- Now officially owned and run by online community

Today, Ebbsfleet is yet again a hot topic, as ownership of Ebbsfleet United is officially handed over to the 28,000 members of myfootballclub.co.uk - the first online community to fully run a professional sports club.

The official handover comes at the end of an eventful few months for My Football Club and Ebbsfleet United.

My Football Club was set up to recruit football enthusiasts as paid members, so that cumulatively they could purchase and run collectively an English Football Association club – they succeeded! And as of today, My Football Club owns a 75% share of Ebbsfleet United.

Gravesend & Northfleet was re-named Ebbsfleet United on the 1st May 2007 and currently play at Stonebridge Road, although plans are underway for a new ground to be developed in the Ebbsfleet valley.

As official sponsors of The Fleet, Eurostar are supporting My Football Club’s campaign to reach 100,000 members by the end of 2008 with ads congratulating all the new owners and encouraging others to sign up.

This afternoon, Eurostar will be hosting a champagne toast at the Eurostar shop in Bluewater shopping centre. Attending will be staff and players of the club, plus dozens of members of the My Football Club community. As further incentive for new members to join My Football Club, Eurostar are offering those that sign up at the store before the 25th February a chance of winning 1 of 5 pairs of Eurostar tickets.

The players and manager have so far spoken very positively of the new owners, as the rise in interest has allowed the club to benefit from an increase in attendance at Stonebridge Road and an even noisier away following!

Recent decisions made by the site community have included making Nike their kit supplier and which press advertisement Eurostar should run to celebrate the momentous announcement. Going forward, My Football Club members will be able to vote on the starting line-up of the team.

For more information and to sign up to My Football Club, visit www.myfootballclub.co.uk or to simply catch up on the latest from the Fleet you can go to www.ebbsfleetunited.co.uk

Come on The Fleet!

Dame Kelly Holmes opening Ebbsfleet International.

Yesterday, Ebbsfleet International had the limelight shining on it. Ebbsfleet has been the gateway to Europe for north Kent since it first opened last November. As well as that, it even took part in Children In Need last year! Yesterday was Ebbsfleet’s turn to have its official opening ceremony, with Dame Kelly Holmes, Olympic double gold medallist, doing the honours. Dame Kelly is from Kent herself, and just like Eurostar she’s shown herself to be pretty speedy when it’s mattered.
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Following up from last week’s skiing-related post, we thought we’d devote some further coverage to Treading Lightly while you ski or snowboard. After all, we don’t want the snow capping the peaks of the Alps to disappear within the next few years, so it makes sense to keep the environment in mind on your trip.
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While December and Christmas was all about staying in and indulging in sedate pleasures, the New Year brings with it the ski season and the chance to get the skis and snowboard out and get about in the fresh air. Eurostar’s ski train is now a staple of thousands of travellers’ snow holidays, running three trains a night (two overnight on Friday and Saturday, and one during the day on Saturday) from London and Ashford International, winding its way down through western France to the Alps, making three stops by some of the best resorts in France.
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Hello everyone – Happy New Year to you all, and I hope your 2008 proves to be a great year. After taking a break for Christmas and New Year, Eurostar - For Tomorrow is back and I’ll be continuing to keep you posted about what we’re doing, about high-speed Europe and how to tread lightly on your journeys.

In the meantime, we’d like to remind you that our ski train service is now running twice a week from now until April 13, 2008 for the ski season. Or if warmer weather is more your thing, then we have also opened booking on our direct summer service to Avignon in the South of France, which will run once a week between July 12 and September 3. Not only are both destinations now faster to get to from the UK, but for the first time your journey will be carbon neutral too.

Well, Christmas is nearly upon us, and this is my last post before I take a short break for the festive season. It’s been great fun writing about Eurostar and the new High Speed 1 link these past few months, and I hope you’ll continue reading about it when I return in the first week of January and resume contributing to the site. In the meantime, any thoughts you submit over the holiday period will wait in moderation until I get back.

Remember that although I’ll be away, Eurostar trains are running from London and Kent to Lille, Paris and Brussels every day over the Christmas break, with the exception of Christmas Day itself - more details of our holiday timetable can be found here.

On behalf of everyone at Eurostar, I’d like to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. See you soon!

There may be less than a week to go till Christmas, but that shouldn’t stop you from considering a quick trip abroad to find extra inspiration for your Christmas shopping, and in the final part of our series we take a look at Paris. Out on the web are some great sites and blogs which offer an insight in where to go and what delights there are be had.
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With the opening of St Pancras and Ebbsfleet International, much has been made of Eurostar’s capabilities for holidaymakers and leisurely trips abroad. Yet it’s also helped a less-heralded but equally interesting revolution - the rise of the international commuter. As Europe becomes more unified, both by its politics and its railways, the international commuter is now a regular fixture in life, something which has attracted attention as far away as Australia, as The Age reports:

Spending the week working in Britain before whizzing home to France at weekends, Yves Pinsard is a Eurostar “commuter,” whose numbers are expected to balloon as London-Paris travel times fall. “It’s been a little more than a year since I started doing this … I go back almost every weekend, except when my wife comes here,” said Pinsard, general manager of the London branch of Banque Transatlantique.

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With High Speed 1 making London a fully-integrated part of Europe’s high-speed rail network, suddenly a host of new destinations become available. One such destination, and the second in our series of Christmas destinations, is Cologne in Germany - with a journey time of around 5½ hours, it’s perfect for a weekend trip, for both shopping and a bit of culture on top. As the Telegraph puts it:

Nobody does a log-crackling, Glühwein-swigging Christmas like the Germans. And with more festive night markets than any other German city, it’s cosy, cheap and picture-perfect. Expect crafts, music, suckling pigs on spits, cinnamon cakes, goose baguettes and carols sung in the city’s impressive collection of Romanesque churches.

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If you fancy doing something a little different this weekend, then why not check out this weekend’s events at St Pancras International? Overlooked by the world’s largest advent calendar, the station is playing host to a series of holiday-related events.

For Saturday 7th, the focus is very much family-focused. There’s a Victorian theme throughout the day - with a workshop telling the story of Victorian Foundlings, and giving children the chance to make their own game of Victorian Jacks. There will also be showings of classic Victorian puppet shows, from the talented team at Pollock’s Toy Museum. And of course, Father Christmas will be there for breakfast, and throughout the day with his grotto. The day finishes with a screening of the classic, The Muppet Christmas Carol, starring Michael Caine and Kermit the Frog.
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