PRESUMABLY Malcolm Glazer is not as big a buffoon as he looks. Yet the same could be said of others who have embarked on the ego trip of owning a football club, only to be left questioning their own sanity.

While Feethams is now a wilderness, the new home of Darlington FC continues to be little more than a monument to the man who created it. He was allowed to build it because everyone believed he would finance it entirely out of his apparently bottomless wealth. Then he failed to meet the interest payments on his borrowings.

He assumed that a no-expense-spared stadium would automatically attract thousands of new fans, just as Glazer seems to assume that owning Manchester United is a licence to print money. His first shock might come when he tries to negotiate individual TV rights.

If his gamble fails he will quickly be overwhelmed by the growth of his immense borrowings, the club will be docked nine points for going into administration, star assets will have to be sold and the fans can look forward to renewing hostilities with Leeds.

FOR all the comfort of their surroundings, Darlington fans currently have nothing to smile about. I had to face one across the sports desk on Tuesday night as Hartlepool survived extra time and won a penalty shoot-out which went to sudden death at Tranmere. It's just as well there wasn't a rope dangling nearby.

Considering how close the Quakers went to the play-offs, for their arch rivals to progress in this fashion is clearly agonising.

Those of us lucky enough to take a dispassionate view still question the logic of 210 minutes of football coming down to this. Yet it's no different from five or six hours of a limited overs cricket match coming down to the last ball. In fact, it's what we want - a dramatic climax.

There are now too many one-day cricket matches and far too few of them build to an exciting finish. That is the main reason why a panel of luminaries including Sunil Gavaskar recommended this week that substitutes be allowed in one-day internationals. There were other suggestions such as extending fielding restrictions, but the use of subs is the most interesting option.

I expect it to be ratified in an effort to spice up an over-saturated market, then it's only a matter of time before replacements are allowed in all cricket.

FURTHER to my recent lament about red tape, I note that Evenwood FC are again talking of giving up the ghost. As if vandalism hasn't dealt them a big enough blow, they are unable to accept grants which have been approved because the transfer of the trusteeship of the ground has been blocked by the Charities Commission. This doesn't sound very charitable to me, but doubtless the commission is bound by red tape.

Thankfully, the tape can occasionally be unravelled as shown by the fact that the Scott Trial has been saved. The 90-year-old motorcycling event in Arkengarthdale was threatened by new land use regulations, but with similar events all over the country being cancelled it has been decided motor sports can take place on up to 28 days on farmers' land without affecting their subsidies.

TALKING of subsidies, Jonny Wilkinson is now reckoned to earn £7m a year from commercial deals, but as it's still only about a third of what David Beckham gets I reckon Jonny offers much better value.

It didn't seem to impress the city, however, when he posed for pictures on the Stock Exchange roof this week as the FTSE 100 went down that day. I don't recall what he was posing for, nor can I remember what else he promotes, because I'm not remotely interested. I just hope, as he promises, it doesn't interfere with his goal-kicking practice.

I wonder if Jonny is aware that among the cast of thousands he will have for company on the Lions tour is one Jeremy Lowther-Pinkerton, Prince William's new private secretary. The prince has been invited along by Sir Clive Woodward, who already has a back-up team of 29 as well as 45 players, some of whom won't get a game.

Woodward is so ridiculously thorough that he is taking the spontaneity out of sport. Lions tours were more interesting when rugby was an amateur game and losing wasn't the end of the world. Now Woodward takes stage-management to such extremes, and at such cost, that defeat cannot be contemplated.

Whether or not his methods will work in football we shall discover when he takes up a role yet to be defined at relegated Southampton on his return from New Zealand.

The Saints are another club owned by a deluded man, of course. Has he worked out the cost of paying Woodward's back-up team?

WELL done to Mark Schwarzer for the penalty save which confirmed Boro's deserved place in Europe. Not that Robbie Fowler's penalty was very well struck. Rather like another Robbie - Newcastle target Keane - Fowler has always struck me as an immense talent with something missing. Hunger perhaps?

Published: 20/05/2005