THE lengthy list of great Scottish managers includes Stein, Shankly, Busby and Ferguson but not, in the eyes of Newcastle fans, Dalglish. Now they will be worried that they have landed Dalglish Mark II.

Well at least they should be able to understand Graeme Souness, so let's hope the players understand him as well when he starts laying down the law. The general assumption is that that is what he's been signed for, but the danger is that the latest generation of professional footballers think they are above the law and can offer an arrogant smirk to anyone trying to lay it down.

Things have grown so bad they apparently think they can ride around town firing airguns at anyone who happens to get in the way. That was in Sunderland, but let's not kid ourselves that things are any better in Newcastle, where Souness will stand or fall by his attempts to persuade the Brat Pack to toe the line and become dedicated professionals.

That includes developing the same burning desire to win he always exhibited first as one of the best players to pull on a Middlesbrough shirt, then in his glory years with Liverpool.

Some who have worked with Souness say he has mellowed, so he might abandon the stick which failed to knock Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole into shape at Blackburn and try dangling some kind of carrot instead. Either way, he has to bring the best out of the talented but wayward rascals he has inherited, otherwise major rebuilding of the team will be required and his track record in the transfer market is not impressive.

I suspect Souness is a stop-gap until Alan Shearer is ready to take over, ideally with Shearer being groomed for a couple of years. But it's a gamble which hinges on the fiery Scot being able to instill his own fighting qualities into players who appear keener to score off the pitch than on it. If he succeeds he could be there a while; if not he will be gone as quickly as he was from some of his pre-Blackburn jobs.

WHILE superstars always fascinate young and impressionable minds, total domination by one person or team eventually becomes boring and can't be good for the sport. Michael Schumacher is the obvious example, but his domination has as much to do with the machine as the man, and it's good to see that elsewhere those who threatened to reign supreme for years are being toppled.

A year has gone by without either Venus or Serena Williams winning a Grand Slam title, and after 264 weeks at the top Tiger Woods is no longer the world's No 1 golfer.

All are young enough to bounce back, but the signs are that the standards they set have inspired others to close the gap. Vijay Singh is not everyone's bag of niblicks, but he has worked tirelessly to get to the top and along with Tiger and Ernie Els forms a triumvirate to rank alongside Nicklaus, Player and Palmer. In playing terms that is - the charisma levels remain poles apart.

CAN life be worth living following the England footballers' vow of silence towards the media? Newspaper sales will plummet in the absence of all that wit and wisdom.

Speaking as one who has as much interest in David Beckham as he has in me, I think we should retaliate by totally ignoring them. The obsession with football has been driven beyond all logical bounds, reaching the utterly irrational situation where the airwaves are clogged up by pontificators who have as little to say as the players.

This England team was supposed to reach its peak about now, but the combination of unwarranted adulation and wealth has taken away the simple pride of playing for one's country. Scholes has thrown the towel in. Beckham has become more supermodel than super footballer and the coach reserves his passion for other areas. They are not worthy of our attention.

THE England cricketers have won their last seven Tests, and now their efforts to prove themselves in the one-day game brings some interest to the ICC Champions Trophy.

Not that it will seem that way when they start against Zimbabwe juniors today, but they will also have to beat Sri Lanka next Friday to qualify for the semi-finals.

This event was launched seven years ago in Bangladesh as a fund-raiser for cricket development, but it's questionable how much development is really going on when the United States have qualified with a squad which includes Clayton Lambert.

A former pro with several North Yorkshire and South Durham League clubs, Lambert is one of four members of the squad aged over 40 and only one is American-born.

It mirrors what's happening in the leading sports in this country where academies are created at great expense, only for youngsters to be held back by the arrival of boatloads of imports.

Published: ??/??/2004