Bridge McFarland Managing Partner Richard Parnell was called upon to demonstrate his expertise and ambitions in sports law with a presentation to the Hull city centre business community.

Richard, who heads the firm’s employment law department, is passionate about sport and is a trustee and non-executive director of Lincolnshire Sport.

A member of the British Association of Sports Law, Richard is currently working on a dissertation for the University of Leicester about whether performance enhancing drugs should be allowed in sport.

He adopted that theme for “Braking Bad – the Evolution of Doping in Cycling” as he addressed his audience at the BBC Open Centre in Hull in an event sponsored by Bridge McFarland.

Richard’s introduction explained how legal issues can range from gaining recognition for sports bodies and protecting intellectual property to employment matters and the safety of participants at all levels of sport.

But he then focused on the Tour de France and in particular the history of doping in cycling as he highlighted offenders from the earliest days of the competition more than 100 years ago to the headlines surrounding Lance Armstrong.

Richard said: “Cycling is largely clean now, but not completely. Testing procedures are getting better but some riders will always try and push things to the next level.”

Richard’s presentation was followed by a football discussion led by BBC Radio Humberside presenter and Hull City commentator David Burns, who gave guests the opportunity to compare the careers of Ken Wagstaff and Ian Ashbee after hanging up their boots.

Voted Player of the Century by Hull City fans, “Waggy” played for the club between 1964 and 1975, making more than 400 appearances and scoring 197 goals. He later went into business running the Marlborough Club in Hessle.

“Ash” played for Hull City between 2002 and 2011 and has the distinction of captaining one team through all four divisions of the English leagues. He now works for Ian Blowers Jewellers of Savile Street, Hull, selling high-end products to Premier League players and coaches.

He said: “It is tough working in business. You are mollycoddled as a footballer. Everything is done for you and then all of a sudden that just stops and you have to fend for yourself.”

The event was the latest in a series of very successful business networking events to be organised by HullBID.
Kathryn Shillito, HullBID City Centre Manager, said: “With such a packed programme of summer sport it was easy to find a theme for our latest networking event, and another capacity crowd underlined the level of demand.

“We are extremely grateful to Bridge McFarland both for providing such an informative speaker and for sponsoring the event. The firm is an enthusiastic supporter of HullBID’s activities and if the local business community generally.”

Picture details: Kathryn Shillito with (from left) Ken Wagstaff, Richard Parnell, Ian Ashbee and David Burns.