More driving excuses, French moaning and a Ronaldo tribute.
I can explain, officer
Take a bow, Graeme Swann. The England spinner got off a drink-driving charge after fruitily claiming that he had to go out after a few bevvies to buy a screwdriver so he could free a cat that had become stuck under his floorboards. Swann enters
a a prestigious pantheon of sports figures with eyebrow-raising excuses for driving offences.
Snooker hotshot Ronnie O'Sullivan claimed his well-documented psychological problems prevented him from being able to urinate for a drink-driving test after the police pulled him over. Taking the piss, surely.
Sir Alex Ferguson was found not guilty of illegally driving on a motorway hard shoulder after telling the judge he'd been suffering from severe diarrhoea and was trying to get to a toilet. The Manchester United manager was defended by lawyer Nick Freeman, known as "Mr Loophole".
Colin Montgomerie successfully appealed a driving ban after claiming the operator of a speed gun had trained it on pedestrians and joggers.
But the granddaddy of them all, as celebrated in these pages a couple of weeks back, was Jermaine Pennant who, after crashing his Merc in a boozed state, introduced himself to the police as Ashley Cole.
No vision with hindsight
Odd, isn't it, that the All Whites' cheery romp through South Africa caused such national outrage? Still, we've got nothing on the French, where the fallout from their tres miserable performance is still poisoning the joie de vivre.
"I'm not the moron people describe me as," says dumped coach Raymond Domenech. "With hindsight, I see [the players who mutinied] above all as a bunch of horrible, unthinking brats."
Domenech, unafraid to indulge the national stereotype, compares his situation to making love to a beautiful woman. "I still need to sweep away certain memories before being able to start a new adventure. It's like love. You need to forget a woman before being able to love another."
Theatre sports ...
Gennaro Gattuso's agent, Claudio Pasqualin, says the AS Milan midfielder put the chin on Joe Jordan after Wednesday's Spurs-Milan Champions' League dust-up because of a vile slur.
"What seems evident to me is that my client was strongly provoked by Joe Jordan," Pasqualin says, gamely. "Jordan, having continuously heckled him, insulted him with a truly low phrase, saying: 'f***ing Italian bastard'."
A sound reason for head-butting a man in his sixties.
... and playing on emotions
We'll leave the last word on Gattuso to Steven Gerrard, the Liverpool captain summing him up back in 2007 thus: "I wasn't worried about Gattuso before the game, during the game, or after. People rate the Italian for some reason. For me, he's all mouth. He looks aggressive, but he's as scary as a kitten. I swear I wouldn't mind playing against Gattuso every week. He doesn't hurt you. I 've never seen Gattuso play a killer ball. Gattuso just plays for the fans - theatrical and emotional."
Goodbye to all that
This week there'll be sniggering about how portly he's become. Instead, we pause a minute to salute the glory that was Ronaldo - not the preening Portuguese variety: the original. As he departed Corinthians, the Brazilian legend summed up the tragedy of a great athlete whose ageing body betrays his imagination. "I wanted to continue," he said. "But I can't do it any more. I think of an action, but I can't do it the way I want to. It's time. But it was nice, dammit."
Good week
Dillon Boucher
The Breakers' bandaged big man single-handedly tamed a rampant Tiger attack, earning the highest praise in New Zealand sport: comparison with Zinzan Brooke.
Bad week
Genarro Gattuso
It's bad enough being captured on camera head-butting a 60-year-old. But it's even worse when informed viewers figure the near-pensioner could cheerily knock your lights out.
The number
$159
The price, per second, for watching the 100m men's final at next year's London Olympics.
They said it
"I sleep with Serie A and Italy players. They're all married. Sometimes I do it with the coaches there too. I won't name them but they are from many teams and I've also slept with foreigners, though not a black one yet ... The only issue is that footballers show such little respect, and some are far from beauties. So I am closing that door and opening another. I am all about Formula One."
Italian model Aurora Oliveira. She's all class.
"Dillon's performance [last night] was just awesome. There was blood spilling out of the back of his head but it didn't faze him. He was like a loosie out there - put on the tape and Zinzan Brooke is back."
Breakers ace Kirk Penney pays the ultimate Brooke-based tribute to Dillon Boucher after a one-man recovery special that included shutting down the Tigers' best player, bleeding profusely and banging over a droppie from 30 metres.
"Obviously, I'm not the president or whatever. I cannot make big changes. If I can do something by playing, and Dubai and Qatar come to me and say, 'You can come' and they really appreciate it and put the politics aside, this is very important. I think we're all trying to make one thing together, to be human beings and to respect each other."
Israeli tennis player Shahar Peer on playing in the Middle East. Or Stanley St for that matter.
"Lesson from Joe Jordan to modern players ... not essential to collapse when headbutted."
Former England international Gareth Southgate on the key point from the kerfuffle in Milan.
"He is quiet, but when he says something, it is worth listening to. You could put your life on him."
Spurs manager Harry Redknapp goes in to bat for Jordan. Well, he would, wouldn't he? ...
