IT COULD become a quiz question: what does Darlington manager Tommy Taylor have in common with Jagmohan Dalmiya? Answer: they both considered withdrawing their teams in protest at a referee.

Dalmiya, president of the Indian cricket board and a wealthy businessman of dubious reputation, threatened to pull the Indian team out of the third Test against South Africa if Mike Denness was retained as referee.

He was spared from taking such drastic action by the South Africans taking the appalling decision to replace Denness.

No doubt Taylor would have been delighted had Scunthorpe decided to replace Paul Alcock at half-time during the Quakers' 7-1 defeat.

Instead opposing manager Brian Laws apparently talked Taylor out of keeping his team in the dressing room after half-time, which is just as well.

Football has had enough threats of withdrawal of labour recently, and looking at Saturday's Premiership results (three goals in six games) the strikers seem to have gone on a go-slow anyway.

In this increasingly ill-disciplined and anger-fuelled world, complaints about referees seem to grow by the week.

But unless someone builds a robot capable of keeping perfect control, we have to accept that without the referee there is no contest.

That's not to say they should be beyond criticism, and as the man who fell down in stages when pushed by Paulo di Canio, Mr Alcock is obviously something of a showman.

But the level-headed attitude is that you take the rough with the smooth and over the course of a season these things tend to even themselves out.

Taylor has registered his concern about Alcock's incompetence, now he must pray that the Quakers got all their nightmares out of the way at one go.

AS FOR cricket's quandary, it all comes back to that old chestnut raised here a few weeks ago - the search for consistency.

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Michael Atherton said: "There is, and always has been, a complete lack of uniformity or consistency among match referees, something I complained of tirelessly when I was England captain."

The International Cricket Council comes in for some hefty criticism for failing to take tough action in the past, so that when Denness disciplines six Indian players it becomes a racial issue.

India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe will stick together, so the balance of power is held by the West Indies and South Africa.

After siding with India for the purposes of their third Test because they didn't want to lose the revenue, the South Africans might tilt the other way if there is a real threat of a split within the ranks.

Dalmiya, meanwhile, is becoming the Osama bin Laden of cricket. If he continues to insist that the suspended Virender Sehwag plays in the first Test against England the tour will be doomed, India will not tour here next summer and the repercussions are unthinkable.

It is outrageous to have a member nation flouting the rule of the international governing body. Sport simply cannot operate like that and unless harmony is restored and the game finds a means of policing itself which is acceptable to all, then anarchy really will prevail.

IN football it has been a week for the F-word - Ferguson, Fabien, Fowler and the Phoenix League.

There is something of the Grobbelaar about Fabien Barthez and any more howlers will raise suspicions that he is involved with a Far East betting syndicate.

What Fergie really thinks about him we don't know because he's stopped speaking to the media (oh, what a shame), except when he has a contractual obligation to do so after European games.

As for Robbie Fowler's £11m transfer, it's just as well the Leeds-Liverpool canal is not wide enough for warships, otherwise a flotilla of aggrieved Scousers would be sailing eastwards.

Fowler's arrival at Elland Road cannot be good news for Alan Smith, whose fifth sending -off last weekend might just have stretched David O'Leary's patience.

Finally, the Phoenix League looks like a classic case of modern marketing - giving something a title before the actual concept has been seriously discussed.

It's the proposed title for Premiership Two, which should only be considered if the Premiership is reduced to 12 clubs with a four-month shutdown in the summer. As things stand, the England players will be going to the World Cup in May a week after the final Premiership matches and will be too tired to justify any more than the second-rate seeding they have in tomorrow's draw.

GOALLESS draws weren't confined to the Premiership on Saturday. But the one in which Prince Harry took part - the ridiculous Eton Wall Game - wouldn't have the Pools Panel deliberating very long. It hasn't produced a goal since the First World War.