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9 shares 28 View comments According to Tony Pulis, the young gentlemen who play for Stoke City are a high-spirited bunch of  practical jokers. ‘We have a smashing dressing room,’ chuckled the Stoke manager. ‘There’s about four or five of our lads who are always up to something, and there’s always banter going on.’ He made his football team sound like the Staffordshire branch of the Bullingdon Club. To be fair to the Bullingdon, its members observe a certain decorum; trashing the odd restaurant or debagging the occasional commoner. The bantering lads of Stoke would find that terribly tame. Why, just the other day one of their number reportedly brought in a pig’s head, dripping with blood, wrapped it in the clothes of their striker Kenwyne Jones and placed it in Jones’s locker at the training ground. Jones, unsurprisingly, was deeply insulted. His religious convictions forbid the eating of pork, and he apparently regarded the prank as an offensive provoca

7 shares 1 View comments The floodlights were piercing the sullen clouds and a wintry chill was settling upon London NW8 when the England batsmen trudged off. They made an unlikely pair; Ian Bell had been pressed into action while full of ’flu, and Steven Finn was glancing fearfully at the tale the scoreboard was telling.  After last night’s precipitate clatter of wickets, it is entirely possible that England will lose this Test match today. It is equally possible that the glad, confident Ashes summer will not work out in quite the way the nation was expecting. Time to lift the gathering gloom. Time to seek reasons for solid optimism. Time to remember Joe Root. No ordinary Joe: England batsman Joe Root attacks the New Zealand bowlers during the third day's play There was a telling moment in late afternoon, when New Zealand’s left-arm spinner Bruce Martin dropped yet another delivery woefully short. The young batsman opened his body, rocked on to his back fo

28 shares 19 View comments David Beckham was five yards short of the halfway line when he picked up the pass. He took a couple of strides, glanced up at the distant goalkeeper, then swung his right leg. Some observers compared it to young Tiger Woods lofting a nine-iron. Others described the teasing trajectory as the ball swirled and swooped. The view from the Selhurst Park Press Box being what it is, we scribblers could offer no useful opinion. We saw the ball leave his boot and disappear behind the roof. We saw the Wimbledon keeper Neil Sullivan begin to scramble urgently backwards. We heard the crowd roar; first derisively, then with an undertone of wonder. Two seconds later we saw the ball drop back into the sunlight, dip beneath the crossbar and slide down the net without bouncing. Shooting star: David Beckham scores his wonder goal against Wimbledon In a league of his own: Beckham became a star at Manchester United Beckham lifted both arms as his exult

0 shares 77 View comments Every 12 months we make New Year’s  resolutions to lose weight, drink less, exercise more often and be an all-round better person. We see some previously chubby ‘celebrity’ selling the tale of how they transformed themselves from a fridge-bothering munter into  an amazingly svelte, ‘have it all’ picture of perfection thanks to an amazing diet regime (plus a  gastric band and a considerable amount of plastic surgery,  although they usually neglect to mention this). Duly inspired, you decide to drag yourself off the sofa, squeeze into gym gear suddenly stretched to the limit of its molecular structure and do something about it. Yes, it’s time to jog to the home of that D-list celebrity and club them to death with a copy of their bogus diet book. Scroll down to watch the video Rafa's rant from 2009 Speaking out: Rafa Benitez (left) criticised Sir Alex Ferguson during his 'facts' speech in 2009 BREAKING NEWS: According to report

0 shares 17 View comments The idea that Mario Balotelli was pinning his hopes of salvation on the Manchester City chaplain was fascinating. Unfortunately, the power of prayer does not appear to have worked. Not surprising, really, since the club do not employ an exorcist. The Italian footballer’s antics have undeniably been a test of faith for Roberto Mancini. In the two-and-a-half years since he brought the talented but unreliable Balotelli to these shores, there have been flickers of brilliance that made his transgressions and controversies seem bearable. But as the goals have disappeared, the troubles have stayed constant. Maybe Mancini still prays for the gift of wisdom to be bestowed on his prodigal son. Maybe he harbours a faint belief that one day he  will just grow up. Or maybe Mancini realises by now he is never going to cast out Balotelli’s demons. Bust up: Roberto Mancini and Mario Balotelli had yet another arguement during Manchester City training

0 shares 48 View comments Lance Armstrong has vehemently denied reports that he agreed to appear on The Oprah Winfrey Show. The cyclist dismissed the stories as 'nothing more than rumour and unproven speculation' during an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show. He might as well. It’s no more contradictory or ridiculous than everything else that has tumbled out of his mouth over the past decade. The man is a compulsive liar. He is one of those individuals who has deceived and dissembled for so long it is highly probable he believes his own lies to be ‘the truth’. The idea that he is about to come clean now is preposterous. The path to redemption does not begin on a saccharine-coated, sofa-cuddlesfest of a show that specializes in 'inspiring' weight loss tales, free car giveways and tragic sob stories that morph into morality tales about 'the human spirit'. No hope: The chances of Oprah peeling away more than a decade of Armstrong's decept

0 shares 101 View comments Joke justice, that’s what it is. An assistant referee is dropped for daring to ask a footballer to show some common courtesy to fans. A top referee is then undermined because he issued a debatable, but justifiable red card. It is no way to mark 150 years of the FA.  I doubt whether there has been a time during the last century and a half that the reputation of our match officials has been so regularly chewed up and spat out with such contempt.  Referees and linesmen are treated like a dodgy prawn at the FA’s anniversary buffet, craftily expelled into a convenient tissue with a dab at the corners of the mouth and a glance around to check if anybody noticed. Dropped: Linesman John Brooks told City's stars to thank their fans for paying £62 Well, we noticed, and it’s nasty. The stories might have been pushed to the side by lurid confessions about drugs and diving, but it is ordinary referees who are being routinely cheated today. Jo