Wellocks World

So, while Paula Radcliffe transports us to the heights of admiration, we are at the same time sickened by the dreadful photographs from Bratislava.

It would be an insult to caged animals to liken them to those football fans who continue to turn the English into the pariahs of Europe. And for the FA to excuse them on the grounds of incitement by the Slovakians' racist chanting is a pitiful cop-out.

It is not that many years since monkey chants resounded from our own terraces, and they have abated only because we have now reached the stage where the best team in the land regularly field nine coloured players.

But the any-excuse-for-a-fight mentality continues to rage, and it was partly because the Japanese and South Koreans did not provide that excuse that only one English fan was arrested at the World Cup.

To the smiling hosts the World Cup was a celebration, not a battleground, and they created an atmosphere joyous enough to disarm even the most snarling of anti-social yobs.

No doubt the cost of getting there also contributed to keeping the worst elements away, but it's cheap enough to get to Bratislava, which is only 30 miles from Vienna.

The Habsburg heritage and baroque palaces would not even register on the consciousness of those fans who destroyed a lap-dancing club the night before the match and hurled missiles within the ground.

Among the legion of so-called experts studying the reasons for anti-social behaviour, I wonder if anyone is looking at what it is about the Korean culture which makes them the very antithesis of the English yob. All the answers cannot be unsavoury.

It was the same 36 years ago, when the North Koreans lit up the World Cup in Middlesbrough and captured the hearts of Britain. How wonderful that the survivors of that team are back, and will see British film-maker Daniel Gordon's documentary about them, which has its first screening in Sheffield on Monday.

The 1,220 people banned from watching England abroad, and all those who seek to emulate them, should be forced to watch it.

GETTING back to Paula, even if her reign at the top proves shortlived her annus mirabilis will not easily be forgotten.

As a marathon runner perhaps she will endure, in contrast to other sportsmen who have enjoyed a brief and glorious period when they performed at their absolute peak.

There was a period of a few months when Steve Cram couldn't stop breaking records, and there was a wonderful summer when Ian Woosnam was the best golfer in the world.

Given that he failed to get into the Ryder Cup team, and we were reminded that he had never won a Ryder Cup singles, it comes as a slight surprise to find that Woosie is the defending champion in the Cisco World Matchplay Championship.

The event has undoubtedly lost some of its appeal since the days when it was the Piccadilly. But as the Ryder Cup again proved, matchplay golf makes gripping television and it's a pity that the top Americans don't come over for the Wentworth event.

Fred Funk was their sole representative this time and he gave Monty a good run yesterday. Perhaps when Tiger's a billionaire he'll return without the promise of appearance money.

SOME of us were quick to observe that Sunderland had not employed the most entertaining manager in Howard Wilkinson, but if there is anyone in football who has had a triple charisma by-pass it strikes me it is Gordon Taylor.

As boss of the Professional Footballers' Assocation he is said to earn more than £500,000 a year, so perhaps it is small wonder that he refuses to accept that footballers are overpaid.

Contracts are sacrosanct in Taylor's mind, and he will drone on about it endlessly until, at the end of the day, he has put all the glass eyes to sleep.

He argues that it is unacceptable to ask players to take a wage cut, even though Watford have leapt up the First Division with three straight wins since their squad of 35 agreed to a 12 per cent reduction in pay.

Now Leicester want their players to take a 15 per cent cut, while Barnsley, another club with recent Premiership experience, are also deep in the clarts.

At this rate impoverished footballers might decide not to pay their PFA subs, in which case Taylor might have to take an 80 per cent cut. He would still be overpaid.

FURTHER to last week's Post Script, in which I took issue with Alan Hansen's assessment of David Seaman, after watching Wednesday's match I would make two points.

First, Seaman must go; second Hansen seemed like the wisest owl on the planet compared with fellow BBC pundit Ian Wright.

Published: 18/10/2002