Football Diary: Boro have support of church

IT is not just at Ayresome Park where the Robbo revolution has been felt but at all levels of the Teesside 'media'. The Boro fanzine Fly Me To The Moon has increased sales, there are now two Saturday 'pinks' put out by local papers instead of one (or none in summer), and the first issue of Red Roar, Boro's monthly glossy magazine, has been selling as quickly as the club used to offload promising young players in the bad old days.

And now The Messenger, parish magazine of St Margaret's, in the suburb of Brookfield, has got in on the act. It ran a Boro review and has now started including questions on football club names, like 'Who are the heavyweight rollers?'

PICTURE the sombre scene as Keith Burkinshaw said goodbye to the West Bromwich Albion squad following his sacking this week. Heads hung low and for a full 60 seconds after Albion's 21st post-war manager had closed the door behind him for the last time, the players sat in guilty silence.

Eventually, in an attempt to lighten the mood, the goalkeeper, Stuart Naylor, flicked on the dressing-room ghetto-blaster. Proving there's more to the Hawthorns' twilight zone than disappearing managers, it was tuned to a local station which happened to be playing Another One Bites The Dust.

Collapse of stout party . . .

THE thoughts of Gary Speed, a player whose outspokenness used to make Ryan Giggs sound an opinionated loudmouth, make revealing reading in the new issue of the fashion-football-and-pop magazine, Loaded, which claims to be 'For men who should know better'.

Speed on heckling by Leeds fans: 'If I was a skinhead Yorkshireman and had tattoos and went round kicking people, then I'd be all right.' On drinking: 'We had a great session in Dublin pre-season, started at noon and were still going at five the next morning.' Or on politics: 'I tell you who really gets on my nerves, that Tony Blair, he's a smarmy little . . . I thought Margaret Thatcher was great. I like ruthless people.'

SEAN MUSGRAVE, Sunderland's No 3 goalkeeper, got a late call to the bench at West Brom when Tony Norman was injured. He set off first thing, but the car broke down. He flagged down a coach full of supporters but realising he would not reach the match early enough, he ended up with fans in a car. All worth it with the chance of a League debut at stake. Only 10 minutes into the game, a foul by the keeper, Alec Chamberlain, seemed set to bring Musgrave's big moment. He warmed up expectantly, but no luck. The referee decided against sending Chamberlain off.

A RITUAL has passed into history. Feethams was the last ground where fans could change ends at half-time. No more. From today's game against Hereford, Quakers followers will have to pick an end and stick with it.

THE English lay claim to the best league in the world; Austrians are a little more modest. The Vienna magazine Sportzeitung goes in for the familiar rating of player performances, but adds a twist to the categories.

A score of 1 means a dead loss, 2 is wretched, 3 is so-so, 4 is pretty good and 5 earmarks the player as one for Herbert Prohaska, the national coach.

But a perfect 6? That simply begs the question: 'What's he doing in Austria?'

Team Spirit Complete madness on the highways and byways as Transport XIs took shape. I wouldn't want to be up a creek in a Fash-canoe or on the hard shoulder in a Hillman Impey, and the Sinclair C5 got more mileage than it ever did on the road. The winner of the Wild Turkey bourbon is Victoria Digby, of Birmingham, for: TRANSPORT XI: Aston MARTYN; VAN den Hauwe, LORRY McMenemy, CROSS-Channel Ferry, RickSHAW, PENNEY Farthing, THOMAS the Tank Engine, KanchelSKIS, DOBBIN, ST JOHN'S Ambulance, YUGO Sanchez. Manager: SHANKS's pony.

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