RAY Parlour's wife won't be having a wager following her husband's pay cut in moving to Middlesbrough, but my gut feeling is that Boro will finish above Newcastle.

Having observed that the last campaign was a season too far for Sir Bobby Robson, I believe this one will be a season too far for Alan Shearer.

Not because he's past it, but because he has made a mistake in prematurely announcing his retirement, just as he did in ending his England career. He knows plenty of cliches but perhaps not the one which says you're a long time retired.

If Shearer is going to quit at the end of the season then Newcastle have to prepare for life without him.

They can't have Shola Ameobi gathering splinters on the bench to accommodate Shearer alongside Patrick Kluivert.

The time might quickly arrive, of course, when Kluivert's the one on the bench if he slips into the Quayside lifestyle so beloved of some of his new teammates.

Either way, there could be stormy times ahead at St James's, with Shearer hinting he'll be kicking up a fuss if not selected on a regular basis. In that case he should have kept his trap shut about his plans to retire.

AMID all the bleating about unknown American golfers winning the Open, we forget that little-known Scot Paul Lawrie won it only five years ago. And what has he done since?

While poor old Monty continues to labour under the tag of best player never to win a major, these jokers keep emerging from the bottom of the pack and grabbing their one chance of glory before returning to obscurity.

We might hear of Todd Hamilton again - he certainly looked less of a fluke winner than Lawrie or Ben Curtis.

And while Tiger and Ernie were moaning about advances in technology bringing inferior players into the equation, it did not apply to Hamilton because his strategy, not his striking, saw him prevail.

Monty made much of the fact that he knew Troon better than anyone. Yet he kept going into bunkers, whereas Hamilton deliberately laid up short of them.

If we weren't certain that Monty wouldn't win when he missed a shortish putt on the 18th in the second round, we knew for sure when he did it again to end his remarkable scrambling the following day.

Having escaped from trouble time after time to stay just within sight of the leaders, that missed four-footer must have been massively deflating.

As others began to chip in and hole bunker shots on the front nine in the final round, Monty slipped quietly away.

The cream was rising to the top, and after 63 holes of battling to get into this position Tiger looked poised to strike.

But he had never been in full control of his game and couldn't engage top gear when he needed it.

With others fading away, the climax was not as gripping as it might have been and Lee Westwood was allowed to slip through into fourth place.

At times Westwood looked the best golfer out there, and considering the amount of time they spend warming up it's amazing that he put himself out of contention by starting badly every day.

He might win a major one day; sadly Monty won't unless he suddenly discovers the key to consistently good putting.

I HAD high hopes that the return of David Byas to Yorkshire, as Director of Cricket, would inspire them to play more like the champions they were in his last year of captaincy.

But on their Twenty20 visit to Durham, swiftly followed by their C & G semi-final at Bristol, their strategy beggared belief.

They completely failed to realise they couldn't score as quickly on the Riverside pitch as at Headingley and threw wickets away recklessly, then went to the other extreme at Bristol.

To send in Ian Harvey with only seven overs of their innings left, behind Anthony McGrath, was a scandalous waste of his match-winning ability.

Harvey had scored a Twenty20 century in 18 overs a few days earlier and he knows the Bristol pitch and the Gloucestershire bowlers well.

When he finally got in he scored 20 off ten balls and was then out to a brilliant catch.

With the inexperienced Matthew Wood in charge in the absence of Craig White, the whole shambolic business needed Byas to take a firmer hand.

AMONG the great names in boxing who have started with Olympic gold are Muhammad Ali, Lennox Lewis and Sugar Ray Leonard. Oh yes, and Audley Harrison.

Britain are sending only one boxer to Athens, 17-year-old lightweight Amir Khan, from Bolton.

He says he has tried several times to make contact with Audley for some advice, but the overblown heavyweight hasn't seen fit to return his calls.

He's obviously such a superstar now that he doesn't need to bother with such trivia.