ARUNA DINDANE has impressed me more with what he's done over his career rather that in just the last few weeks he's been training with us.

He's a lot fitter now and ready for the rigours of the Championship compared to where he's been in Qatar for two-and-a-half years.

He's worked very hard from where we've put him and the training we've given him, but he has come in with a smile on his face and he deserves a couple of months.

I hope he can help us in the run-in now.

He was offered to us by Gary Penrice, who has been one of my best mates for years, and he said when Aruna first went to Portsmouth, he said to watch this guy play, and he was absolutely fantastic.

I've heard that if you walked into a bar with him and Didier Drogba (right) in the Ivory Coast, everyone would all flock over him, not Drogba – that's how famous he is.

But this now is his biggest challenge in my opinion and that's what I told him, to get himself fit and go again.

He's still young enough, he's 32, but can he still be that man once he's earned a fortune? He's got to reignite his career and all he's said to me is that he wants to fire us up to the Premier League.

All I can say is how hard he's worked in the last three or four weeks has been a full credit to him, and with what we can achieve right now in the league, I think he's a gamble worth taking.

His pace and his strength are good, and he can finish, he's got wonderful skills.

He can do things that are a little out of the ordinary, a little turn here, a little turn there. And to be honest, if anybody wants to look him up, all you've got to do is Google him and see what he's done in his career.

But, it's about what he can do for us now and how he can help us. I'll admit, he doesn't speak much English, so we'll have to translate his French!

I don't think he'll be starting too many games, including Good Friday against Birmingham, but what I'm trying to say is for the last few games, but you never know.

All I'm looking at is his explosion from the bench and it's something we might need because Kevin Phillips isn't available. And if we're in the play-offs, then Stephen Dobbie may not be available if Brighton get in there.

We've got to be really careful where we are in not running out of people because we don't know what might happen, and to be fair, we've got one bloke who has got 30 goals and the rest of the squad haven't got many, have they?

I don't think any loan business is going to happen because everyone is ringing about and there haven't been any other players with us recently.

A WIDOWER from Sanderstead has been left with crippling debts and a crumbling garden after rogue contractors overcharged him and failed to return to repair damages.

Stanislav Porokhnya, 46, was approached by contractors who knocked door-to-door in the neighbourhood around Ellenbridge Way back in October and agreed to let them revamp his back garden. The contractors quoted the work at £25,000 but offered to do it for £16,000.

Mr Porokhnya, who is raising his 10-year-old daughter Nadia alone after losing his wife Margaret in 2008, said: "Maybe I am soft but I decided to go for it. They did it in a week but I was not happy with the job they had done.

"Then they charged me extra to repair the wall in my back garden and also they persuaded me to let them do my front too.

"In the end, I had to pay them £27,000 in cash. I had to borrow £12,000 from the bank and sell off all my bonds in my savings to pay the rest.

"Then last week, the wall they worked on completely fell down. I called the company's number but it never picked up. Finally, someone spoke to me and they kept saying they would call back.

"They haven't and now I don't know what to do, I have so much debt and it looks a mess. I am going to have to take a mortgage out on the house.

"They looked legitimate and had the right kind of machinery but all the work they did is falling apart.

"I just feel really naïve and stupid now."

Mr Porokhnya's next-door neighbour, Rob Rankin, said: "The whole thing was all wrong. They knocked part of my wall down in the process. They completely ripped him off.

"I think the workers were illegal – they worked non-stop for 12 hour days. It looked like forced labour to me. They were quite forceful, too, you had to be strong to get them off your property."

Mr Porokhnya said the company's boss had pushed him into the house when he had come round demanding to be paid. He said: "I was scared. I had to get the money to get him off my back."

He also said the builders looked like "hardworking slaves" and had said to him they were not allowed to talk to customers.

She was denied experimental drugs because of restrictions preventing under-18s taking trial medication.

Chloë was born at East Surrey Hospital on January 25, 1995, and died at her home in Purley at 8.30am on February 28 this year.

For three of those 18 years, Chloë lived with Ewing's sarcoma, a rare bone cancer that occurs most frequently in tall, slim teenagers.

Her mother, Debbie Binner, and stepfather, Simon, are still reeling from their loss, which they think could have been prevented if the rules on teenagers accessing drug trials were different.

"This is a nightmare world where teenagers have their legs chopped off and are subjected to the most outdated and horrific treatment which has not improved for 25 years," said Chloë's mother of her experience of the teenage cancer ward.

"These are children who are cut off right at their prime and there is very little that can be done for them. However, this does not have to be the case – the medicine for young bone cancer sufferers could improve if only the barriers were pulled down. The drugs are out there, it's just teenagers can't access them.

"How many other families will have to go through this before something is done to change these rules?"

Chloë's case received much support from medical professionals at Royal Marsden Hospital in Sutton who all tried to put her on the PARP Inhibitor Trial Study BMN 673.

Despite all their efforts, Chloë was denied access. Mrs Binner even wrote to BioMarin Pharmaceuticals, the company running the trial, explaining her daughter's condition and begging it to lift the restrictions.

A boy with a worse case of Ewing's sarcoma was given a similar trial because he was over 17. He is still alive.

Debbie and Simon remember Chloë as a larger-than-life girl who refused to live as if she had cancer.

Her strength and determination have inspired them to start a campaign to change the situation faced by teenage cancer sufferers and their families.

"It's an incredibly complicated system with layers and layers of bureaucracy," said Debbie.

"It starts with the pharmaceutical companies and goes right up to the top with national regulations – it all needs to change.

"The death toll was the same with leukaemia and breast cancer originally – it was only when restrictions on drug trials were lifted that the medicine started improving. Survival rates for those cancers are now very high.

"We have to do something. How many other teenagers like Chloë have to die unnecessarily?"

IN HER second column, parenting guru TARA GREEN looks at the importance of giving your children some time to themselves...

MUCH is said in parenting circles about the need to spend quality one-to-one time with our children.

How necessary, desirable or easy this is to achieve depends upon circumstances. But there is an easy way to share out quality time in a family.

Children need some time away from their brothers and sisters. This could be an occasional or a regular need, depending on how well they get on.

It doesn't have to include trips or treats – or even leaving the house. It is easy to organise and implement.

At the end of the working day, adults leave the workplace and their colleagues behind.

Imagine if that was not the case; imagine if we were expected to share our free time, our rest and relaxation time, with people we don't always enjoy spending time with.

The family home is a place where siblings have to spend a lot of time together.

They are different ages, have different interests and may or may not have compatible personalities.

As parents, we hope that once they are grown, our children will have a good relationship, and offer love, friendship and support to each other. Expecting or forcing them together will not necessarily lead to this.

Our sibling relationships are the first in which we learn conflict resolution skills, sharing and self control. Children do want to throttle each other some days! On bad days you can feel like a referee.

There are other days when they get along in fairytale style-happiness. Siblings do need to learn to be together but also benefit from time apart.

The children sometimes need time away from their brothers and sisters.

"But I have four children," I hear you cry. It is still possible. Only one child gets time to themselves at a time.

For example, ask your children to play in the living room while one of them has some time reading, drawing or just chilling out to music in the bedroom.

Help one child with their homework while the others watch a video. One child could have a bubble bath while the others use the rest of the house as normal but leave that child in peace.

"But I have a baby and a toddler," I hear you cry. Toddler groups give your older child time to play, free from the constraints of having to be quiet or good because the baby is tired/ asleep/ feeding/ teething etc.

Use naptimes. You may be really lucky and have a baby and a toddler who sleep at the same time, but probably not. So let your older child help you prepare dinner, read a book or play with a toy that can't be out when the baby is around.

Last week my oldest daughter was ill and spent the day at home. As the end of the school day neared, she was looking out of the window and constantly checking the clock.

I asked if she was missing her sister to which the answer was a vehement "no." A few moments later she sheepishly said, "Actually I am."

She had enjoyed a quiet day at home with me and had benefited from it, but after this break was keen to have her playmate back. A little absence had made her heart grow fonder.

POLICE are appealing for witnesses following an alleged brawl at East Croydon Station on Monday evening.

Three men were arrested on suspicion of being drunk and disorderly as a result of the incident, which took place on platforms three and four at around 7.30pm.

Two of the men, aged 38 and 17, were also arrested for obstructing and assaulting a police officer during the incident. The 17-year-old is due to return on police bail on April 17; the 38-year-old man will return on April 23.

A 31-year-old man was given a fixed penalty notice for being drunk and disorderly and has since been released.

A British Transport Police spokesman said: "Inquiries are ongoing to establish the full circumstances and, at this stage, we are appealing for anyone who was on the train or at the station and witnessed this incident, to come forward."

Anyone with information can contact British Transport Police on 0800 40 50 40 quoting 368 of 1/04/13 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

A SHOPKEEPER robbed at gunpoint in London Road refused to report the crime to police - because she lacks faith in their ability to get tough on gangs.

In the week senior officers hailed an operation that jailed ten drug dealers, the female shopkeeper was ambushed in the street, but refused to report what had happened.

The woman was walking to her car after closing time on Friday evening when she was pounced upon by a group of armed men, who tried to grab her bag.

During a desperate attempt to fight off her attackers, she was struck with one of the weapons and is thought to have suffered a broken arm.

The shopkeeper, who managed to hold on to her bag, informed London Road Business Association, but refuses to report the incident to the police.

Association chairman Ganapathy Kasinathan said: "I told her she needs to tell the police, but she won't because she has no confidence that action will be taken and is worried something will happen to her.

"She is not alone. Many shopkeepers question why they should report crimes, when they are targeted if they do.

"These people commit crimes like this because there's no comeback.

"They aren't scared of the police so they do what they like. People with this attitude need to be cleared out."

Mr Kasinathan cited the incident when asked whether West Croydon had improved since police arrested ten drug dealers supplying substances such as crack cocaine and heroin.

When the final member of the gang - who lived in Broad Green and Thornton Heath - was jailed last Friday, Detective Superintendent Simon Messinger said the operation sent a message that police are serious about tackling gang crime.

But he has admitted to the Advertiser that "certain members of the community in the West Croydon and London Road area are sometimes reluctant to report crime to police".

Det Supt Messinger added: "We have, for some time, been working with local partners and the local communities in that area to improve communications and trust with them and we want anyone who has been a victim of crime to be confident enough to report it to police."

Police have previously acknowledged that crime in London Road is under-reported, particularly among Asian communities.

In an analysis of gangs published last July, police identified the Jaffna Boys, an adult Tamil gang in Broad Green involved in violence, robbery, weapons and extortion, as a serious problem.

"The Jaffna Boys act within their own community and that community is reluctant to speak about them, leading to a dearth of criminal and community intelligence and the under-reporting of crime allegations," the report adds.

Broad Green councillor Mike Selva said: "I understand why this shopkeeper is concerned. There is a general feeling among people, not only the Asian community, that there is no point in reporting crimes.

"But it's very important they do. Unless it's recorded how can anyone, be that the police, the local authority or Government, understand the full extent of the problem?"

Chandra Babu, vice-chairman of the Asian Resource Centre, is also a member of the Independent Advisory Group, which meets police to discuss community issues.

He said: "A significant amount of people in London Road don't have confidence in the police.

"Things have improved slightly over the last five years, but it's often a case of one step forward and two steps back."

There has been a sharp rise in robberies in Broad Green, where the number of offences per 1,000 of the population increased by 20.4 per cent in a year; from 16.5 in 2011 to 19.8 in 2012.

THE mother of a young woman who died after taking Ecstasy while on holiday in Ibiza has warned others about the dangers of the drug.

Debbie Nieman made the comments days after an inquest heard how her 19-year-old daughter died while on holiday on the Spanish island in July 2011.

The mother echoed reports heard in the inquest that Jodie Nieman, of Waterbourne Way in Kenley, was not into drugs, telling the Advertiser: "All I can say is to warn people if their kids are going out there, it is so very easy to get something passed on to you like that and you just do not know what is in them.

"It is very sad because children want to go there for the music and the clubs but you have just got to be so careful – drink out of a bottle, not a glass, never leave your drink down, do not take anything from anybody."

She added that she had been offered drugs such as Ecstasy and cannabis several times when visiting the island to retrace Jodie's last steps, adding "You have to be so careful because it is offered to you so blatantly."

Croydon Coroners' Court heard last Thursday how Jodie, a talented nail technician, had collapsed and died after taking the drug in Space nightclub on the third night of her girls' holiday. Friends with her said they did not know she had taken the drug until she told them, but said they were regularly offered drugs during that and the previous night.

Demi Hastain said: "We were offered drugs on several occasions either by foreigners or English people and always by men. I just ignored them."

They said Jodie became overheated and started hallucinating before being helped into the club's medical room, where her condition deteriorated.

An ambulance was called at around 4.30am, but Jodie died before reaching hospital.

Friend Jessica Phelps said Jodie had not eaten much that day, adding: "She was not in any sense a druggie. I would describe her as a happy and generally responsible friend."

Spanish authorities told the inquest through written evidence that "several" others at Space nighctlub that night had been taken to hospital due to drug intoxication.

Jodie, who worked at Nails To Be Seen in Limpsfield. was the only one who died.

The court heard that cause of death was acute pulmonary edema caused by MDMA intoxication.

Croydon Coroner Dr Roy Palmer returned a verdict of non-dependent drug abuse.

Ms Nieman added the family was disappointed with the ruling, which they did not feel reflected Jodie.

She said: "I think it portrays Jodie in a way that she really was not.

"She was just a really lovely girl and so beautiful and she had so much to live for.

"She was so loved by everyone – it was just unbelievable.

"I would never let one of my kids go there again."

IT took a great strike on Easter Monday from the edge of the box that got Blackpool all three points, when really the pitch didn't help.

It wasn't conducive for football, but what can you say, that's just the way it's going for us at the moment.

We need to show character, but I felt our overall performance we did show that and we did still believe in ourselves.

We didn't panic and we kept going but a great strike has done it for them.

The pitch was the same for both teams and it would have affected the way Blackpool play because they have wonderful players like us.

It was tough to get hold of the ball and take two or three chances to do that.

We tried to move the ball around and we needed something out of the ordinary.

We're not the only team having a stutter and not winning games we want to win – we have six games left and we've got to get as many points as we can.

We didn't make the most of our advantage but we didn't create that much either.

I wanted us to be solid instead of going gung-ho, and I had hoped one of our widemen or Jonny Williams coming on would have got us something.

It's the worst run we've had now since the start of the season, so I don't want anyone to feel sorry for themselves.

Matty Phillips stepped up to the plate for Blackpool in the end, but we need our players to do that now.

I saw it when I first arrived – we had penalties going in and great free-kicks whizzing in.

It doesn't always go that way though so we've got to keep working.

Our best chance was actually when Barry Ferguson was sent off for the foul on Yannick Bolasie. We had won the ball back and had a chance to run at people.

If Yannick had not been brought down, he would have played it wide and we would have had a chance to outnumber them at the back.

But Blackpool dug in and were resilient.

They felt aggrieved by the red card, but we've got to show the same thing now against Barnsley at home and be up and at it.

At the moment, I'm trying to be proud of what I'm doing at Palace and at the moment it isn't going right – that's just the way it goes in football.

All I can say is, the game on Monday should not have been a defeat from what I saw, especially with the match statistics.

When it goes against you, you look for character, and that's what I'm expecting from my boys right now – it's all still there to play for.

We've lost the last three games. Did I see it coming? No.