CAN you Adam and Eve it? A famous East Ender coming to coach the Boro.

Tel Boy won't find an Albert Square in Middlesbrough, but he will find an Albert Road if he has time to explore beyond the confines of the Riverside and the training ground.

There's something of the likeable rogue about Terry Venables which means he can get away with virtually anything.

Take this six-month appointment. He can't lose because he must know it's a desperate measure for a desperate situation, and if Boro are relegated he can walk away cheerfully saying he did his best.

Hopefully he'll keep them up and bask in the glory, which would be no more than the chairman, Steve Gibson, deserves after dragging the club out of the mire.

Life certainly hasn't been dull at the Riverside, with Juninho, Emerson, Ravanelli, Gazza, Karembeu and his Wonderbra wife, and now Venables always creating headlines.

But all this glitter and glamour is a recipe for short-term success, which by Boro's standards Bryan Robson has already achieved with three visits to Wembley.

What's really needed is stability, which is best achieved by having a production line of local talent to provide the backbone of a team which might play with genuine pride.

Perhaps if the players spent one day a week training on a windswept piece of wasteland near where Wilf Mannion grew up in South Bank they might not take their pampered existence for granted.

This, of course, applies to most Premiership clubs, and most of all perhaps to Chelsea, which is where it all began for Venables and where it might well end if the Boro job rekindles his coaching flame.

His Teesside trip is a short-term fix for a long-term problem. If his six-month stint ensures Premiership survival the club should then settle for a lower profile and more solid achievement, of which tomorrow's hosts, Sunderland, provide a good example.

ONE of my favourite openings to a sports report came from the American writer who began: "I went to a fight last night and an ice hockey match broke out."

Something similar is promised in tomorrow's Benson & Hedges Cup final, in which Newcastle Jesters concede home advantage to runaway SuperLeague leaders Sheffield Steelers.

Jesters' chairman Paul Smith says: "I think the first ten minutes will be the biggest battle ice hockey has seen for years."

As a former player, coach and owner of Durham Wasps, Smith should know what to expect from a Steelers team coached by Mike Blaisdell, assisted by Rick Brebant, two names from the Wasps' glory days.

The Wasps were a wonderful success story for what was almost a family club. But they were swallowed up by Sir John Hall under the umbrella of the ill-fated Newcastle Sporting Club, to the eternal disgust of many Wasps fans.

The Jesters recently came under the ownership of a company called the Eye Group, which is fronted by Smith. They are also trying to buy the Steelers franchise and have designs on the Belfast Giants and Cardiff Devils.

There will be plenty of old Wasps fans still feeling badly stung by the move to the Tyne, but at least under the latest guise as the Jesters the club appears to be making its mark.

IT strikes me there is some similarity between Graeme Hick and Mike Catt in that they have failed to fulfil themselves with England following their southern Africa upbringing.

Both have huge talent and at times have made it count on the international stage, Catt more so than Hick.

But the fact that Catt wasn't fit to play against South Africa at Twickenham last Saturday worked in England's favour as it was his replacement, Will Greenwood, who made sure England had something to show for their superiority.

Catt, I suspect, will be back, but Hick is surely in the Last Chance Saloon. He is on the current tour only because England coach Duncan Fletcher knew him as a supremely talented youngster in Zimbabwe.

Fletcher must know by now that the man who has made more first-class centuries, 110, than any current player hasn't got the bottle to play at the top level.

He made that patently clear in a one-day international in South Africa last winter when as the last recognised batsman it was up to him to get the runs. He sliced a catch to gully, where it was taken on the half volley, but Hick walked without even looking at the umpire. He couldn't get off quickly enough.

No doubt he'll be murdering second division county attacks again next summer - that's if the Worcester ground isn't staging regattas instead