed her children. Aged 13, her son questioned one Sunday why they didn't go to animal parks on weekends like other families. She later recounted that it was the start of her writing which became the Adrian Mole books, looking at life through the clinical eyes of a teenager but in a comedic manner. Townsend then chose to research the world of teenagers, and started attending youth clubs as a volunteer organiser. This led to her training as a youth worker. While employed as a supervisor at an adventure playground, she observed a man making canoes nearby and, because he was married, put off talking to him; it was a year before he asked her for a date. It was at a canoeing course she met her future second husband, Colin Broadway, who was the father of her fourth child, Elizabeth. Subsequently, she became pregnant twice more, but underwent abortions. Ultimately, Townsend came to believe that termination is wrong. Ghost Children (1997) is a novel which draws on these experiences.

How did this man making canoes influence her?

OUT:
because he was married, put off talking to him; it was a year before he asked her for a date.