"QPR set to unveil Dowie as manager". I'm surprised that a supposedly ambitious club like QPR, with rich owners and plenty of money available, appear to have chosen this failed managerial dinosaur to take charge at Loftus Road. Mr Dowie was sacked from his last two jobs at Coventry and before that at Charlton, where he was dismissed after an internal inquiry into his alleged behaviour and conduct at the club. Dowie also left Crystal Palace under a cloud. A judge at the London High Court ruled that Dowie had lied when negotiating his way out of his Palace contract. Dowie claimed that he wanted to spend more time with his family in the north of England, but just days after leaving Palace he buggered off to Charlton, seven miles up the road. When Dowie was sacked at Coventry the club were languishing in 19th place in the Championship, just four points above the relegation zone. The Coventry chairman said that he wanted to work towards "a more progressive and modern way of operating" - indicating that he wasn't happy with Dowie's old-fashioned managerial methods. I'm surprised that Messrs Briatore, Ecclestone and Mittal at QPR seem to have chosen a lying manager who in his last job at Coventry struggled near the bottom of the Championship with an old-fashioned style of management. Ecclestone is worth about £2.5 billion while the Indian chap Lakshmi Mittal is the world's fifth richest man, with a cool £28 billion - wealthier than Abramovich. The Italian Flavio Briatore is the pauper of the trio, with only £60m. How does the poor guy survive? One would have thought that this trio of businessmen would have had the money (and the brains) to have appointed somebody better than Dowie - a proven liar and a failure in his last couple of jobs.

Apologies for continuing to take this in another direction, but just to respond to Colin's comments..... And yet Colin, Mr Adam Scott, Director of Regeneration, Housing and Neighbourhoods, Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council, said in his report into an extension at Torra Manor, Chapeltown Road, Turton (the house owned by Lucas Neill) , that the development was a: "rear extension and associated landscaping works involving changing use of Green Belt land to residential". Paragraph 2.1 of Mr Scott's report said: "The application site is located within the Green Belt, and therefore the appropriateness of the development in such an area must be considered along with the design and scale of the development." Paragraph 5.3 of the report said: "The application site is within a remote rural area surrounded on all sides by the Turton Golf Course, and as such, PPS7 "Sustainable Development in Rural Areas" and PPG2 "Green Belts" must be considered." A link to this report is HERE The map below shows the designated areas of Green Belt in Lancashire. Turton Golf Course is located just inside the boundary of Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council. Mark Hughes and the Green Belt.... Our Rovers manager has unfortunately been unsuccessful in a planning row with Man United's Michael Carrick. Hughes was upset at plans to bulldoze the house directly opposite him and in its place build a £4m mansion for the United midfielder. Pictured below is Hughes's luxury seven-bedroom mansion in Oak Road, Macclesfield, which he has owned for 15 years since he was a Man United player, but which he is now putting up for sale for £6m. A letter on behalf of Hughes to Macclesfield Council complained about the size and scale of Carrick's new three storey mansion opposite, which the letter said "represents inappropriate development in the Green Belt." The letter said: "The proposed replacement dwelling would be materially larger than the existing dwelling and would have a noticeably greater impact on the open and spacious character of this Green Belt setting. On this basis, it constitutes inappropriate development in the Green Belt, which by definition, is harmful." Despite Hughes's objections to Carrick's new mansion, the proposal was passed and the work is due to be completed soon. A link to this story is below: Hughes sells £6m mansion after losing planning row with Michael Carrick

I didn't mean to suggest that all big houses are wrong, but in Lucas Neill's case the massive extension upset local people because it's in a green area, slap bang in the middle of a golf course. The small picture here shows the former owners of the house John and Susan Payne in front of Torra Manor in 2003, before Lucas bought the house and the extension was built. There were concerns about the landscape with such a big rear extension being built in the grounds of a golf course. Neill is still the registered owner of the house. The link HERE indicates that Lucas paid £925,000 for the house in May 2004 and it hasn't been sold since. It will be worth considerably more than £925,000 now after the big extension. People are perfectly entitled to move up the property ladder, provided that other people's quality of life isn't adversely affected. Anyway, moving on from houses to Lucas as a person, the thing which irritated me about his move to West Ham was that he was never honest about the fact that money came into it. If Lucas had said: "I'm moving to West Ham because of the very generous salary package on offer which will improve my family's quality of life," then although Rovers fans may still have been upset at him leaving, at least they could respect him for being honest about his motives for going to Upton Park. The thing which disappointed me was the spin that Lucas came out with when he talked about West Ham being "the club of Matin Peters, Geoff Hurst, Alan Devonshire, Billy Bonds, Bobby Moore and Trevor Brooking" and suggested that anybody who questioned his reasons for moving from Blackburn to West Ham was insulting Bobby Moore's memory. People were entitled to ask questions about Neill's motives for joining a relegation battle at Upton Park in January last year, when there was a serious danger that the club would be relegated to the Championship. If justice had happened and West Ham had been deducted 3 points last season for the Carlos Tevez fiasco, then the Hammers would indeed have been relegated. The Premier League inquiry report into the Tevez affair said: "It amounts to not only an obvious and deliberate breach of the rules, but a grave breach of trust, because in our finding the club has been responsible for dishonesty and deceit. The club's chief executive officer told a direct lie." West Ham lied, they were guilty of dishonesty and deceit, but rather than being relegated they got away with just a paltry fine, which was nowhere near the £30m the club would have lost if they had gone down. With West Ham having been so dishonest last season, all I want, as a Rovers fan, is a bit of honesty from Lucas Neill. If he had come clean about his motives for going, had acknowledged that money played a big part in his move, then I couldn't have questioned Neill's honesty. Lucas said that moving to West Ham gave him a "warm glow" and boasted "I will have the last laugh", but he didn't acknowledge the financial reasons for going to Upton Park. Personally, that's the thing which irritates me. The article below sums up my views well. "Don't treat us like mugs Lucas"

Edited - thoughts on Ronaldo now posted on the "Champions League" thread on the main messageboard.

It was an original five-bedroom house called Torra Manor, built in the grounds of Turton Golf Club, near to where Garry Flitcroft lives. The golf course is a few miles north of Bolton town centre. Obviously a large five-bedroom house wasn't big enough for Lucas, who wanted a big rear extension to Torra Manor. The house is just inside the boundary of Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council and the plans were lodged there. The rear extension includes an indoor swimming pool and spa, a steam room, a lounge, gymnasium, bathrooms and a cinema room. I'm not kidding. Dare I suggest a case of a big house for a big ego. But then again, size isn't everything, as some chaps are told. I get on quite well with Gordon, so hopefully he won't say: "What the hell has Lucas Neill's house got to do with you?" Anyway, local people were not terribly happy about Neill's house extension. There were concerns about the impact on the landscape. I better not talk about the impact on the 'Green Belt' otherwise Colin will get into one of his stroppy moods and ask me for a precise explanation of Planning Policy Guidance on the 'Green Belt' - a field in which Colin is clearly an expert in and nobody else is allowed to have an opinion on. As this post is only to do with one Australian immigrant rather than the impact of immigrants as a whole on our green and pleasant land, hopefully Colin won't get stroppy. That's a good point my friend and something that I've thought myself for a few years. Neill and Emerton are two good athletes and I can't knock them for that. They are both fit Aussie lads, but as for being naturally gifted footballers with an abundance of ability and skill, I'd suggest not.

Frank Rijkaard is leaving his Barcelona job at the end of the season and is being replaced by Josep Guardiola, the club's reserve team coach. In the link below it's claimed that a majority of the Barcelona board wanted Jose Mourinho to replace Rijkaard as manager, but the Barca president Joan Laporta has gone against the wishes of his board to appoint Guardiola. There's been speculation that Mourinho will take over the reigns at Inter Milan next season, replacing Roberto Mancini who is leaving the club. Link: "Majority of Barca's board wanted Mourinho"

Ronaldo in sex scandal with transvestite prostitutes. But not Christiano though..... The Brazilian striker with AC Milan has been the wild lad in question. After dropping off his girlfriend at her house on Monday night, Ronaldo picked up three prostitutes. At the motel that Ronaldo booked into to satisfy his filthy depraved lust, he later discovered that the prostitutes were in fact men. Ronaldo alleges that the transvestites then tried to extort money from him. Let's hope that some of the grannies that Wayne Rooney paid for in Merseyside brothels were genuine women and not trannie grannies.... Link: Ronaldo and the transvestites

No Matt, I resurrected the thread predominantly to provide a link about Prescott's bulimia and to open up a discussion on that. Only a tiny (no pun intended) proportion of my post was about Prescott's manhood, just a throwaway flippant couple of lines at the end of my post. I'm interested in Prescott's bulimia and how this may have affected his job as Deputy PM. Did he throw up before or after taking questions in the House of Commons? Was he sick after or during cabinet meetings? Prescott said that he battled bulimia for nearly 20 years, so it wasn't just something that happened after the Blair Government got elected in 1997. "I'd stuff my face with anything around," he said. I wonder whether Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and some of John's other cabinet colleagues were aware that he had a particular eating problem. After huge five-course state banquets, Prezza would apparently visit McDonalds and stuff his face with Big Macs. Let's not forget that it's the British taxpayers who have to foot the bill for state banquets. No wonder we were taxed heavily under Blair - a significant amount of our money was probably going on filling up Prescott's belly. When Tony Blair took holidays abroad, Prescott was the man running the country and taking Prime Minister's questions in the Commons. I wonder whether Prescott suffered from bad moods after being sick. Did he take it out on his other cabinet colleagues? Did he have trouble focusing on the job of Deputy Prime Minister, as seems to be the case in the picture below.... Instead of focusing on running the country and trying to improve schools, hospitals, public transport and tackling violent crime, was Prescott's mind preoccupied with gorging on burgers, crisps, digestive biscuits and finding the nearest fish and chip shop? I think the country needs to be told.... Link: The massive amounts that John Prescott was eating

Prescott tells of his battle with bulimia Prescott says that he would "eat through an entire Chinese restaurant's menu". Blimey, it's not suprising that he was vomiting afterwards then. Presumably he'd start off with noodle soup, spare ribs and aromatic duck, fried dumplings and pancake rolls. He'd then have a seafood platter of butterfly prawns and deep fried squid, lobster with spring onions, stir fried scallops and mushrooms. For the main course he'd have the fried chicken in sweet and sour sauce, sliced beef in chilli sauce and the Cantonese roast duck with beansprouts, accompanied with special fried rice. He'd order a side dish of crispy noodles with mixed vegetables and cashew nuts. After driving home in one of his two Jags, he'd tuck into a bag of prawn crackers when he got home and vomit it up in the toilet.... Our former Deputy PM, who got caught with his trousers down in an affair with his diary secretary a couple of years ago, had earlier said: "For too many Tories, morality means not getting caught. We are a party of principle. We will earn the trust of the British people. We've had enough lies. Enough sleaze." Is this a man who really earned the trust of the British people? I remember one memorable newspaper headline at the time of his affair: "Two Jags has two inches". Apparently his diary secretary Tracey Temple said that Prescott's manhood is tiny - the size of a small cocktail sausage. So he's got the body of a huge saveloy, but the willy of a small chipolata....

Bye Bye comedy jester.... I'm pleased that the clown has gone.... I'm a bit concerned though that from next season (2008/09) the BBC will have no England or FA Cup games. They were outbid by ITV and the BBC refused to make a bid for Champions League matches. The BBC's Match of The Day Premiership highlights contract is only up until 2010 and after that it's conceivable that the BBC will be showing no regular top-level football of any note. The BBC have paid for cheaper Championship level football and will be broadcasting 10 live Championship matches per season from 2009 - but for those of us who at the moment fork out £139.50 for a TV licence - I feel we deserve more from the BBC than just Burnley versus Plymouth or Coventry V Preston. I suppose that we'll still have the African Nations Cup every two years though, so we can look forward to Namibia versus Guinea and Zimbabwe V Rwanda - when they are not busy carrying out genocide or torturing people. By broadcasting African Nations Cup football, the BBC will be helping to boost dictatorships like Zimbabwe - as well as also providing a PR boost to countries like Nigeria and Sudan, which have stoned pregnant women to death for committing adultery. But Sudan V Zimbabwe or Burnley V Crystal Palace in the Championship seems to be what British licence-fee payers have got to look forward to in the future. Rather than showing live England matches, the BBC would rather pay £40m a year for Lewis Hamilton - the Beeb have won back Formula One from ITV - but as Henry Winter says in the link below: "By refusing to invest in top-level live football, the BBC have let people down and the licence fee will offer little value to football fans." Link: All over for BBC football commentators I read that Ofcom have said that since 2003, spending on what it defines as "public service broadcasting" has fallen by a third (£130m), and Ofcom predicts it will have fallen by two thirds by 2012. The cost of a TV licence has doubled since 1990. Are people really getting value for money for paying 139 quid a year now? There's been a proliferation in different channels like BBC News 24, BBC Parliament and CBeebies, and there's been a host of new different radio stations like BBC Asian Network and BBC 7, but despite this, Ofcom say that spending on "public service broadcasting" is actually falling significantly. I agree with Henry Winter when he says that by failing to provide licence-fee payers with England matches or FA Cup games, the BBC is letting football fans down.

Chiles is currently weighing up an offer of a larger salary to front ITV's football coverage. Adrian speaks about the dilemma he's facing over whether or not to leave the BBC in an interview with The Independent at the link HERE With Rovers sadly looking unlikely to qualify for Europe this season, there are nevertheless three things that could happen between now and the end of May which would at least put a bit of a smile on my face. 1) Man United not to win the Champions League this season. 2) The Birmingham City porn barons to be relegated. 3) The BBC to terminate Ian Wright's contract after realising what a muppet he is. (Sadly this is unlikely to happen.) On a slightly different note, I was saddened to hear that the BBC football commentator Jonathan Pearce suffered a family tragedy last year when his eight-month-old niece tragically died. I can imagine that this must have been a very painful time for Jonathan's family and it was the reason why he ran in the London Marathon today, raising funds for research into mitochondrial disease. Pearce speaks about this in an interview in the link HERE - and if any Rovers fans would like to make a donation to Jonathan's chosen charity, a link to his fundraising page is HERE

A former Welsh team-mate and friend of Mark Hughes has been given a suspended prison sentence after he drank up to ten pints before driving. Stevenage magistrates heard that Malcolm Allen - who played alongside Hughes for Wales, gaining 7 Welsh caps between 1986 and 1993 - was "paralytic" after drinking heavily. Allen told police that he recalled drinking eight or nine pints on his night out, but said that it might have been as many as ten. In 2006, Allen admitted affray after kicking a girl in the head outside a chip shop. I feel that somebody who has drunk eight or nine pints before driving deserves to be jailed. Allen can count himself very lucky that his four-week jail sentence was suspended for two years. If it had been up to me I would have jailed the bugger. He could have easily killed somebody in his car like the Brummie lout Lee Hughes did. As with Lee Hughes, Mr Allen appears to be a highly selfish and reckless individual. Link: "Paralytic" Malcolm Allen given a suspended prison sentence

There was a Scottish trio on Sky Sports for the Arsenal V Liverpool tie in the Champions League, with Andy Gray in the commentary box joined up with Gordon Strachan and Graeme Souness in the studio for the match at The Emirates. Mr Souness was critical of Liverpool's defending during the half-time analysis on Sky, suggesting that Liverpool didn't do their homework properly. This is the man whose Liverpool side he was in charge of, conceded 4 goals against Chesterfield at Anfield in the League Cup in 1992. (It finished up a 4-4 draw.) This is the man whose Liverpool side lost 5-1 to Coventry in 1992 - the biggest defeat that Liverpool have ever had in the Premiership, since it was formed 16 years ago. This is the man whose Liverpool side were humiliated in the 2nd Round of the European Cup Winners Cup to Spartak Moscow in 1992/93, conceding 4 goals in the 1st leg and losing 6-2 on aggregate. A man whose Liverpool team lost a leg in the UEFA Cup to the mighty Kuusysi Lahti in 1991 (though Liverpool did win the tie overall on aggregate.) Souness is the man who lost his job as Liverpool manager when they were beaten at home by Bristol City in the FA Cup in 1994. A man who is still loathed by many on Merseyside not only for the way he dismantled a Liverpool side who had won the League title in 1990, but worse than that, for the way that he caused further pain and anguish to the families of the Hillsborough victims with his crass and insensitive decision to pose for photos and give an exclusive interview to The Sun newspaper on the 3rd Anniversary of the Hillsborough tragedy. I don't think Rafa Benitez needs any lectures from Mr Souness on what Liverpool are not doing properly. I'll always remember the time when Rovers were stuck in the middle of a massive relegation battle in 2004 and just a few days before we had a huge game at home to Portsmouth in the Premiership (which we lost 1-2) , Souness had actually travelled to London to be a pundit for the midweek Chelsea V Arsenal Champions League quarter-final 1st leg at Stamford Bridge, where he was slagging off some of the players on Sky. I thought to myself at the time - what a bloody cheek from Souey. This was a man in serious danger at the time of sending Rovers crashing out of the Premiership and yet he was criticising two of the top teams in the country. Ian St John actually made a similar point in his autobiography "The Saint" which I read last year. St John said in his book that Souness lost credibility among football folk when his Rovers team were performing so badly in the Premiership during a relegation battle, and yet he was still pontificating as a Sky pundit and slagging off other teams. Perhaps I'll be called an "ungrateful barsteward" by Flopsy for daring to criticise the man who won us the Worthington Cup in 2002. Yet the sad truth is that Souness undid much of his previous good work in the couple of years afterwards. He nearly sent our beloved club crashing into oblivion - a blow from which we'd have found it enormously difficult to recover from. It was only thanks to Freddy Shepherd taking Souness away from our club - following Shepherd's ludicrous decision to sack Bobby Robson after he had finished in the top 5 in three successive seasons. (Graeme not surprisingly took Newcastle to mid-table mediocrity after wasting tens of millions on the likes of Boumsong and Albert Luque.) If Souness had not been taken away from our club by Shepherd and if the astute services of Mark Hughes hadn't been hired by Rovers to replace him, then God knows what the consequences for our club would be now.

You'd think that after the disastrous mess that Steve McClown made of the England job, that he'd want to lie low for a good length of time and not be seen embarrassing himself in public. But McClaren has been booked to appear as a guest of Gabby Logan on BBC1's "Inside Sport" tomorrow night at 11.15pm. Isn't it wonderful to know that the BBC are probably paying him a nice fee to appear on the programme and as licence fee payers in Britain, we're helping to give another little boost to McClaren's bank balance, following his huge pay-off from the FA last November. McClaren's stubborn refusal to resign on the night of the shambles against Croatia at Wembley meant that he walked away with a reported £2.5million pay-off from the FA. At least with Kevin Keegan, he did the decent thing and resigned as England manager when he realised that he wasn't up to the job, rather than waiting to be sacked and getting a grubby payout for being a failure. The FA lost around £10m from Steve McClown's failure to qualify for Euro 2008. It was a humiliation for the country and McClaren goes down in history as the man with the worst record of any England post-war manager. I'd really like Brian Barwick from the FA to explain his earlier comments in the summer of 2006 when he lavished praise on Steve McClaren and said that Steve would bring "style and class" to the England job. Mr Barwick should perhaps be the next guest on "Inside Sport" - provided that the BBC didn't pay him any money and that instead of being sweet-talked by Gabby Logan, he was asked some tough searching questions as to how he got things so badly wrong. It could be argued that Barwick is the fourth disgraced FA chief executive in a row. Graham Kelly had to quit in a cash-for-votes scandal with the Welsh. Scotsman Adam Crozier was partly responsible for the massive rising costs of the new Wembley Stadium and then after quitting as FA chief, he made a mess of Royal Mail. Mark Palios was forced to quit following the scandal over Faria Alam. And now we've got another buffoon in the shape of Mr Barwick. The usual mantra I hear from Barwick is his talk about a "root and branch" review of the game. I'd really like his "root and branch" reforms to start with him having the decency to resign after his disastrous appointment of McClaren, who predictably ended up getting the push and a big payout. Shouldn't the man who appointed McClaren also take some responsibility for the situation?

When he's not getting drunk and vomiting over blonde slappers in the back of a car, this vile creature is making reckless lunges with his studs up at other players. Cole's dangerous lunge on Alan Hutton at White Hart Lane last night deserved a red card in my view. The picture below doesn't really capture what a bad foul it was. The FA say they can't take any further action over Cole because he was booked for the foul. But we've once again got a problem with inconsistency from referees. Some players get sent off for far less - whereas Mike Riley felt Cole's foul only merited a yellow card. Riley certainly isn't my favourite ref, but the FA seem to think he's one of the best in the country. Gus Poyet furious at Cole's lunge

Two-year-old boy becomes the latest tragic victim of the drugs menace For the 30-year-old man held on suspicion of neglect, I fear that he may get a pathetically low sentence, instead of the judge sending out a strong message to other drug users who are neglecting their kids. In my view liberal Britain has not been tough enough in recent decades on the junkies and dealers who break the law. If Britain is to have any chance of winning the drugs war in this country, then tougher action and sentences are needed.

Crystal Palace fans have today been found guilty of charging through train carriages punching, kicking and head-butting passengers. Thirty Palace fans were involved. As the judge said: "This was sickening behaviour, thuggery, organised violence on members of the public". If it had been up to me I would have jailed them for longer than the sentences they got and I would have given them life bans from football. LINK HERE

Sunday's game at White Hart Lane made it three successive 4-0 defeats for Lucas Neill and his West Ham team-mates. Former Hammers defender Julian Dicks has criticised what he calls "Professional footballers at Upton Park who are earning fortunes, but a lot of them are just going through the motions. Apart from Mark Noble and Robert Green, nine of the other players didn't perform against Chelsea. They didn't work and they didn't show any passion whatsoever." Given the huge weekly wage packet that Lucas is earning at Upton Park, aren't the West Ham fans entitled to see a bit more from Neill? Dicks slams Hammers players

Lighter sentences for the druggies who burgle our homes and steal in shops Gordon Brown was a senior member of the New Labour shadow cabinet who went along with Tony Blair's "Tough on crime" promise to the British people before the 1997 election. It turned out to be one of many broken promises from New Labour. We have a situation now where violent and dangerous criminals are currently being freed early to keep prison numbers down. New Labour are soft on crime and soft on the druggie scumbags who heap misery on us by breaking into our homes and stealing our property to feed their drug habits. There are approximately 80,000 prisoners in Britain and the jails are almost at bursting point. This is because New Labour have not built enough prisons over the last decade to keep up with a growing population in our country and consequently our jails are seriously overcrowded. (I'm probably not allowed to discuss the issue of foreign prisoners and immigrants heaping further significant pressure on our prisons.) In my view New Labour should by now have built enough prisons to house at least 100,000 criminals. With a British population of at least 60 million, a prison capacity of 100,000 would mean roughly one prison place for every six hundred of the population. Given the violence and disorder we see and regularly hear about on our streets, I think it's fair to suggest that jailing one person for every six hundred people would not be excessive. It would also mean that judges would be able to give the druggie scumbags who burgle our homes proper sentences which take them away from the streets and into secure prison accommodation. The current policy from New Labour of giving druggie burglars light community sentences and a little slap on the wrist is certainly not being "tough on crime".

Colin, my dear chap, I'm sorry if you got upset that five out of six posts were from me. There have been 250 posts on this thread so far and one board member has posted twice as many times as me on this thread. I've by no means been the most prolific in this thread. Four board members have posted more than me on this topic and you yourself Colin have posted eleven times on this thread. During a seven month period between August 2007 and the end of February 2008, I only posted twice on this thread. Is two posts in seven months on this thread really so outrageous? I'm sorry that I don't join you in discussing topics like slugs, squirrels and geese in the ICBINF section - but I tend to find current affairs issues more interesting. Unfortunately we are no longer allowed to discuss important political issues like immigration - and I thought I'd bring this topic back up again partly to convey my horror at what has been discovered in Jersey and partly to defend Jimmy Savile. I don't think I've been guilty of throwing stones at any innocent people - which you might be suggesting. In the posts you highlighted I was critical of three or four people who were all jailed - one of them given a very lenient sentence in my view by the judge. In the case of the actor Chris Langham, you could argue that he hadn't actually officially been found guilty by the jury at the time of my post - however he had already admitted in court to downloading hardcore child porn. Given that he'd already admitted to carrying out a serious offence, I felt that criticism of him was justified ahead of the official jury verdict. With regard to the "leading member of Jersey's political establishment" that I mentioned as being a police suspect, I deliberately did not mention this man's name and I only described him as a suspect. Going back to Jimmy Savile (He once said that he wished he had a pound for every time somebody mistakenly spelt his surname with two "ll"s), I feel sympathy for him for what he's going through at the moment. It was certainly not a nice thing to do for The Sun to publish a photo of him in Jersey. The Sun should have been aware that a few people would subsequently make unsubstantiated links with Savile and the dreadful events in Jersey. Jimmy has helped to raise over £40 million for charities over the years, running over 200 marathons. He's helped a lot of people in his life and it's a shame that his name has been blackened in a few people's eyes by The Sun's photograph. I'm actually thinking of sending a short letter to Jimmy to say: "Keep your chin up and don't let the barstewards get you down." Savile still does a day's voluntary work each week at Leeds Infirmary, so any supportive letters can be sent to him c/o: Leeds General Infirmary, Great George Street, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS1 3EX

Hannah, I'd do anything for you sweetheart... So below is an article relating to the Coventry match where a steward who was assisting with crowd control during violent clashes, collapsed outside the ground and sadly died in hospital from a heart attack. The match was actually Coventry's home match against Preston last September. It apparently started with Coventry scumbags throwing stones at coaches of Preston fans. The damage to one coach was so bad that another vehicle had to be sent to Coventry to collect the waiting supporters. Link: Fans admit violence at Coventry v PNE match Below are two of the louts that police were looking for after they were captured on CCTV cameras outside the ground.

Another loathsome footballer.... The player above is the former Sheffield United and Grimsby Town player Ashley Sestanovich, who has been found guilty of conspiracy to rob and sentenced to eight years in prison for an incident where a man was shot dead. Sestanovich played just 20 minutes in a pre-season friendly for Grays Athletic - but the non-league club has now been ordered by the FA to pay this jailed criminal £14,000 within the next 14 days. If the club doesn't pay, then Grays Athletic face being suspended from all football. I can't understand this ridiculous judgment. As the Grays Athletic chairman said today: "I am bitterly disappointed in The FA's judgment. We are being forced to pay approximately £14,000 to a player who only had three training sessions and 20 minutes in a pre-season friendly due to his involvement in a heinous crime which saw a young father shot in cold-blood." I hope that Grays Athletic stand by their principles and continue to refuse to pay this loathsome creature any money. If the club is suspended from football because of refusing to pay this criminal, then it just reinforces what a crazy world we live in. Link: Grays Athletic face suspension from all football unless they pay criminal £14,000

Sir Jimmy Savile "extremely distressed" at being linked to Jersey care home. It's an awful horrific business that's been discovered in Jersey and I have some sympathy for Jimmy Savile on this. He might be an eccentric character - but that doesn't mean to say that he's a child abuser. He's been the subject of a bit of gossip and innuendo over the years, but there's no evidence to suggest that Jimmy has ever been guilty of any wrongdoing. Unfortunately though we live in a society where a few people do point fingers and throw stones, sometimes without justification, and after this photo from 38 years ago in Jersey has come to light, there may be some people putting two and two together and making his life uncomfortable with derogatory remarks. A dark cloud is hanging over Jersey. It's now being questioned whether the island's authorities turned a blind eye to the abuse and the Deputy police chief who is investigating the crimes says: "Part of the inquiry will be the fact that a lot of the victims tried to report their assaults but for some reason or another they were not dealt with properly." One suspect in the case is reported to be a leading member of Jersey's political establishment and the chairman of several committees, who died in 1974.

Mourinho interview: "I'll take up a job in Italy or Spain next year".

Thompson Park in Burnley.... But what should be a place of tranquility has sadly been disfigured by violence. A lake has had to be drained by police after reports of a fight at the park, where 40 to 50 people were gathered on Tuesday lunchtime. The fight culminated in a man being stabbed to death. It's bad enough when you get yobs throwing bottles on a Saturday night in the town centre, but when groups of yobs start causing trouble in broad daylight in a park, then you know things are going downhill. Man stabbed to death in park fight