21/04/2017 Midlands Today

The football world has been paying tribute to the former Aston Villa

and England defender Ugo Ehiogu, who has died of a cardiac

Described as a "gentle giant", he started out as a trainee

He then went on to play more than 200 games for Villa,

helping them win the League Cup in 1996.

Reflecting the sentiments of so many.

The single bunch of flowers that said thanks for nine years

Ugo Ehiogu's career began as a talented teenager

And that is where he caught the eye of the Villa boss, Ron Atkinson.

It proved to be one of the most astute signings of his career.

The first game he ever played for the Villa

was a friendly with Witney Town, a pre-season friendly.

who had seen a few good centre halves, by the way,

and the first challenge he made, Cowans almost went white.

He looked at me and went, "Oh, he is awesome!"

Ugo soon became a favourite with Aston Villa fans.

In 1991, he joined the club from West Bromwich ?40,000.

Nine years later, he was sold to Middlesbrough

During his time at Villa Park, Ehiogu scored a dozen goals,

but his real forte was preventing them.

In 1996, he helped Villa win the League Cup at Wembley.

So did team-mates like Ian Taylor, Lee Hendrie and the England manager,

He had a passion for the club that you don't see these days any more.

The picture on there, you know, in '96, when we won the League Cup.

Today's media conference at the Villa training ground

Suddenly, the Second City derby on Sunday did not seem quite

It's a tragedy. It puts football into perspective.

Someone has lost their life, which is just terrible news.

Only six months ago, Ugo Ehiogu travelled to Telford

for the funeral of his former Villa team-mate, Dalian Atkinson.

Now, family and fans across the country will mourn

his own premature death at the age of 44.

A man who loved football, loved music and loved life.

A Coventry firm which supplies car parts for Jaguar Landrover,

The 350 people who work at Cov Press Assembly,

have been told it is not profitable enough,

even though the company has a ?40 million a year turnover.

No redundancies have yet been announced.

Nine hospitals in our region are to benefit from just

over ?5 million of extra government money.

It is designed to help struggling A departments.

NHS Trusts in Worcestershire, Dudley and Warwickshire will be

the biggest beneficiaries, with each of them getting ?1 million.

The cash is to help them meet the target for seeing

A West Midlands trade unionist has failed in his challenge to take over

Gerard Coyne lost out by just over 5,500 votes, to Len McCluskey.

It emerged yesterday that Mr Coyne has been suspended from his role

Following today's result, he said it was not a fair fight.

During this campaign, I felt that the weight of

the union machine has definitely been behind the incumbent.

Even up until the last minute, in terms of recent events,

that has been a pressure on me during that campaign.

Birmingham City Council has confirmed it is a step closer

to bidding to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

The government said today it is ready to work with cities

The South African city of Durban is no longer in the running,

after failing to meet conditions set out by the ruling body.

A study has shown a successful bid would greatly benefit Birmingham.

We have 95% of the facilities already in place,

so we wouldn't have to spend huge sums of money

on new facilities, so we can keep our costs down

and, of course, avoid building new facilities

that might become white elephants in the future.

Just before we get the forecast, the story of the vicar

When windows of All Saints Community Hall in Stoke on Trent were broken,

it was an act of senseless vandalism.

Fortunately, the vicar was there to clear up the damage,

with a little help from Freddie Mercury.

Our Staffordshire reporter Liz Copper explains.

A boarded-up window at All Saints Community Hall in Hanley,

the result of vandalism over the Easter weekend.

The culprits might have broken the glass,

but they could not break the spirit of the vicar.

This was the Reverend Geoffrey's response.

He posted this video on social media of him cleaning up.

I think, in a way, to be quite frank, it was just fun.

It was wonderful, authentic, real, bonafide Stokey fun.

And this was the inspiration for that fun,

Freddie Mercury's performance in one of Queen's most famous videos.

All Saints' Hall is used by lots of community groups

and it was parishioners who helped to make the vicar's video.

Geoff is always up for a laugh, so that was it.

My headband came off, went around his head

and the music was played, and Geoff did his moves.

He just danced and we were actually laughing so much that the camera

was shaking and we had to stop, because we were laughing.

Then, we just posted it onto social media

and everybody was talking about it.

Already, the Reverend Geoffrey's antics have helped to raise funds

to repair the damage to this listed building.

It's a place which has joined people together.

It's been here for just over 100 years and we want to make sure,

for the new and next-generation, that it is here for

The video has been watched more than 20,000 times.

This has become an uplifting tale of a vicar who took on the vandals

I will leave you with the forecast from Rebecca.

It has certainly been a cloudy day today.

Our WeatherWatchers pictures clearly show that cloud.

That theme is going to continue, but we should see a little bit more

in the way of brightness as we head through this weekend.

Tonight, we have a cold front which is working its way southwards.

It is thickening up the cloud all the time

and that cloud could bring us a few spots of drizzle.

Once that clears, things are going to turn a touch cooler.

We could see temperatures dipping down to around 7 Celsius across

Further south, it will hold up a little better.

We will see high pressure still in charge

A bit more in the way of brightness, particularly in western parts.

West is definitely best this weekend.

Where we get that sunshine, we will still have a breeze,

but temperatures should still do a little better.

In fact, we could see them pushing up to around 15 Celsius.

More sunshine to come as we head through into Sunday, as well.

More information on all that in the national forecast next.

I will leave you with the outlook over the next few days.

marathon. Here is the outlook for the weather for the next few days

and Helen Willetts has the National forecast.

While unusual to see snow in May, it will be a shock to the system. We've

seen some interesting contrast. 19 degrees cost is in Scotland in the

sunshine today. In the sunshine only 11. The differences we are behind a

cold weather front. Seeing a stepped down in temperatures. The cold air

filtering sound so there will be a widespread ground frost across the

country. The week weather front still with us so we could cheat

patchy mist and fog. The best chance of seeing the meteor shower

overnight will be in those clear skies further north. A better chance

for south overnight. We start Saturday