NOW that the Home Secretary's involved, will the new national stadium become the house that Jack built, or will it be a house of Straw?

One of the few sensible suggestions to emerge from the Wembley pig's ear is that Mr Straw might seek advice from Sunderland chairman Bob Murray because of his success in building the Stadium of Light.

My own suggestion is that Wembley should be offered to Sir Elton John. His beloved Watford pulled off the coup of the week by appointing Gianluca Vialli as manager, so if they are truly ambitious why not move a few miles down the road?

For Sir Elton to lavish some of his wealth on refurbishing the Twin Towers would be eminently more sensible than spending it on flowers.

Wembley is currently costing the FA £2m a month to stand as a rotting reminder of London-based incompetence.

The estimated cost of the national stadium has more than tripled to £650m since Wembley was approved as the site in 1996, but it appears to be the on-going cost of servicing the debt which has really put the frighteners on the FA and prompted their lamentable abdication.

It is a pathetic excuse to say they want to put the money into the grass roots of the game as that happens already.

A 90,000-seater stadium with a 200-bed hotel and a banqueting hall for 2,000 is far too grandiose a scheme for a gridlocked part of London.

It's only Londoners, who dismiss the rest of the country as the backward provinces, who believe the national stadium should be in the capital.

Now that Solihull council have apparently relaxed the stance which scuppered Birmingham's bid five years ago, the available site by the M42 near the NEC sounds ideal.

It will halve the cost, and save even more if a running track is incorporated to avoid any more embarrassing wrangling over the proposed athletics stadium at Pickett's Lock in North London.

Meanwhile, we are assured the pitch will be fine for the FA Cup final after being relaid yet again at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium, while I brace myself for a visit to a building site outside Southampton to cover Durham's cricket match against Hampshire next month.

Hampshire's new stadium is behind schedule and they are £4-5m short of the £20m they need. Now there's a surprise.

IT is said of cricket fans that October is the month when they realise their wife left them in May. So far as I know mine is still in residence, although my travels in pursuit of Durham sometimes make it difficult to keep check.

The journey from Liverpool to Derby between Benson & Hedges Cup matches offered the opportunity to call at my favourite Peak District pub on the night when Chesterfield's automatic promotion from Division Three was confirmed.

The mood at the bar was a cross between delight and disbelief that they had got away with a nine-point deduction for a catalogue of crimes which included fielding a player on an illegal contract.

Bar talk alleged that while the Fraud Squad were going in the front door someone nipped out the back and disappeared across the pitch bearing a computer.

Hartlepool manager Chris Turner is high on the list of those baffled by Chesterfield's slap on the wrist, although he might not go so far as to echo this week's words from French philosopher Robert Redeker.

"How can it be that men in contemporary society don't vomit in disgust at sporting corruption while they detest it in politics?" he asks.

Unfortunately, this is all part of a general rant accusing sport of creating a "phoney community" of unthinking consumers.

But the point might not be lost on the people of Hartlepool if they compare Chesterfield's crimes with the minor indiscretion which forced their MP to resign from the cabinet.

THE Peak District pub is among those promoting a beer called Bombardier, and the sales drive is accompanied by a book called: The Bombardier Book of Funny English Quotations.

There are several from Murray Walker, including: "The lead car is absolutely unique, except for the one behind it, which is identical," and "Do my eyes deceive me or is Senna's car sounding a bit rough."

There's also one from Terry Venables: "I felt a lump in my throat when the ball went in."

I wonder if there'll be a lump in his throat when he leaves Boro at the end of the season.

IT looked like a hot start for the Durham Academy cricketers when their first dismissal of the season read: M Turner caught Mustard bowled Kean 0. But it was the only wicket they took in a defeat by Benwell Hill.

Jonathan Kean is a left-arm bowler from Stockton; Philip Mustard is the wicketkeeper from Sunderland nicknamed Colonel by his teammates, although he has yet to carry out any dastardly deeds with lead piping in the conservatory.

Published: 04/05/01