SuperShorts: Failure to score

Players at Bundesliga club Eintracht Frankfurt will be booking in a "please-explain" chat with the club's kit manager. They're having to get new away shirts made because chemicals used on the sponsor's logo of the old ones can cause impotence.

Celebrations backfire
Bond is back! The bubbly was flowing at SuperShorts Towers as Shane Bond hit figures of 2-0 in Wednesday morning's first ODI against Pakistan. It's fair to say the fizz had gone flat by the end of the innings when the numbers alongside Bond's name read 2-61.

Too hot to handle
Those planning to follow the All Whites to South Africa next year might consider packing a flak jacket. The hard bastards at G4S, the world's biggest security firm, have built their business dealing with trouble in the world's hottest, er hotspots. Now they've withdrawn from involvement at next year's World Cup because the host country is "too dangerous". Chief executive Nick Buckles says G4S rates South Africa more dangerous than Iraq and Afghanistan.

Which surely strengthens Baghdad's case for hosting the Olympics ...

Tickets to ride
Phillies fan Susan Finkelstein is a romantic lass. She was so keen to treat her husband to see the Phillies and Yankees in the World Series she offered sex to strangers in exchange for tickets to the ball game. An undercover cop busted the 43-year-old mother of two after responding to her internet advert: "Gorgeous tall buxom blonde - in desperate need of two World Series tickets. Price negotiable - I'm the creative type."

The cop responded to the ad, saying he wanted to take his brother to the ball game. She allegedly offered to service both cop and brother. "I could take care of both of you," she replied, proving the point about being a "creative type".

On Andre's side
Sports columnists can be a fickle mob. Poor old Andre Agassi committed the cardinal sin of saying something both interesting and revealing in his autobiography and the jockeratti have gone to war on him. But never mind the drugs, surely the most astonishing revelation was that Agassi's nineties mullet was a wig.

Second strike
As Wigan striker Marlon King trudges off to prison for bashing a woman in a nightclub, he might want to consider these profound words from someone who's already done prison time and seen the light, mending their ways to become a decent upstanding member of society. "When you are sitting there inside it's heart-rending: you realise you could have thrown it all away. But I knew if I was given a second opportunity I would grab it."

Wise words indeed. And who said them? None other than ... Marlon King after his time in the clink back in 2002 for car crime. Third opportunity, anyone?

Irish joke
Those modernists and arch-liberals at the Portmarnock Golf Club in Ireland have won the right to continue to bar women from the club. It seems Ireland's Equal Status Act allows for the right of whiskey-soaked old misogynists to live in the Stone Ages.

The only permitted female member of the club, founded in 1894, is Irish President Mary McAleese.

Good week for...

Costa Barbarouses

The 19-year-old Phoenix striker produced the one-touch backheel of the season on Wednesday night. The sweet lay-off set up Chris Greenacre for the second goal in a 3-0 defeat of Newcastle as Riki Herbert's men continue their slow rise.

Bad week for...

UCF

The University of Central Florida has lost its sponsorship deal with adidas because first-year guard Marcus Jordan, son of Michael, insisted on wearing Nike shoes for an exhibition match. The university was in the final year of a five-year deal.

The number

US$2m

The price on eBay for a complete back catalogue of Sports Illustrated magazines. Vendor Scott Smith has spent 27 years getting autographs from cover stars and 94 per cent are signed.