United front needed to stop mob rule

Clare Balding13 April 2012

This Sunday sees the second of three programmes in the BBC2 series on football hooligans. The first part, called

No One Likes Us,

Having heard an authentic (if that adjective can be used without allowing any essence of respect) hooligan speaking on 5 Live, it is clear their attitude is incomprehensible to sane, intelligent people. There is no point trying to rationalise with them.

They do not look like average fans and claim that they avoid fighting with "shirts" (i.e people who wear replica kit). They gather in gangs and seek out other gangs, using football stadia as a meeting point. The individuals involved have also been linked to other major disturbances, such as the race riots in Oldham.

The programme makes clear that these are not fans, they are criminals who use football as the conduit for their aggression. They buy tickets and they take their seats but they do not watch the game, they watch each other, hurling abuse and waiting for the moment when the tempers snap.

The Football Association has made attempts since Euro 2000 to control supporters travelling abroad. It carries out security checks on every person who joins englandfans, the official England supporters' club, and rejects anyone with a criminal record. However, it cannot vet everyone who buys a ticket and it cannot prevent people who do not have tickets from travelling.

The hard-core element can be infiltrated (if producer Jason Williams can do it, then surely undercover police officers can) and the ring leaders identified but it is a question of money. At the moment, neither the FA, the Football League nor the Government is prepared to pick up the bill.

Until they agree to some united effort, the cost to football and to this country will be far greater than the cost of the undercover operation.

The good news for the FA is that the hooligans are not bothering to travel to the World Cup because "it's full of shirts".

McCririck odds-on to be wrong about dull Derby day

The large, loud one's fervent support for the Monarchy and vain attempts to get himself a gong (what with his continued contributions to fashion for the colour-blind and his courageous experiments with facial hair, I am amazed the Queen has overlooked him) are admirable but hardly a solid foundation for his aversion to the Blue Riband event of the Flat racing season.

I admire McCririck too much to suggest that his view might be coloured by personal pique that Channel 4 no longer covers the race, but I do dispute his basic premise that a dull betting market makes for a dull race. The odds are dominated by two horses trained by the same man, while the third favourite is not, as yet, entered in the race at all.

Apart from three, you can get 20-1 or bigger on any other horse. Rather than boring them to tears, that should represent a challenge to all punters to find a long-priced answer to the greatest riddle of the year.

Aidan O'Brien won his first Derby last year with Galileo and has the two leading protagonists with the 2000 Guineas runner-up Hawk Wing and Sunday's Leopardstown winner High Chaparral. Both are beautifully bred animals, imposing in their stride and committed in their attitude - for the lover of thoroughbreds, a final-furlong battle between the two of them would be no turn-off.

O'Brien and his Ballydoyle operation are the Ferrari of horse racing but the trainer is not in the habit of instructing one jockey to let another one win. The horses will run on their merit and the best on the day will win.

Outside of the Ballydoyle team, the Yorkshire-based Mark Johnston has the strongest team and has won three of the five Derby trial races run so far. However, his only actual entry, Sir George Turner, finished a lacklustre seventh in yesterday's Dante.

After watching Bandari (who is 5-1 "with a run" third-favourite behind High Chaparral) win the Lingfield Derby trial by a record distance, Johnston criticised the entry system for the Derby. He objected to having to pay a £90,000 "supplementary" entry to get Bandari, or indeed his other trial winners, Fight Your Corner and Simeon, into the race.

Horses are originally entered for the Derby as yearlings at a cost of £310, a decision which is made on the strength of the breeding and natural athleticism. It may be too early to judge how good they are but for only £310, it is an inexpensive mistake to make.

After that original entry stage, further payments are made to keep the horse in the race (£1100 in March of this year, £3000 in April and then £2500 to confirm as a definite runner).

The system was devised to help the smaller owner break up the cost and ensure that they did not waste too much money keeping a horse entered that was patently not good enough. The total cost of running a horse that is entered at the right time is £6910.

However, if a horse is not entered from the beginning, he can be " supplemented" at a cost of £9000 on 10 April (the owner then pays another £9000 a month later, plus the final £2500 to confirm, making a total of £20,500), or at a cost of £90,000 on 1 June. This ensures that if a dark horse suddenly emerges as a major contender, he can take his place, but at a price.

The Derby is worth £696,000 to the winning horse, meaning that you would have to think your chances of winning were 7-1 or better if you were thinking of making that final supplementary entry.

Johnston may bleat that the system is unfair but he could have saved his owners £69,500 if he had entered Bandari or Fight Your Corner on 10 April or a whopping £83,090 if he had recommended that they be entered just before they turned two years old.

As it stands, Fight Your Corner has been bought for over a million pounds by Sheikh Mohammed's son and may well be supplemented, while Bandari is fancied by many to give the Ballydoyle band a run for their money, if, as it were, he gets the money for a run.

The trials may not have been that informative and the maths may be complicated, but there will be many twists and turns between now and 8 June and it is anything but boring.

String up F1's puppeteers

Thanks to Ferrari's pathetic puppet-string pulling in Austria, which showed how far the scales have tipped towards business and away from sport, the governing body has the chance to level the tarmac.

Ferrari has brought the sport, sorry the industry, into disrepute and must be disciplined.

Deduct the team the points Schumacher earned for finishing first, disqualify him and order him to start from last on the grid for the next two Grand Prixs. Also, allow Barrichello to take the winner's 10 points that he so richly deserved, but caution him that if he deliberately slows down again to allow a teammate pass, he will be disqualified.

The precedent will be set, Ferrari will pay for its arrogance and we will get to watch Schumacher prove his worth as champion. Come on Bernie Ecclestone, no one's pulling your strings are they?

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