Time poor refs were blacklisted

IT used to be a joke in the bad old days of racism: they all look the same to me. But now it is a reality again.

"Top-class" ref Mark Halsey can't tell the difference between one black face and another. And neither of his assistants, nor the fourth official, were able to save him from making a total fool of himself at White Hart Lane on Wednesday night, sending off the wrong player. Now there's a surprise.

Stir into this unsavoury brew Teddy Sheringham's assertion that the incident didn't merit anyone getting a red card, even the real offender, and you are left once again with a famous victory tainted by the officials cocking up.

Not for the first time, either.

In the first leg, a clear penalty was missed, something else which could have been cleared up immediately had technology been employed.

For my part, I won't claim these two errors influenced the outcome. Every worm must one day turn and, on Wednesday, Spurs did so with a vengeance.

Others won't be so charitable and will feel that 3-0 down and half an hour to go Chelsea's chances were not helped by Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink's dismissal, and if there was one man who could have turned it around it was him.

We shall never know, but what is clear is that there has to be a limit to the number of big games that can be allowed to be marred by avoidable errors like these.

But what happened on Wednesday gives the lie to refs' supremo Philip Don's constant cry that standards are getting better. They aren't.

Watching another one, Andy D'Urso, in action on Saturday for the Chelsea versus West Ham Premiership game, it's obvious that here is a man with no ability to read a game and who finds it impossible, even in the most obvious instances, to play advantage.

It also has to be said that a ref who can't control a game without booking Gianfranco Zola has no business in the Premiership.

I shan't believe there's any proper evaluation until D'Urso is back in the Beazer Homes League where he belongs.

As for Halsey, will any action be taken against him or his assistants for what even Don must realise is a totally embarrassing episode?

Beat Tyson to a pulp, Lewis

MIKE TYSON'S out of control and has a barrel-load of psychological disorders.

Yes, Mrs Lincoln, we know all that, but what did you think of the play?

That's where I come in, because I'm not into all this high-minded stuff about Tyson defiling a great game.

We are after all talking about boxing, which, especially in Las Vegas, lost touch with the Queensberry rules years ago.

We're not talking about Corinthian values here. We're talking Don King, and the sad mass of financial irregularities, sleaze, glitz and devalued multiple titles that have characterised his inexplicably long reign at the top of a form of entertainment that is no longer a sport but a freak show almost on a par with the World Wrestling Federation. When Tyson's involved, it is even more tawdry than that.

Which brings me to my point. I would stay up all night. I would pay over my fifteen quid to Uncle Rupert at Sky with a song in my heart.

Why? Because I want to see Tyson beaten to a pulp, and Lennox Lewis, for all his limitations, is just the man to do it. And if a few ears get bitten off in the process, so what.

This is the Roman arena, and we're into something primitive here. And if you're honest, that's exactly what you want too, isn't it?

So let's forget all the guff. Give Tyson his licence and let's get this show on the road before they're both in bath chairs. We've waited too long already.

O'Leary double talk

THE Mouth of the Liffey has been at it again. In the Mail on Sunday, David O'Leary proudly proclaimed: "I'll sack the next sinner. If players can't behave properly, they are a liability and you have to move them on. I have already told them what I mean. Believe me, they have got the message."

But Alan Smith need not worry if he's a News of the World reader. Here O'Leary said: "I'll never sack Smith, I would never sell him . . . Alan is a fantastic lad to work with."

Why can't O'Leary shut up? And if he can't stem the torrent of empty verbiage, can't he at least contrive to say the same thing twice rather than contradicting himself ?

After his last ludicrous outburst, telling one paper he was ashamed of Lee Bowyer and another he was proud of him, I suggested he was "a garrulous idiot".

I've had a lot of complaints - from garrulous idiots offended by the comparison.

Give Henman a break

ONE minute they're blackening his character, the next they're blackening his boots. It was ever thus with Tim Henman. From hero to zero in two torrid days in Sydney.

Yes, it's disappointing he flunked again, but the day will soon dawn when we won't have either Henman or Greg Rusedski to cover with praise or ordure as the fancy takes us. What then?

The British men's No1, I confidently predict, will be ranked around 500 in the world and will not even get into the girls' singles at the Australian Open, let alone get the opportunity to spurn the chance to win the main event as Henman did on Monday. The truth is we're lucky to have him and we won't see his like again for many a long day.

Koppel right to make his move

CONSPIRACY theories abound in the fetid atmosphere of Wimbledon Football Club. So let me make clear at the outset, I have never met chairman Charles Koppel, nor had any communication from him or anybody acting on his behalf, and I don't need to know him to feel some sympathy with his predicament.

He is acting on behalf of people who bought the club in good faith for pounds 28million from Sam Hammam, perhaps having been told the club moving to a more commercially viable location, whether in London, Milton Keynes or Dublin, was a done deal.

The Dons attract crowds of under 7,000; well below what is needed to fund a viable Division One outfit, let alone one with attainable aspirations to get back to the Premiership. According to Koppel, the club is losing pounds 20,000 a week.

Which means only two outcomes are possible. Either they improve their cash flow, or yet more players have to go - opening up the near certainty of Division Two football quite soon, and who knows what after that?

I don't underestimate the traumas for fans of their club moving 50 miles up the road, but the truth must out.

The fans are right only in the sense that the club they love will be left as only a pale shadow of its former self.

Koppel is wrong only if you think the owners and directors, including people who have spent a fortune for the privilege of being there, should lie back and think of Merton while the Dons slide further into the obscurity from which they came.

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