A few simple requests Santa. Okay?

Dear Santa,

Why I'm bothering writing to you again this year I'm not quite sure. Let's just say I am `disappointed' with your response to the modest sporting pressie requests I made in my letter 12 months ago.

Where do I start?

Ooooh yeah. Remember the PS at the end of my letter last year, when I asked for a surprise? Believe me Santa, Arsenal winning the Double was NOT what I had in mind. Maybe I should have been more specific, but then that wouldn't really have been a surprise, would it? I thought your job was to make all the boys and girls in the world happy, and not leave them bawling crying.

Another thing. Remember, for my BIG present, I asked you to see to it that the hosting of the women's hockey qualifying tournament for the Sydney Olympics would be awarded to a really glamorous, exotic, sunny, lively resort, where a bottle of fine wine would cost 20p? Remember? And you left me a note on Christmas morning that said `leave it to me babe'? Santa? Lapland must be seriously grim if Milton Keynes is your idea of a really glamorous, exotic, sunny, lively resort. Or else you have a sick sense of humour. Either way I hope Rudolph runs out of gas over the god-forsaken place on the night of December 24th and you end up having to spend Christmas AND the New Year there. And you're still stranded in that concrete-roundabout-infested middle-of-nowhere-hell-hole by the time I arrive for the hockey tournament in March 2000. (I note with interest that the men's Olympic qualifying tournament is being held in Osaka, Japan. I had you down as many things, Santa, but never as a misogynist. I hope your girl elves hide all your Furbies on Christmas Eve, just as you're heading off on your global delivery round, making you the entire under-10 population of the planet's most hated person when they go looking for their Furbies on Christmas morning).

And another thing. If you leave ONE MORE Slendertone Gymbody in my Christmas stocking I'll tell the whole world that you own all Michael Bolton's records. You've given me 12 of them now. Subtle hints clearly aren't your forte. I wouldn't mind, but you're hardly a twig yourself. I'll get fit in my own time, Fatso, and the more Slendertone Gymbodys you give me the more Haggen Das Chocolate Chip ice cream I'll eat. Lay off, Barrel Face. NOW.

And another, other thing. Remember when I asked, for my second BIGGEST present, for Meath NOT to come out of Leinster this year and for Jayo to be celebrating a glorious victory in the All-Ireland football final in September? Santa? When I asked for Meath NOT to come out of Leinster I assumed you'd understand that to mean Dublin reaching the All-Ireland semi-finals. Not Kildare. All you did was upset the natural order of things - God be with the days when there were only two teams in Leinster.

And by 'Jayo' I meant Jason Sherlock, NOT John O'Mahony. It's not that I have anything against his Galway team, honest. It's just that my cousin Sean Og from Spiddal has been bloody hard to live with since September 27th, when he acquired a grin as wide as the Shannon. What else? Huh! Remember when I asked you for the biggest name on the planet to arrive at Old Trafford? Gawd sake Santa, I meant Ronaldo or Batistuta, NOT Rupert Murdoch. Are you thick or what?

And remember I asked you for one decent-length rally to enjoy on telly this year? Tennis, Santa, I was talking about tennis, not Eurosport's live coverage of the Paris-Dakar CAR Rally.

Quite honestly I've lost track of all the other ways you failed me in 1998. BUT . . . I'm willing to let bygones be bygones and give you a second chance . . . on two conditions.

One. I know it's not really my place to ask for presents for other people but there's only so much more I can take of my Liverpool-supporting friends whistling plaintive versions of You'll Never Walk Alone (but yiz soon might if yiz carry on playing like that) into their pints on our nights out on the town. There was a time we'd have a laugh together. A time when we could play Snap, on a level playing field. They'd say `Heighway', I'd say `Best'. They'd say `Dalglish', I'd say `Law'. They'd say `Souness', I'd say `Robson'. Now they say `Babb, James, Kvarme' and then burst into tears. And I haven't the heart to say `Keane, Beckham, Yorke', because that's hardly a fair contest, is it? So it's no fun anymore. So for God's sake help them sell their entire squad (bar Michael Owen) so they can fund a new team, one that will at least make them competitive, allow us to play Footie Snap in the pub again without them falsely accusing their Manchester United-supporting friends of being smug, arrogant and obnoxious beepers, even when they only use their youth team players for the game.

Two. I promise I'm not a violent person but I would forgive you ALL of last year's rubbish presents if you allowed a Brendan Ingle-trained Wayne McCullough to wipe the smirk off Naseem Hamed's face by knocking him over in a rematch of their recent fight. I don't want him hurt or anything, I just want him taught a little respect, that's all. And, most of all, I want you to let me interview him after the fight. First question? `So, what went wrong, Naz?' God Santa, I'd die happy if you dropped THAT pressie down my chimney on Christmas Eve. Janie, I might even forgive you for Milton Keynes.