Bad week for referees and fishmongers

IT would have been a nice way to round off an unsuccessful competition-entering week by winning £1 million out of the RTE sports department's budget. Having failed miserably to capture the prizes on offer in the `Spot the Penalty' and `Chub Challenge' competitions midweek, Bill O'Herlihy offered us a spectacular, if brief, chance to make up for those disappointments.

"We'll give £1 million to anyone who can name one of the Irish team as the most valuable player in that match," he promised after Ireland's Murrayfield mishap on Saturday. Such a generous gesture from Bill, at the end of a miserable afternoon, had all of us viewers racing to the phone to nominate Tony `this is so embarrassing' Ward as the winner, but before we had the number dialled Bill, stingily, retracted the offer.

"Well it isn't, of course, a million," hem said, having received 37 frantic phone calls from a nervous RTE legal department. "It's £500... but the mystery will still be as big for everybody," he said. £500? Huh.

On Wednesday night there was a much more attractive prize on offer in the `Spot the Penalty' competition during the Chelsea v Leicester FA Cup match. The prize? An all-expenses-paid trip to the quarter-finals of the FA Cup.

"Should be easy, penalties are easy to spot," said our main competitors, Sky Sports' Andy Gray, Chelsea fan Ken from Harrow and Leicester manager Martin O'Neill. "All you need is a foul by a defender in his own penalty area and first to shout `peno ref' wins."

With just three minutes to go in extra time, the tension was unbearable. Not a sign of a penalty. "Well that isn't one," we all agreed as Chelsea's Erland Johnsen flung himself at a Leicester defender. "PENO REF," screamed Ken from Harrow. We chuckled, in a scathing kind of way. Doesn't that Ken know the rules of the competition at all?

"Congratulations Ken," said, to our astonishment, referee Mike Reed. "It is indeed a penalty." All hell broke loose. "That's unbelievable, that's actually unbelievable, unbelievable. .. it is absolutely unbelievable, unbelievable," said a disbelieving O'Neill to Sky's Nick Collins when he discovered that Ken had won the competition. Andy and the rest of us were a bit aggrieved too. "The referee has made a big mistake," howled Andy and we agreed.

A triumphant, yet angry, Ken rang up Channel Four's Under the Moon later that night to complain about Andy's comments on the `penalty' that evening. "He's got more mouth than a cow's got arseholes," said Ken in an uncalled-for kind of way. "But that's only one isn't it," asked a puzzled Danny Kelly, the presenter of the show. But Ken didn't care whether he'd miscalculated or not, he was through to the quarterfinals of the cup.

He received some backing on Sky Sports Saturday when Chelsea's French wizard, Frank Leboeuf, who had scored the winning goal from the disputed penalty, insisted that the referee had made the right decision.

"For me it was normal - Erland was about to score," he said with a commendably straight face. "I think he's living proof why you should never trust a French man - if he thinks that was a penalty... huh," said another of the competition's losers, Rodney Marsh, back in the studio.

So having failed to win the `Spot the Penalty' competition we turned, with a bit more confidence, on Thursday to the Chub Challenge on Sky Sports' Tight Lines.

The week before, Bruno Brooks, the presenter of this angling extravaganza, had offered a big, shiny, silver trophy as a prize to the person who sent in a photo of themselves with the biggest chub (a "thick river fish", according to an unkind dictionary).

The, eh, catch in all of this was that we had to actually have caught this big fish but - hey, prove we didn't Bruno. Nothing a quick trip to the nearest fishmongers wouldn't sort out. "Give us yer biggest chub Barney." "Me biggest wha?" he asked. "A thick silver river fish," we explained and Barney quickly found us the mother of all chubs in his freezer.

Next, the nearest passport photo machine where we squeezed in with our big chub (our fishing rod cunningly hanging out of its mouth) and finally on to the post office to send off our entry to the Chub Challenge.

Results time. Resident expert Keith Arthur revealed all as we made room on the mantelpiece for the Chub Challenge trophy. "And the winner is... Steven Rowe" announced Keith and with that a photo of Steven appeared on the screen with a fish that was but a tadpole compared to Barney's chub. "Oi - is Mike Reed judging this competition by any chance?" we angrily enquired of the Sky Sports Complaints Department when we rang up.

But wait. "Keith, there was at least one bogus entry wasn't there," said a sneering Bruno. Gulp. "Na, it wasn't really bogus," replied a more sympathetic Keith. "It was more mistaken identity - somebody sent in a picture of a chub in all good faith and it isn't a chub, it's a... grasscarp. It's very easy to confuse," he said as Barney's `chub' appeared on the screen. (Never, ever trust a fishmonger called Barney).

We actually did have some success in one sporting competition last week, but there were so many winners no prize was offered. All we had to do, on Wednesday's Under the Moon, was `Spot the slightly foolish Glaswegian football club whose team sports green and white hooped jerseys'. Philip from Glasgow gave us a big clue.

"This season myself and my girlfriend Louise bought two season tickets for Celtic Park and took our son Ciaran along to every match. Two weeks ago I was stopped at the turnstiles and asked how many tickets I had and was told I needed a ticket for the boy. . . even though he is only 15 months old."

"I rang the ticket office the following Monday and they confirmed that we needed a ticket for the baby. When they sent us one, we discovered it was for the lower east stand - me and Louise have tickets for the north east upper stand. That means 15-month-old Ciaran will be sitting, alone, 140 yards away from his parents." No need for answers on a postcard. . . step forward Glasgow Celtic FC, the family club.