Cigar smoke, bung bandits and a not-so-ready Freddy

SMELLS LIKE TEAM SPIRIT
The whiff of cigar smoke, a camel hair coat, and Oliver Holt is in adolescent heaven.

Mention such things and the Daily Mirror's chief sports writer is taken back to a youth spent in Stockport County's Main Stand, enduring his boyhood team's annual flirtations with re-election.

Holt was happy then, standing amongst the 2,000 other die-hards. It was, and remains to this day, a world Manchester United chief executive Peter Kenyon has never seen.

Worse still, should Kenyon's wicked call to cull the bottom two tiers of the Football League reach fruition, it's a world he'd like to see banished permanently to Holt's memory.

Quite predictably, and justifiably, Holt is far from happy.

"Kenyon has become an arrogant elitist gorged on the takings from the United cash tills. He's "developed a murderous disdain for this country's smaller clubs and their careworn supporters grappling with alien words like 'administration' and 'receivership'.

"The problem with hollow Gordon Gekkos of men like Peter Kenyon is they have lost touch with what really matters. In football terms, they checked their souls in at the Prawn Sandwich CafÀ the moment they bought into the idea the game was a savage rite of passage.

"Their minds have become so warped by the pursuit of money they think opening a new megastore in Singapore represents success." Wise, wise words.

ALL BUNGED-UP
Over at the Express, we find super smooth Rob Shepherd making further incisions into the heart of football. Today, Shep chooses to dismiss claims that the bung is back in football - because it never went away in the first place.

"Nearly five years ago the FA tried to kid us all that they had cleaned up the game. The tone of the FA report was that the past was the past and there would be a clean slate. Football transfers would be transparent."

But suave Shepherd cocks a snoot at that notion, particularly in light of Aston Villa co-operating with the FA to investigate the signings of Juan Pablo Angel, Bosko Balaban and Alpay, bought when John Gregory was manager.

"Although the FA team has yet to look formally at similar issues at other clubs, suddenly stories are coming out questioning the transfer dealings of other managers. It is now accepted wisdom that bungs are as rife as they ever were. With one difference. The sums are vastly bigger."

Yesterday's editions went to press before England's four-wicket one-day defeat against a Prime Minister's XI. Today's editions, however, have time and space to reflect...

FIGHT CLUB
The gloves are finally off for Paul Newman, who regular readers (ie you also stumbled upon this page yesterday) will know to be the Daily Mail scribe rather than the shrivelled pasta-sauce-slurping thesp.

Newman splashes the news that Nasser Hussain is set to quit as England captain after the World Cup in March across the back page.

"Only a dramatic improvement in the rest of the tour could change his mind," he cries, before taking it inside and warning England's "sorry band" to buck up their ideas in the next six weeks, or "lose the best captain they have had in years".

"The captain can see no point in prolonging his agony if England cannot improve they face a first-round World Cup group in February that includes India, Pakistan and - whisper it for fear of inflicting more psychological damage - Australia.

"Under Hussain England have competed favourably against everybody except Australia and the question now is whether their players can rise from the canvas in time to make the captain stay.

"His mantra is that he wants what's best for English cricket and he would find it hard to justify staying on after a 5-0 Ashes beating and an early World Cup exit." They have been warned.

DOWN AND OUT?
Colin Bateman scribbles in the Daily Express that "Andrew Flintoff, regarded as a cornerstone of England's one-day team, is facing the prospect of being dropped from their World Cup plans altogether after another dismal display in Australia."

"How much longer can England persevere with the talented Lancashire all-rounder must be questioned after the team's latest and most dispiriting defeat of the tour.

"Flintoff is a huge concern. The once happy-go-lucky 'Freddy' looks a dispirited, almost uninterested figure."

Still, it's not all doom and gloom in Bateman's world, for the smiling scribe takes comfort in the fact that England are not quite as hapless as Bangladesh. A mere crumb, and no mistake.