School for scandal still enrolling?

"Well lad, you may as well know, we've decided to sell thee to Everton. Mr Catterick here has made us a good offer, so there's an end to it. Today will be your last match for Wednesday." And with that, Tony Kay was off to Everton, whether he damn well liked it or not.

Ooh, changed times indeed. On Saturday night the BBC finally got around to airing The Fix, a dramatised version of the match-fixing scandal of the 1960s when 10 players - including Kay - were imprisoned and banned from football for life for rigging the results of English league matches.

Ironically, the BBC delayed the showing of the film for almost a year, at the request of lawyers representing Bruce Grobbelaar, Hans Segers and John Fashanu, whose match-fixing trial, 1990's-style, began last December. But, back in the 1960's, there were no Malaysian betting syndicates involved, just a group of underpaid players who felt they owed the game nothing and were determined to make a few bob out of it before their services were dispensed of. One of them was Mansfield Town goalkeeper Herbie Cresswell who, somewhat reluctantly and nervously, agreed to concede a goal or two to Hartlepool in Mansfield's `homebanker'.

In one of the film's better scenes the match-fixing ring leader, Jimmy Gauld, stared open-mouthed at his television screen as the afternoon's results were read out. "Division Four . . . and just listen to this: Mansfield 0, Hartlepool 8, EXTRAORDINARY result - Mansfield were fancied to win this one easily," said the astonished BBC reporter. "You bent bastard," Herbie's captain sneered at him in the showers after the game. "Eight-nil is not throwing a game, it's MURDERING it," screamed Gauld at him when they next met. The `8-0' was to signal the end of the scam - the two Sunday People reporters assigned to investigate match-fixing visited Herbie and he confessed all. When he received a life ban from the FA, Herbie's wife agreed to give the names of the ringleaders to the reporters in return for a holiday in Majorca and £1,000. Fair swap.

Kay was, by far, the biggest loser in the whole affair. By all accounts, he would have filled the role Nobby Stiles played for England in the 1966 World Cup finals . . . if he'd managed to avoid a life ban from the game. Instead, he paid the ultimate price for having one bet on his Sheffield Wednesday side losing away to Ipswich - which they did, 2-0. (Briefly, while we're on the subject of fixes, did anyone see the UNBELIEVABLE penalty given against Jamaica in the crucial World Cup qualifying tie against the United States on Saturday's Football Focus? A win would have put Jamaica through to the World Cup Finals and put the US in severe qualifying difficulties . . . Mmm.)

At the rate Bath rugby club's on-field standards were plummeting last season they could have done with a Jimmy Gauld or a Herbie Cresswell to `fix' them a few results. "I don't think they're as professional as they were when they were amateur," was Bath old boy, and now Sky Sports' rugby pundit, Stuart Barnes' verdict on the club's first season in the all-new professional era.

While Bath's on-field struggles took up part of BBC 2's The Rugby Club last Wednesday, it was their off-the-field activities that provided most of the entertainment. The club's new director of marketing, Steven Hands, formerly with Coca Cola, set about reworking the club's image at the start of last season and brought in a few marketing experts to find a "brand identity" for the club. "We've had a couple of ideas," announced one of the consultants at an early pre-season meeting. "We wondered should we develop a name like, I don't know, the Bath Wreckers, one of those sort of themes." Stony silence. The Bath Wreckers? Imagine how the old committee (aka `The Old Farts') would have taken to that.

Next on the agenda were ideas for an advertising campaign. "What do rugby players do after a match?" our expert asked Stephen. "They all go leap in to a tub together," declared the marketing expert, who probably earns about £250,000 a year. "Oh yes," said Stephen. "And what have we got in Bath? Baths! So we shoot all the players in the baths. It's like you've got this juxtaposition between the rugby players covered in mud, the shorts and the jockstraps lying about and they're actually IN the Roman baths," he said, grinning a self-satisfied grin, but stopping just short of patting himself on the back. Meanwhile, things went from bad to worse on the field for the team, perhaps as a result of them wasting valuable training-time time posing semi-naked in Roman baths. One sports star who could do with the help of an image consultant right now is Ben Hollioake, English cricket's golden boy (even though he's Australian). Although, after last Wednesday night's Under the Moon on Channel Four, Ben might be hiring lawyers as well as image consultants.

Phone-in time. "Hello Jason from Jersey, what have you got to tell us?" asked presenter Danny Kelly. "I went to school with Ben Hollioake - he was absolutely horrible, he was a beast." "How was he a beast?" asked Danny. "Well, basically, one day I walked in to the changing rooms and he was there pilfering through my stuff, taking my Nike Air Jordans! He left the next term and went to Australia to continue his education, so my Air Jordans are probably with him now." "Thank you very much for your call," said Danny. "That's exactly the sort of thing we're looking for on Under the Moon."

Uh, oh. Twenty minutes later. Danny: "I must say at this stage that we here on Under the Moon and on Channel Four disassociate ourselves completely from that earlier call when Ben Hollioake was being accused of thieving trainers - he's not here to defend himself, it's not fair on him and we don't believe there's any basis at all to those allegations as they were made."