Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

Struggling with this one.

I've got 10/16 of the opponent's letters, and a further suspected 4 letters, but not looking like a name.

The letters on the perimeter also give possible words that seem far too common to make ingress that way, "out the" etc.

Finally, I've only got 5 cells left with no penciled letters but can't see a spot for a hero's name anywhere.

Could anyone give me where I should be looking for him? Not a diagonal I think.

There are more changes to make before he appears.

Whoops, shouldn't have used biro. Still confused - the instructions made it sound like the changes were solely in the relevant across.

The 16 are just in wordplay, so can't be there.

I'll have a think, but a little irritated by this one given that I'm still lost with only 3 left.

If it helps, 'out' doesn't feature in the perimeter.
For the enemy - a name is followed by an attribute (like Alexander the great)... certainly not a nice guy.

...Yes, cruciluci, the preamble does (and I think it's very well written).

I don't want to mislead you, because it isn't really accurate to say 'more changes' - initially you should have clashes showing both the occupation and the employer.

It was only when I realised who our hero is, and counting the letters in the name that the final end game penny dropped. (Having hunted valiantly for them).

Thank you, eXtent. That was a tour de force. I had no idea about this aspect of our hero’s career and spent a goodly while down the NFL rabbit hole that you so invitingly provided.

So NFL is a red herring? Bugger.

Just 9 across to solve, which I assume will give me the first of the sixteen. The last twelve make sense, but 2,3 & 4 give me IRG which looks nonsense. Close to throwing in the towel after spending all of yesterday afternoon on this. I have earmarked this afternoon's idleness for EV so this either gets finished or filed as a failure😒

I think you might be using both letters from 'reference' as terms, bobbycollins (the following word gives the other one).
I believe the hero was an excellent polo player too.