Laughing your socks off

What I'm really looking forward to is Sunday's protagonists at Old Trafford meeting each other in the Champions League final, preferably in the Colosseum in Rome. There's no doubt United's gladiators can get there with Ferdinand back in their ranks and Rooney ready to terrorise Europe's best defences, and Arsenal might make it if only they could persuade Henry to perform on the big occasions

Food stalls at future clashes will offer "best throwing soup" and exhort fans to "getta pizza the action", while soap powder companies will proclaim that their products "wash whiter than Wenger's squeaky-clean innocents."

It would have taken more than a drop of pea and ham down his lapels to dampen Fergie's delight as Arsene lambasted van Nistelrooy and Mike Riley, the hapless and wimpish referee.

Is there no-one like the commanding figure of Peter Willis around these days to take charge of such highly combustible affairs? He sent Kevin Moran off in a Wembley Cup final for less than Ferdinand got away with on Sunday

Perhaps Riley's philosophy was that whatever he did the contest was bound to be blood-curdling so he might as well let the players kick lumps out of each other. He might have got away with it had he not changed tack and awarded a penalty for such an innocuous challenge.

Inconsistency is what angers people most about referees, but they are only human and we would do well to remember that without them there is no game. They should be deemed a protected species with an exclusion zone around them. Any player who ventures within that zone to voice his opinions should automatically be booked.

This might help to restore some discipline to football and encourage a change in the culture of cheating in which shirt-pulling and diving are now the accepted norm. What is definitely not acceptable is someone deliberately trying to injure an opponent. That is thuggery and should be punishable by much more than a three-match ban.

THERE was also plenty of entertainment at St James' Park on Sunday, but it was tarnished by the depressing sight of Kevin Keegan whingeing about the referee. I would much prefer to remember the former curly-top as the entertainer he undoubtedly is, but his demeanour in Sunday's post-match interview reminded me of the sour-faced Bob Willis blasting the Press after taking eight Australian wickets in the famous win at Headingley in 1981.

After some of the recent matches on television, like Newcastle and Middlesbrough's 1-0 wins in Athens and Sunderland's 1-0 bore at Rotherham, another Keegan-inspired 4-3 thriller was just the ticket. But to see the old smiler looking grey and glum suggested the pressures of management are getting to him.

He should go and smell the roses and reflect happily on how, in the current jargon, he "made a difference."

WHILE we get excited these days about 4-3, the death of Bill Nicholson brought a reminder that when he took over as manager of Spurs they were fourth from the bottom of Division One and won his first match in charge 10-4.

Two years later they did the double, which was like scaling Everest because it was the first of the 20th century, although several teams had gone close, including Wolves the previous year.

His team have always been imprinted on my brain: Brown, Baker, Henry, Blanchflower, Norman, Mackay, Dyson, White, Smith, Allen, Jones. They were entertainers because the boss wouldn't have it any other way.

He was born in Scarborough, reminding us again that the best British managers are from Scotland or the North, the exception being Sir Alf Ramsey, who stood between Nicholson and the England job.

PAULA Radcliffe seems to be taking a huge gamble by running in the New York Marathon on Sunday week. She surely can't be doing it for the money, so she must feel a big urge to get back on the bike to overcome the trauma of Athens.

If Paula still dreams of Olympic gold at Beijing, when she will be 34, the sensible thing would be to plod along with the intention of merely completing the New York course as part of her rehabilitation.

But the fear is that she will want to win, and if she burns herself out again she might just decide it's time to get on with having the family she apparently craves.

THE Rugby World Cup winners have not been the only ones at the Palace this week as the Queen also hosted a reception for the British Paralympic team. However, having missed the parade in London the previous week, Tanni Grey-Thompson was again absent as she had dashed back from the Laureus awards in India for a long-standing engagement - speaking to the Wolviston WI.

Published: 29/10/2004