Planet Football

Today's other stories in brief

Another Sunderland first

You may have noticed things are going swimmingly at Sunderland these days. Even before Saturday the supporters were in the habit of genuflecting on spotting Roy Keane and Niall Quinn, but that 1-0 win over Cardiff heightened their devotion further. And up it went another notch with yesterday's news that Quinn had paid for a bunch of fans to get home after they had been thrown off an EasyJet flight, the man himself also leaving the flight in protest at the treatment of the supporters.

So, when this story appeared on The Sunderland Echo website yesterday - "We are giving you a unique chance to help change the face of Sunderland. A new plan to create the city's very own version of Mount Rushmore has been officially revealed. In a multi-million-pound move, the faces of Niall Quinn, Roy Keane and footballing legend Charlie Hurley are to be engraved at Claxheugh Rocks. But who will be the lucky fourth face to grace the cliff face? The decision is yours." - more than a few contributors to a Sunderland supporters' website, we are reliably informed, didn't blink, even when they were advised to check yesterday's date, reckoning it was a tremendous idea. Mind you, now we're beginning to wonder. It was an April Fool's . . . wasn't it?

Quotes of the week

"We have looked at his goals. They often come randomly. He has scored from some mistakes. He runs around a lot to try and get the ball, but he would probably not be in the Swedish squad."

- Swedish goalkeeper Andreas Isaksson giggling at the notion of being beaten by Northern Ireland's David Healy at Windsor Park. Two goals later!

" I have not enjoyed watching England for 20 years, I much prefer watching Coronation Street."

- Sheffield United supremo, Neil "Norris" Warnock.

" He should be good - he's captain of 680 million people."

- Alan Pardew on Charlton's Zheng Zhi, captain of China.

"I was almost addicted to Night Nurse in my first season at West Ham when we had a poor team and were battling to stay up. One spoonful of that and you kip like a baby - the only trouble is waking up. Then you need Day Nurse, I suppose."

- Harry Redknapp reminiscing about sleepless nights and drowsy days at West Ham.

"It does not surprise me that he's out of a job because almost every club he's gone to he's not done it as a manager. He's f***ed up most of the time."

- We take it Dwight Yorke won't be providing Graeme Souness with a reference next time he applies for a job?

Boruc's mother of a likeness

We'll confess that we suspected drink might have been taken when we received an email last week from a Celtic supporter, who goes by the name of James, who informed us that the secret child of Deirdre Barlow from Coronation Street is in goal for his beloved team. The gist of our response was: "eh?" So, James kindly pointed us in the direction of the official website of the actual Celtic goalkeeper, Artur Boruc, and suggested we have a look at his gallery of photos, some of which show him when he was a young fella. True enough, in this particular one (see ??), the resemblance between himself and Deirdre is, well, uncanny.

Early shots give game away

Still on the baby footballers' theme: we were inundated by one email last week in response to our recent featuring of pictures of players from their baby days. Paul Gleeson, it seems, wastes almost as much time as ourselves perusing obscure football websites and stumbled upon two pictures he thought we should see.

Picture One: "I can never understand why Frank Lampard gets such a hard time about his weight (ie, "Fat Frank") because he looks trim enough to me, but maybe his critics have his younger days in mind?"

Picture Two: "Wayne Rooney can be a frightening sight, particularly when he's in one his moods, but not as half as scary as he was when he was a baby. PS: Is that the early days of a Mohican I spot on his head?"

More quotes of the week

"I've always said if you change the managers over and ask somebody like Jose Mourinho to get Watford into Europe you will see how hard the job really is."

- Harry Redknapp again, this time suggesting not even the most special of special ones could get Watford down the Channel Tunnel.

"You'd need to speak to a psychologist to find out what goes on in his head at times and I think you have to go to university for six or seven years to be able to say for sure."

- Dundee United manager Craig Levein on Barry Robson, who was sent off for headbutting Celtic's Lee Naylor on Saturday.

"I don't fight about girlfriends. I have a lot of them. And I am married."

- Portsmouth's Benjani Mwaruwari dismissing suggestions that his fisticuffs with Zimbabwe team-mate Peter Ndlovu were over a woman. We trust Mrs Mwaruwari had a quiet word when he got home.

"Thank you, leave."

- The message from the Czech paper Blesk to manager Karel Bruckner after a less-than-convincing 1-0 win over Cyprus.

"Bruckner, next time let the prostitutes play."

- Another message to the Czech manager after the Cyprus game, in reference to suggestions that his players spent an evening in the company of ladies of the night.

Umbilical connection or what?

Hearty congratulations to Mia Hamm, by common consent the greatest female footballer of all time, who gave birth to twin girls last week. Congratulations, too, to the father of the girls, Hamm's husband, Nomar Garciaparra, first baseman with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Alas, Nomar was too late to attend the birth of the twins - he was on his way when they made their earthly debuts - but in many ways he was there.

"Nomar attended the birth by speaker phone," revealed the Dodgers spokesman Josh Rawitch.

Of course, mobile phone technology is tremendous, but, call us old-fashioned, God be with the days when first basemen stomped up and down hospital corridors before lighting cigars on hearing the first cry of their newborn.